Devotion to the Madonna, the saints and angels
and the difference between adoration and veneration in the Catholic catechism
A Catholic reader asked the following question: How come you evangelicals say that no form of worship should be given to Mary, to the saints and angels? I think you get confused between “adoration” which is due only to God and the “respectful veneration” to bring to the image as “pointer” to Dio (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2132).
The theme of iconoclasm has been treated on this page.
The problem is that the distinctions made by the catechism are arbitrary. Not just based on the Bible, but also from a simple point of view of common sense, it is not possible to make distinctions in adoration. When you kneel in front of someone, and please, if he invokes it, we trust in his work, it is carried in a religious procession, it is raised on the altars, a worship made of kisses is offered to him, bow, ask, offers, do you sing, and so on, this is not easy “veneration”, but adoration, that adoration that belongs only to God.
And when you worship a creature (like Maria, i santi, or the angels) one commits the sin of idolatry, because that means “worship and serve the creature instead of the Creator” (Romans 1:25).There are, in fact, many “churchmen”, living or dead, who are raised to great heights today and proclaimed worthy of veneration. Let us think of the phenomenon of the so-called saints, ancient and modern, which are worth so much to popular religiosity. Let's think about what is happening today for Padre Pio and for the various others “madonnas”.In the commandments God forbade both worship (“don't serve them“) than veneration (“you will not bow down to them“), and he has never authorized to venerate others besides Him. Prostrarsi, kneel down, it is indisputably a sign of adoration; eg, when the wise men of the east sought Jesus they worshiped him prostrating themselves before him: “the prostrate wise men worshiped Jesus” (Matteo 2:11). Even Satan, tempting Jesus in the desert, he told him: “All these things I will give you, if you prostrate yourself adore me” (Matteo 4:9)
Let it be Maria, than the saints and the angels, they cannot receive any form of worship because they are only God's creatures. Jesus, when Satan invited him to bow down before him and worship him, he replied that it is written: “Worship the Lord your God, and to Him alone you render worship” (Matteo 4:10). That “to Him alone” it excludes the possibility of rendering a form of worship to others as well, or through other mediators other than the one Mediator that God has established, Jesus (read 1 Timoteo 2:5).
As is too often the case, instead of sticking to the pure and simple Word of God, religions are subtle “distinctions” which are meant to make one's ideas acceptable when they conflict with Christianity.
The Bible never speaks of “pointers” to Dio, and also says that the dead “they know nothing” of us living. Addressing prayers to the dead is necromancy (contact with the deceased), another practice that God strictly forbids. The Bible also tells us that angels have always refused to be worshiped, just as the apostles refused to be venerated, disdaining himself to the point of tearing his clothes; then why does the Catholic Church teach to do what they have refused?
Note:
Catholic doctrines concerning the cult of Mary were introduced by men a few hundred years after the coming of Christ. Prayer to Mary (Ave Maria) It was introduced only in 1196, the veneration of dead saints and angels a few decades earlier, the immaculate conception in 1854, and the various titles of “Queen of the World” e “Mother of the Church” they were attributed to her between 1931 and the 1964. Furthermore, the Rosary, introduced in 1090, it is used to count prayers, but this practice, which has been copied from Eastern religions, she is condemned by Jesus (read Matteo 6:5-13).
What does the Bible teach on this subject:
“Have no other gods besides me. Don't make yourself sculpture, any image of the things that are in heaven above or on earth below or in the waters under the earth. Do not bow down to them and do not serve them…” (Deuteronomy 5:7-9).
“…I prostrated myself at the feet of the angel who had shown them to me, to worship him. But he told me: 'Beware of doing it; I am a servant like you and like your brothers, the prophets, and like those who keep the words of this book. Adora Dio!’” (Apocalypse 22:8-9).
“As Peter entered, Cornelio, going to meet him, she knelt before him. But Pietro picked him up, saying: 'Get up, I too am a man!‘” (proceedings 10:25-26).
“Nobody will rob you of your prize at their pleasure, with a pretext of humility and worship of angels, relying on their own visions, swollen with vanity in his carnal mind” (Colossesi 2:18).
“This is why God has abandoned them to impurity, according to the wishes of their hearts, so as to dishonor their bodies among themselves; they, who have turned the truth of God into a lie and have worshiped and served the creature instead of the Creator…” (Romans 1:25).
“See that no one makes you his prey with philosophy and vain deceptions according to the tradition of men and the elements of the world and not according to Christ” (Colossesi 2:8).
the veneration of saints is the result in the Christian context of the eternal polytheistic drift of human societies; always even where there is belief in a single God (perceived as powerful and distant) there is a tendency to add a host of minor deities, closer, from which favors can be obtained by complying with specific rites, see sacrifices donations - today we could say pilgrimages, votive candles… also usually these gods are “specialists” and therefore we will have a god to invoke for a good harvest, a god for love, a god for victory in war etc… and in fact there are also saints “specialists” and they have been appointed patrons of various categories and protectors of cities and nations…polytheism is still among us…