{"id":5259,"date":"2023-01-08T15:37:45","date_gmt":"2023-01-08T23:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fullofkrap.com\/?p=5259"},"modified":"2023-01-08T15:43:15","modified_gmt":"2023-01-08T23:43:15","slug":"catholic-rehab-3-mary-not-who-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fullofkrap.com\/?p=5259","title":{"rendered":"Catholic Rehab #3 – Mary…not who you think"},"content":{"rendered":"

By John Ceccon<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jesus said to him, \u201cI am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6<\/em><\/p>\n

DISCLAIMER<\/strong> – my objective is not to beat up Mary. I mean that. She is the mother of Jesus and should be revered as such, but she is not God, Jesus is. Simply put, Mary was chosen by The Father to perform a task, and that task was to bring Jesus, the predicted messiah, into the world. There is a reason why our faith is called Christianity. It is about Christ and only Him. There are 31,102 verses in the Bible, and only 49 of them mention Mary. My objective is hopefully to get you to start reading the Bible and you will see everything I’m about to say for yourself. Really, I’m not a heretic, I’m just a recovering Catholic.<\/p>\n

If you had come to visit my house when I was a kid living in Boston, the first thing you saw when the front door opened was a 3-foot-tall statue of the Virgin Mary sitting in an alcove at the top of the stairs that led to the 2nd floor. I lived in a hardcore Catholic neighborhood that held Mary to a higher plane of worship than even Jesus, and He\u2019s God. At the Cathedral Grammar School, we learned about Mary long before we learned about the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. She was seen as the gatekeeper to heaven and Jesus. There is one big problem with all of this, dare I say,\u00a0 misguided doctrine – none of it is backed up by scripture. <\/span>The concept of Mary as the \u201c<\/span>Mediatrix\u201d <\/span><\/i>was first put forth by Pope Leo 13. He described her as the most zealous guardian of Christian unity, going on to say that \u201cthe best<\/span> and most effective way to her favor lies in the rosary\u201d, or \u201c<\/span><\/i>and no man goeth to Christ, but by his mother<\/span><\/i>\u201d. It’s no coincidence that Pope Leo 13 was known as the rosary pope.<\/span><\/p>\n

He just made it up because, again, there is nothing in scripture that even remotely hints that Leo’s papal ruse originated in the Bible. <\/span>Ever since then, Catholics have been all messed up and misguided over Mary.\u00a0<\/span>Jesus as a savior isn\u2019t enough because Mary is seen as a co-savior, a redeemer. Catholic Church doctrine describes her as an <\/span>advocate, helper, benefactress, and mediatrix. <\/span><\/i>This conflicts with scripture because 1 John 2:1 states, <\/span>My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father\u2014Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Lesson 3<\/strong>\u00a0– Mary has nothing to do with your salvation. Mary is NOT the gatekeeper to Jesus or heaven. The following is from the Word of God, and not the words of a pope. If you are choosing the words of men or a pope over the Word of God, you are making a grave mistake.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n