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Thanks for being so diligent. Where did you finally find it?

LIke I said, I will desist from using it as proof that Mary worship is taught.

Well, I may slip every once in a while just to get Dave's goat. ;^)

I decided to ask the research librarian if our library had it on fiche (if you recall, the library has the bound volumes of all papal documents issued each year going back to 1908, I think).

Fortunately, the library has the fiche for earlier years.

A friend of mine asked what I was doing and when I told him, he gave me an interesting insight he had heard from a Catholic theologian of note (whose name I forget).

I hope this provides some context by which an "outsider" might understand how a Catholic views his religious acts.

You can observe a Catholic doing various religuous acts - such as going to Mass of saying prayers or making the sign of the Cross, or bkessing himself with holy water, or kneeling in prayer, etc.

To the observer it may appear that all those acts are equal in some way. That they are the same, or mean the same to the Catholic they observe. Or that they are equal import or importance to the Catholic.

But the basic doctrine taught to all Catholics (though only truly believed by about half) is that the very Body of Christ is present in our church buildings, in the tabernacle, or on the altar during the Mass. Thus, we actually kneel to worship the physical presence of our Savior - this is why a Catholic makes the sign of the cross and genuflects when entering or passing a Church - to pay homage to the actual physical presence of Christ Our Lord. To the believeing Catholic, he knows this is an act of true worship to the Lord.

For this Catholic to then go to a statue of Mary or St. Joseph and kneel down to say a prayer - well the Catholic has no intent whatsoever to worship the saint. The idea just does not enter into his head. The Catholic laughs to think that kneeling down in prayer with a saint is the same as kneeling down to worship Jesus. It is like saying jelly and peanutbutter are the same because you spread both onto bread with a knife.

A Protestant who finds the idea of worshiping transubstantiated bread and wine to be foreign, cannot understand how this actual worship of God physically present on the earth is seen in the mind of the Catholic. This is worship and it is intense.

I can see how one who rejects this as a possibility would not be able to understand this intensity. Thus, when a protestant sees us venerate a statue, it appears to them to be the same as worship. But for the Catholic it is so very very different. We know what real worship of God present on earth is like because we actually do it. And thus it is clear to us that Mary is subordinate to and saved by Christ. But a protestant cannot absorb this reality because this physical worship of Christ is so foreign to them that anything seeming outwardly pious appears tothem as worship.

I hope this is making some sense to you.

The original citation is Acta Sanctae Sedis 36:449-462 (1904).

Acta Sanctae Sedis ("Acts of the Holy See") are bound volumes in the original Latin.

Why didn't you research this yourself before casting doubt?