Should We Pray to Mary?

[00:00:00] Cody: Hi, thank you for tuning in to the Logic of God podcast. I'm Cody. 


[00:00:21] Gina: I'm Gina. 


[00:00:22] Cody: And I'm Ben. If you're returning, thank you for coming back and if you are a new guest, welcome. 


[00:00:40] Ben: So we've addressed the dead generally, we've addressed the saints or Christians, if we can pray to them. It seems that it's not the worst thing ever. It's not good. But at the very least, you can understand why someone would pray. To our brothers and sisters in Christ who are in heaven, because you just want them to pray for you. 


[00:00:58] And I can see how that's done in such a way where it doesn't threaten salvation. It may be a poorly conceived thing. It may not be the wisest thing, and it may open you up to influence that shouldn't be in your life. But it's not necessarily something that knocks you out of salvation. Can we all agree on that or not that it can't 


[00:01:17] Gina: slippery slope? 


[00:01:19] Cody: Yes slippery slope because at this point if it is Classified as idolatry, which I won't confirm or deny I personally think it is but I'm not gonna scream it from the rooftops of Catholics none of them are going to heaven because they're committing idolatry if they pray to Saints I don't think that but You At what point does the Hinduism aspect come in? 


[00:01:43] They have these thousands of gods, and you know, if they just put Jesus higher than the rest of them, then they're 


[00:01:48] Ben: good, right? Let's put it one other way. Let's say that there's a person going out to a grave site and just talks to the person who's dead. 


[00:01:57] Gina: That's not prayer. 


[00:01:57] Ben: Sure. But there, I think, I have no doubt that there are some Catholics who view it as much the same way. 


[00:02:02] Gina: And I, so like, I want to use my uncle's death as an example of that. Yeah, 


[00:02:05] Ben: please. 


[00:02:06] Gina: Because he had a Catholic mass funeral. And there were some things that my aunt told one of our daughters that was like, no, that's not actually true. So we have a six year old and she was told, I know you miss him. I know it's sad. 


[00:02:21] If you talk to him, he can hear you. He can't. We've had that conversation with her. She's had to go through grief counseling. She watched him die. So it was really traumatic for her. And she's been extremely emotional about the whole thing. And we've had to be really straightforward with her. This is what happens when people die. 


[00:02:38] They cannot hear you. You cannot pray to them. You have to pray to God. You have to pray to God to comfort you. And you have to pray to God to support our aunt who is grieving and saying things that aren't necessarily true. It's just, it's a very slippery slope to go from You can talk to him, he can hear you, to then you can pray to him to pray for you, and then suddenly it's like you have this like wedding cake of different tiers of different layers of power, and it becomes very pagan. 


[00:03:11] Ben: Yeah, I agree. There is absolutely great danger and great potential for issues to form. Not that it automatically will for every single instance. And I do think there are people protected by ignorance here who don't understand what they're doing, who don't put that much effort or emotion into what they're doing. 


[00:03:29] Or if they are, they're treating it more like literally someone just talking at a grave site. And it's just, they're slapping the word prayer on it without having any understanding of what it is, but ultimately they still just pray to God. I can conceive. of situations where that's the case. And at the same time, I also can understand why someone would do it. 


[00:03:49] I can empathize with that feeling. Moving on to praying to Mary. What are your guys thoughts on Mary? Now that we've moved on to the saint, from the saints, from people we may know, or even from great people. Historical figures who we're praying to, praying specifically to Mary. How do you guys feel about that? 


[00:04:04] Cody: So if we, and we're going to stay in the realm of just prayer to Mary, not the, the belief of perfection. 


[00:04:15] Gina: There are two camps I think for this type of prayer. There is the Catholic version and then there's this like. twisted spiritualism thing going right now that's in the same vein and kind of copied from this Catholic tradition where it's, you can pray to like a female God or like mother father God, or all of these different kind of like out there theories about how, There's female presence in heaven and different authorities and all of that. 


[00:04:51] So it gets really twisted really quickly. And especially with new age spiritualism, this mirrors that. We're specifically talking about prayers to Mary in the Catholic church, not a female entity in heaven that is not Mary. 


[00:05:09] Ben: So, unfortunately, there may not be enough of a distinction between the two. I 


[00:05:13] Gina: know. 


