Why Do Catholics Worship the Pope? Mary? Statues?
Raise your hand if you haven't heard a variation of this? Why do you Catholics worship the Pope? Oh look there's a hand....haven't been Catholic long have you? (Sometimes the question isn't even asked as nicely as that.) My son was asked by a non-Catholic why he worshipped candles. Now he thinks that all non-Catholics think we worship candles. I keep trying to disabuse him of that notion but it keeps coming up anyway.
I think there are two big problems with the perception that people have regarding the respect Catholics have for their leaders. The first is historical. Much of the ceremony associated with church leaders has been passed down to us from an age where EVERYONE got more respect than we customarily give now. It wasn't even a generation ago when even average people weren't called my their first names because it was too familiar. If you go back a few more generations you enter an age where leaders were accorded far more physcial gestures of respect than we do today. You bowed to kings. You bowed to nobility. And nobody considered it worship. It was simply a matter of respect. The Catholic church has hung onto these gestures of respect long after most have abandoned them. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing.
Second, I have found that part of the problem non-Catholics have with the respect we pay to non-divine entities stems very much from their definition of worship. Protestants tend to define anything that shows up in their morning worship services as worship. Sing a song...worship. Study the Bible...worship. Pray....worship. Worship is what THEY define it to be and so they look at anything Catholics do and say "Well if we did that it would be worship. They do that...therefore it's worship." What they don't understand, what they don't have, is the Mass which is worship as Jesus defined it. "Do this in remembrance of me." Because they don't worship Jesus ENOUGH, they tend to look at Catholics and say that we worship statues, and saints, and whatever, because they have been robbed of TRUE worship they confuse worship and respect.
It wasn't until I began to worship Jesus as He commanded, as He intended, that I began to be able to discern between worship and respect.
I think there are two big problems with the perception that people have regarding the respect Catholics have for their leaders. The first is historical. Much of the ceremony associated with church leaders has been passed down to us from an age where EVERYONE got more respect than we customarily give now. It wasn't even a generation ago when even average people weren't called my their first names because it was too familiar. If you go back a few more generations you enter an age where leaders were accorded far more physcial gestures of respect than we do today. You bowed to kings. You bowed to nobility. And nobody considered it worship. It was simply a matter of respect. The Catholic church has hung onto these gestures of respect long after most have abandoned them. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing.
Second, I have found that part of the problem non-Catholics have with the respect we pay to non-divine entities stems very much from their definition of worship. Protestants tend to define anything that shows up in their morning worship services as worship. Sing a song...worship. Study the Bible...worship. Pray....worship. Worship is what THEY define it to be and so they look at anything Catholics do and say "Well if we did that it would be worship. They do that...therefore it's worship." What they don't understand, what they don't have, is the Mass which is worship as Jesus defined it. "Do this in remembrance of me." Because they don't worship Jesus ENOUGH, they tend to look at Catholics and say that we worship statues, and saints, and whatever, because they have been robbed of TRUE worship they confuse worship and respect.
It wasn't until I began to worship Jesus as He commanded, as He intended, that I began to be able to discern between worship and respect.
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I laughed out loud when he related that to me. I remember growing up in a very heavily Catholic area, and most of our social events were with the Kaaaaniggits of Columbus, so I was quite shocked when I ventured into "Christian" chatrooms online and heard that I worshipped the pope and Mary. Someone just stated it, and I remember typing back, "Gosh, I had no idea! Thanks for telling me!"
Then, someone asked me what I believed, if I didn't believe that, and got snippy with me when I started typing in the Nicene Creed. (I hit enter about every sentence or so.) I mean, don't ask if you don't want to know!!! ;) (Comment this)
"You worship statues."
"UHH...no I don't."
"Repent!!"
"Repent from what? I just told you that I didn't DO that."
It just seems to me that if we are in need of converting (I obviously am in disagreement.) that they'd get a LOT further if they started with something we agree that Catholics actually do....like the Real Presence. Of course, that's dangerous ground for them which leaves the conversation rather shrill and unsatisfying I think. (Comment this)