Why do Catholics Worship Mary?

In this regular feature Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call.  Here is this week’s question:Dear T.A. and Dave, I caught the last hour of your live call-in program on Mary and I have a question which I never got to ask you.If there is almost no biblical support for what the Roman Catholic Church teaches about Mary, where did the church come up with all their beliefs about her?

Tom:

Well if you look at the history of the church and you look at their major teachings; their dogmas, some are pretty recent.For example in 1950 we have the Dogma of the Assumption of Mary into heaven.Bodily assumption.

Dave:

Bodily assumption, right.

Tom:

[It] put Mary into heaven.Well that’s 1950, where did it come from?We have about 1600 years of the church developing its traditions, its ideas and so on.And it’s sort of like a snowball gathering snow as it’s rolling down a mountain.Once it gets big enough and many people believe it, whether there is a biblical basis for it or not, now’s the time to make it into a difidae or dogmatic declaration by the church.

Dave:

It was 1854 was it, or 1870, I can’t remember, of the dogmatic declaration of the Immaculate Conception.

Tom:

1854.

Dave:

1854, Immaculate Conception of Mary—so these things are made up as they go along.Now this was the same pope who first declared popes to be infallible, which there is a little bit of a problem there.Because, well we explain it in A Woman Rides the Beast.We explain how it came about, all the pressure that was put upon the cardinals to vote him in.But it’s a contradiction because back in 1415 you had the Council of Constance.[In] the Council of Constance, there were three guys who claimed to be Pope and the Council of Constance threw them out and put in a real pope so they said.Now if the Council hadn’t had authority over the popes at that time to tell them they weren’t infallible, you would still have three popes or maybe more.So on the one had you had the council exercising authority over the pope and then we have a pope who says yes, but wait a minute now, I want you guys to vote me in as infallible so I will overrule you from now on.It’s a progression of; I’m sorry, error, extra-biblical ideas that contradict the Word of God.

Tom:

And some, when you start with an error for example and the error goes back to Mary being the mother of God that leads to Mary being immaculately conceived herself.We believe that Jesus was born of a virgin so we believe in the virgin birth, but Roman Catholicism takes that a step further.That her virginity was perpetual, it continued on.And then from her Immaculate Conception we have that she is sinless throughout her life.

Dave:

Yes, she had to be created sinless so that she could give birth to a sinless Savior.But logically it, I’m sorry, it’s absurd.Because how could she be created sinless without sinless parents?If she had to be sinless to be the mother of the sinless Son of God.So all the way back you know.It doesn’t work.

Tom:

Right, but once you start in that direction, you have to make it work, make it fit.That’s why I find—you know we started out with the Assumption of Mary.You have to have that doctrine.You have to have that dogma because if she’s sinless she’s not going to die.

Dave:

That’s right.

Tom:

And if she doesn’t die, she’s either still around today or asleep in a tomb somewhere and where’s the body?That doesn’t work out for the church, so you have to come up with this conclusion to an error that leads to more erroneous ideas.Dave, let’s shift gears here.Let’s move away from this question and Mary and the Roman Catholic Church.What about Protestants?I’ll use that term, we know that means those who were protesting against the Catholic Church, but that’s the term used for non-Catholics.What about non-Catholic Christians with regard to baptism and the Lord’s Supper?They seem to have built on that big time erroneously.

Dave:

You have many traditions there.The Southern Baptists have their traditions, the Mennonites really have traditions.I mean you can go back to Amish country.Some of them are still in buggies and so forth.And that’s their tradition and it doesn’t come from the Bible.Christ in Matthew 15 says by your tradition you’ve made void the Word of God.You are contradicting the Word of God.

Tom:

Now I’m speaking specifically about baptismal regeneration.Where did that ever come from in the non-Catholic church?

Dave:

Well we would say we get it because in Acts 16, Paul says to the Philippian jailer, “You believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved and your house.”And they baptize all in the house, the same as Cornelius.However, it very clearly says they preached the gospel to them.So in Acts 10 when Peter is there in the household of Cornelius there are no babies present because it says he preached the gospel to everyone that was there.So this is believer’s baptism, but they try very hard.The Presbyterians still hold to this.The Lutherans still hold to if you are baptized as a baby, your sins have been forgiven; you have become a child of God and so forth.It’s not biblical and it is a deadly teaching.And then [in] the Catholic Church—transubstantiation.Well the Lutherans don’t hold exactly to that.

Tom:

But it’s close.Consubstantiation.

Dave:

Very close.This is really the body and blood of Christ.John Calvin said this is spiritual food.Now we have something physical that mystically is feeding our spirits and our souls.That is not biblical.

Tom:

And again, an act that now becomes efficacious, a ritual.Call it baptism, call it the Lord’s Supper, once we begin to impose the idea that it’s a means of grace, we’re off the trail.We’re leading to a false idea of what Christ himself instituted.

Dave:

Well you have God bound by a physical ritual.A sacrament and he has to respond.It’s witchcraft.When the witch doctor slits the rooster’s throat and sprinkles the blood in a pattern and mumbles a formula, the gods have to come through.And God now is bound by the same thing.He’s tied to baptism; he’s tied to the physical sacraments.It is not biblical and it is not rational.