[00:05:14] Ben: But we'll get to that. I do think that there are a lot of Catholics who, again, they're protected by their ignorance here. They don't really know what they're doing. They're essentially viewing Mary as just another saint. They're not thinking about the words that they're saying. Sometimes they're in Latin, so they don't even know what they're saying. 


[00:05:30] They just think, okay, I'm praying to someone who brings my prayers before God. My mom, she went to a Catholic school and one of the nuns there explained it like this, that you come before God and your prayer is like an apple and it's the best apple that you have. It's the best you can do. But there are blemishes on that apple. 


[00:05:47] There might be a worm or two in there. And what Mary does is she takes that apple and she cuts out all the parts in it that aren't good, and she then presents that before God. And it's a beautiful, wonderful, nicely cut up apple. That's easy for him to take in. 


[00:06:00] Gina: Is that like when news media gets censored, or? 


[00:06:05] I'm asking for a fact. 


[00:06:07] Ben: Wow, we just got political real quick. So I, I don't know that I would call it exactly that, but even that, when I was looking around, again, at the different apologist websites for this, what I'm about to read is an excerpt from an article that was written by Father James Goodwin, and it's titled, Why do we pray to Mary and the saints and have several devotions? 


[00:06:30] Why do we pray to Mary? This is probably one of the most frequently asked questions and is often a focus of criticism. Perhaps the place to start is the word. Pray. In English, the word pray means simply to ask. It does not mean worship. Many Protestants equate the two terms, but they are not the same. In Catholicism, the word worship, or adore, is latria. 


[00:06:53] This is the adoration given only to God. Catholics do not worship Mary as a goddess, and we do not consider her divine. She is a human just as we are, but she was chosen by God to be the mother of Jesus, who is God with us. Therefore we call her mother of God. We give her what we call dulia, which means honor or venerate as in the command to honor your father or mother. 


[00:07:17] When we ask her to pray, we are asking her to pray for us. St. Paul recommends intercessory prayer for others and such prayer does not end when someone dies and goes to heaven. Saint James wrote The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects. Those in heaven can and do pray for us. That includes all the saints. 


[00:07:38] We consider them to be our elder brothers and sisters in Christ who constantly pray for us before the throne of God. Praying to Mary and the saints is scriptural and part of Christian tradition all the way back to the early church. One of the earliest prayers dates to the 3rd century. Mother of God, listen to my petitions. 


[00:07:57] Do not disregard us in adversity, but rescue us from danger. In the catacombs, there are inscriptions asking for the prayers of the saints Beneath St. Peter's Basilica was found the inscription, Peter, pray for the holy Christian men buried near your body. Thus, we see devotion to a saint, prayer to a saint, and prayers for the dead, all common practice in the early church. 


[00:08:18] Now, that's a pretty good summation of the general vibe that I've gotten from most of the Catholic answers, and I think it's a pretty packed up, succinct one. They don't believe that they are worshipping Mary, they believe they are just asking her for help. That's the modern Catholic view, and I want to stress that because in a little bit we're going to see this isn't actually the way it's always been. 


[00:08:37] But going from the modern Catholic view, it's much the same as the saints. They're praying to her just like they're praying to the saints. It seems as if we haven't gone anywhere yet, right? We're literally just talking about the same thing we just talked about. Yeah. And we could just copy and paste our previous feelings about this from the saints to Mary, right? 


[00:08:55] But what are some of these prayers? that they pray to Mary. Do you 


[00:08:59] Cody: want to read yours or Doug? You go first. So I'd like to lead this with, you know, an address from Pius XII. Furthermore, the sacred liturgy, which acts as a faithful reflection of traditional Doctrine believed by the Christian people through the course of all ages, both in the east and in the west has sung the praises of our heavenly queen and continues to sing them. 


[00:09:29] He also continues in this same area. The blessed Virgin sitting at the right hand of God to pray for us is hailed by another writer. of some of the same area in these words, the queen of mortal man, the most holy mother of God. 


[00:09:44] Gina: So, it's saying she is seated at the right hand of God, not Jesus. 


[00:09:48] Ben: Correct. Ben, is this from the Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius XII, the defining dogma of the Assumption November 1st, 1950? 


