An excellent comments thread appeared over the holidays at Midwest Conservative Journal, a conservative Anglican blog, in which a remarkably respectful dialogue evolved about the fine distinction between what some called "Mary-worship" and proper devotion to the Blessed Virgin.
(Not that it’s remarkable for that site — MCJ regularly has great commenters. It’s just a good example of a positive discussion among people who disagree firmly with one another.)
A number of comments, including from professed Catholics, were along the lines of "Well, we know that Catholic doctrine says, or at least claims to say, that people aren’t supposed to worship Mary. But just take a look at the practices of Catholics and you can tell that they are." For example, here’s a comment from "Murfee":
As a RC for nearly 3 decades, having been immersed in Roman catechetical substance and theory, I can say w/o any qualms that the worship of the Blessed Mother has always been a fact of life from the earliest pontificates to the present. Get a grip, its a doctrine of the church. "Mary worship" may not be extantly expressed as such, but its the single strongest undercurrent in theory and practice today. Say a rosary and that should clue you in. Check out the marian altars in nearly every church or parishes so named for the mother of our Lord and tell me I’m delusional. So why do we protest (as in protestant) so much when some wag points out one of RC’s features? Hey, if we’ve got a magenta shirt on why do we insist on calling it cyan?
Guilty admission: My first thought on reading the bit about "single strongest undercurrent in theory and practice today" was I wish! Not that I wish people were really worshipping Mary, but I wish that theory and practice today could actually be readily mistaken for it by the unwary. Most parishes I’ve attended over the years aren’t exactly riddled with Marian chapels or echoing with scheduled communal rosaries.
Others pointed out that, whatever it looks like, you’d have to be able to read a person’s soul to know whether they were really worshipping the object of their devotion. Some confusion certainly comes from words that mean different things to Protestants and to Catholics (e.g. "pray to" doesn’t equal "worship" for Catholics) and others from ambiguities (e.g. the practice of bowing during the line "He was born of the Virgin Mary and became man" in the Creed refers to "He" and not to "the Virgin Mary.") Some confusion, too, comes from shorthand language on the part of Catholics who do, in fact, understand the distinctions (e.g. saying something like "St. Anthony please help me find my keys" rather than "St. Anthony please pray to God for my intention that I may find my keys.")
So how to bridge the gap of understanding? I wonder, is it even possible to "in practice" worship someone or something, if you fully understand that it’s not God? I could understand that if someone incorrectly thought that Mary was God, part of God, a person of God, or a goddess, that someone might worship her. But that seems an unlikely error for anyone with the barest of catechesis. Is it possible to worship in practice what you don’t worship in theory? Isn’t worship really something that happens in the mind and heart? Could this be used as an objection to the claim that Catholics worship Mary (or other saints) "in practice" even if we pay lip service to worshipping God alone?
Then I thought of two Scriptural quotations involving "worship" of something that’s not God (in the mind of the worshipping agent, an important distinction). First, Satan tempts Jesus in the desert to worship him; if it were impossible to worship what you know not to be God, then this would be nonsensical. Second, I thought of "you cannot worship both God and Mammon." Mammon generally being regarded as meaning "riches" or "money" or "worldliness," this would also be nonsensical unless it were possible to worship what one knows not to be God. But that was just my memory: I had to look them up.
It turns out that the Mammon bit (Mt 6:24) isn’t exactly as I remembered — English translations say "serve," not "worship," and since "serve" is something you do externally, there’s no contradiction: it is possible, and often commendable, to serve that which you do not worship. Your employer, for instance. Or even Mary, for to serve her would be to obey her words: "Do whatever he tells you."
Satan-tempting-Jesus-in-the-desert is even more interesting. It’s Matthew 4:9-11:
And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship [1] me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship [2] the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve [3].’” Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered [4] to Him.
I added the footnotes 1-4 above to show you something interesting. In the Latin Vulgate, verb 1 is adoraveris, verb 2 is adorabis, verb 3 is servies, verb 4 (which I mention because it sometimes is translated "served") is ministrabant. "Worship" in both verbs 1 and 2 is rendered "adore" in the Latin.
In the Greek textus receptus, interestingly enough, verb 1 is (pardon my transliteration) proskyneses, verb 2 is proskyneseis, verb 3 is latreyseis, and verb 4 is diekonoun.
I point this out only because "latria" (as in "idolatry") is in Catholic theology the specific term for the reverence or adoration that is appropriate to God alone. According to Wikipedia it is sacrificial in character and is usually translated "adoration." "Adoration" is not the modern English word I would have chosen to translate this concept (I would have used "worship"). After all, kittens and babies are "adorable." But "worship" in English, etymologically speaking simply means "respect," at least according to Wikipedia, which links it to Anglo-Saxon worthscripe.
How confusing.
Modern English usage worship = something you are supposed to do to God alone = latria
Older English usage worship = "respect" = something due to many, including saints and other people
Modern English usage adore = something one can do to God, or something one can do to a kitten
Usual translation of latria into English = "adoration"
It makes me wonder if whoever came up with "latria = adoration-not-worship" was an Italian who happened to be an expert on Anglo-Saxon.
Yes, I recognize that when we "adore" Christ in the Eucharist we are doing something essentially different from what we are doing when we look lovingly upon anyone else, but the language problem here seems tailor-made to cause confusion.
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