[00:09:57] Cody: It's the proclaiming the queenship of Mary. Yeah. October 11th, 1954. 


[00:10:05] Ben: Yeah. So there was another document that was released in November 1st, 1950, and that was Munificentissimus Deus, defining the dogma of the assumption. Sorry, folks, I'm going to cut this out. But there was a long pause as I was trying to figure out the Latin there. 


[00:10:19] I was going to say, do I need to try the Latin? You probably do. But this is, uh, numbers four, five, and six from that document. I won't read all of them again because I've been reading for a while, and I'm sure this is getting dry, but it's very important that we get these points across, exactly what the historic position of the Catholic Church is on this, and why it matters to the Catholic Church today. 


[00:10:41] Number four, that privilege has shown forth in new radiance since our predecessor of immortal memory. Pius IX solemnly proclaimed the dogma of the loving mother of God's immaculate conception. 


[00:10:53] Gina: Mary was a virgin. 


[00:10:55] Ben: No, that's not what they mean by immaculate conception, but we'll get to that. These two privileges are most closely bound to one another. 


[00:11:03] Christ overcame sin and death by his own death, and one who through baptism has been born again in a supernatural way has conquered death and sin through the same Christ. Yet. According to the general rule, God does not will to grant to just the full effect of the victory over death until the end of time has come. 


[00:11:22] And so it is that the bodies of even the just are corrupted after death, and only on the last day they will be joined, each to his own glorious soul. Now God has willed that the blessed Mary should be exempt From this general rule. So for those of you who are having trouble following along with a flowery language Essentially what was just said is that we're all going to die someday And we're all going to be made perfect after we die. 


[00:11:47] This did not happen to Mary. Now already you might be thinking Okay, what does this guy mean? Sources, please. She by an entirely unique privilege completely overcame sin By her immaculate conception she was born without sin. This is the dogma, not the doctrine, of immaculate conception. Mary was born without sin. 


[00:12:12] Moving on. And as a result, she was not subject to the law of remaining in the corruption of the grave. So she was raised to heaven, and she did not have to wait until the end of time for her redemption of her body. This is what's known as the bodily assumption and immaculate conception of Mary, and it's what the Pope is affirming here. 


[00:12:33] Gina: Is this trying to say that Mary went to heaven after Jesus, or at what point in her life is this claiming this? 


[00:12:41] Ben: Generally, it's claimed that sometime After Jesus's death, either Mary died, but then she was resurrected and ascended body and all into heaven, or she never died and was ascended body and all into heaven. 


[00:12:54] It's not certain exactly what. 


[00:12:56] Gina: Okay. 


[00:12:58] Ben: The main point is that she was ascended to heaven. So, number six, thus, when it was solemnly proclaimed that Mary, the virgin mother of God, was from the very beginning free from the taint of original sin. She was not born with sin. As in, for the doctrine, the dogma of original sin didn't apply to her. 


[00:13:15] She was born completely perfect and pure. She was sinless just like Jesus. The minds of the faithful were filled with a stronger hope that the day might soon come when the dogma of the Virgin Mary's bodily assumption into heaven would also be defined by the church's supreme teaching authority. There's also the final parts where essentially it says that this is all dogma. 


[00:13:37] You have to believe this. If you're not, let you be anathema. Numbers 48. This is at the very end of the document. In order that this, our definition of the bodily assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven, be brought to the attention of the universal church, we desire that this, our apostolic letter, Should stand for perpetual remembrance, commanding that written copies of it, or even cop, printed copies, signed by the hand of any public notary, and bearing the seal of a person constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, should be accorded by all men the same reception they would give to this present letter, were it tendered or shown. 


[00:14:15] It is forbidden. to any man to change this, our declaration, pronouncement, and definition, or by rash attempt to oppose and counter it. If any man should presume to make such attempt, let him know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul. What that is saying? 


[00:14:35] Cody: Why just Peter and Paul? I don't know. 


[00:14:37] Ben: I don't know. Where's John? Like, where's, where's Matthew? I don't know. But Peter and Paul and also God. You'd think that would be encompassed in God's wrath, but whatever. 


[00:14:48] Gina: Okay, here's my question. 


[00:14:50] Ben: Yeah. 


[00:14:50] Gina: Okay, because I got baptized as a baby in the Catholic church. And so they, my family pushed me through all of the different sacraments and all of that until confirmation. 


[00:14:59] Okay. So I get to confirmation. Why was I not presented with this type of. Leave. This is what you're signing up for. I did not get confirmed. I actually refused. I felt super convicted not to do it. So I didn't. Thank God. But this is back to what I said earlier about not all Catholics are aware of these things. 


[00:15:20] This is a perfect example of that. 


[00:15:22] Cody: But this is kind of what we've talked about with know what your church believes, know your church's doctrines, because I don't find ignorance an excuse for sin. And I don't think that is not going to have any weight when Judgment Day comes around. 


[00:15:40] Gina: No, but you have somebody who's presenting this as, We are preparing you through sacraments. 


[00:15:47] to become consecrated for Christ. They're not saying you will come under the wrath of Peter and Paul and God. They're saying, if you don't agree with certain things, they're saying, this is for your betterment. This is what's good for you. This is what's best for you. And if you do question it, I suppose maybe they would present you with that after the fact. 


[00:16:11] But, it's just like the repeat after me prayer in our own churches. You're saying something and agreeing to something that you have no idea what you're agreeing to. That's why I think it's really important for Catholics to know these things, because I don't know that they would agree, or think deeply enough without the context to understand really where this came from and what the difference between a doctrine and a dogma really is. 


[00:16:36] Cody: But this is kind of why we're doing it, because it's the same with Mormons, Jehovah's Witness. There's a lot of people that don't know why they believe what they believe in any denomination, like ours included. Because what I'm about to read, I guarantee most Roman Catholics won't agree with. So here's some of the prayers that have been ordained by the church as 


[00:17:02] Gina: By the Catholic Church. 


[00:17:03] Cody: By the Catholic Church, as edifying and appropriate. O blessed and immaculate Virgin, our Queen and Mother, Refuge and consolation of all those who are in misery, I prostrate before Thy throne with all of my family, Choose Thee for my Lady Mother and advocate with God. I, with all who belong to me, dedicate myself forever to thy service, and pray thee, O Mother of God, to receive us into the number of thy servants. 


[00:17:43] taking us all under thy protection. 


[00:17:47] Ben: So far, some questionable, it's like, okay, we're serving Mary. I don't, I'm not super on board with that, but most of the language is still so far. Not 


[00:17:55] Gina: whole family. 


[00:17:58] Cody: We read dedicate in this prayer again. So it goes on aiding us in life. And until more at the hour of our death, O mother of mercy, I choose thee lady, and ruler of my whole house, of my relatives, my interests, and all of my affairs. 


[00:18:19] Do not disdain to take care of them, dispose of them all as it pleases thee. Bless me then, and all of my family, and do not permit that any of us should offend thy son. Do thou defend us in temptations, deliver us from dangers. Provide for us in our necessities, counsel us in our doubts, counsel us in afflictions, be with us in sickness, and especially in the agonies of death. 


[00:18:51] Do not permit the devil to To glory and having in His chains any of us who are now consecrated to Thee. But grant that we may come to Thee in heaven to thank Thee, and together with Thee to praise and love our Redeemer Jesus for all eternity. Amen. That's from Glories of Mary. 


[00:19:12] Gina: When was that written? 


[00:19:13] Cody: It was written in the 18th century. 


[00:19:16] So it's the Glories of Mary by Saint Alphinaeus Liguori. 


[00:19:22] Gina: Wow. 


[00:19:23] Cody: Probably 


[00:19:23] Ben: mispronounced his name, but. It's all very frightening language, in that you're dedicating yourself, not to God, for all eternity, in his service. But you and your family to marry. You can say that it's veneration all you want, but 


[00:19:41] Gina: Maybe it was written in Latin and like it just doesn't translate well. 


[00:19:45] Ben: Well, and it would be 


[00:19:45] Cody: one thing if that was the only prayer There's another one in here. There was another one that talked about Giving her thanks for salvation, but it's oh, yeah. 


[00:19:55] Ben: I so there's also uh, Novena prayers to our mother of perpetual help and in the first novena prayer to our lady of perpetual help I'm not going to read the whole thing because it's fairly long but just a little bit in here a couple of highlights Assist me for the love of jesus christ stretches forth Thy hand to a miserable fallen creature who commends himself to thee and who devotes himself to thy service forever You I bless and thank Almighty God who in his mercy has given me this confidence in thee. 


[00:20:27] So God has given me confidence in Mary, which I hold to be a pledge of my eternal salvation. You know that you are eternally saved because God has given you confidence in Mary. It is true that in the past I have miserably fallen into sin because I had not recourse to thee. Amen. 


[00:20:48] Gina: Okay, what verse in the Bible is that? 


[00:20:50] Ben: None of them. 


[00:20:51] Gina: Oh. 


[00:20:53] Ben: I know that with thy help I shall conquer. I know, too, that thou wilt assist me, if I recommend myself to thee. But I fear that, in time of danger, I may neglect to call on thee, and thus lose my soul. 


[00:21:11] Gina: We're just venerating her. 


[00:21:13] Ben: You can try to do the steel manning as much as you want. You can try to say that this isn't actual worship of Mary. 


[00:21:21] Gina: I, okay, what you just read is more adoring to Mary than any prayer that I've ever read written about Jesus. 


[00:21:32] Cody: In their defense, they have some great prayers about Jesus. They do. I'm not trying to say that all, none of us are trying to say that. But lose 


[00:21:39] Gina: my soul? 


[00:21:40] Cody: Yeah. There's more in the Glories of Mary that talks about giving your soul to Mary. 


[00:21:45] Gina: It's so similar to the New Age spiritualism, and it scares me. Yes. Because that's what I was brought up in. Like, I was brought up in the Catholic Church. We went to the Catholic Church, but at home it was completely different. And this is what freaks me out and is a part of why 25 years old. Because I didn't understand the weirdness that skews the role of God and the role of Jesus and the role of the Holy Spirit. 


[00:22:14] Cody: So this one's on page 39. So the, the glories of Mary, it's from the 18th century. It has been republished dozens of times. 


[00:22:25] Gina: Page 39 of our own notes. 


[00:22:29] Cody: Page 39 of our own notes. They were a lot of notes. But so this has got the Vatican stamp of approval. The one that I'm reading out of was, I think, released in 1888. 


[00:22:40] It's got the New York arch. Diocese stamp of approval on it that they supposedly read it and approve this and this is material that they approve as Venerating it opens with Oh glorious virgin. I know that thou being queen of the universe Art also my queen. I Dedicate myself to thee then it goes on I submit myself to thy control to thy rule you govern thy entirely rule me Oh my queen Command me, employ me, and punish me if I do not obey. 


[00:23:16] I very solitarily will be the punishments that come from thy hands. So now she's taking the judgment aspect into her own hands. 


[00:23:25] Gina: I don't even know if you need to go on. Do you? 


[00:23:28] Cody: I give myself to thee. This isn't the one. There's another one in here that talks about giving your soul. There's 


[00:23:34] Ben: one that's worse! 


[00:23:35] I know, that's 


[00:23:35] Cody: why I'm trying to find it. I might not have posted that one in 


[00:23:41] Ben: here. But the moral of the story is there's, do we really need to go on folks? There is so much of this, and I understand we started out with the Catholic answers, the as watered down, as digestible as possible. And unfortunately, very dishonest answer. 


[00:24:00] This isn't just praying to Mary like you are praying to the saints. This isn't just asking a friend to pray for you anymore. At this point. 


[00:24:08] Gina: This is a covenant. 


[00:24:09] Ben: It literally is. 


[00:24:11] Cody: Do you have more on Mary or can I read some Bible to get this bad taste out of my mouth? Please read some Bible. Please. Please dear God. 


[00:24:19] Dear Jesus. On veneration even. I think that's. A slippery slope there, but Acts 10, 25 through 26, as Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence, but Peter made him get up, stand up. He said, I am only a man myself. That's not that that's reverence. So that's what they're doing. 


[00:24:41] They're venerating and showing reverence to saints. Peter's calling that out as, I'm just a man, don't do that. There, there's scripture there. 1 Timothy 2, 5, For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, and that man is Christ Jesus. 


[00:24:59] Ben: And if you're trying to make the point that Mary was somehow beyond everyone else, yes, she absolutely gave birth to Christ. 


[00:25:07] No one is denying that. And I do think that there is sometimes the temptation Amongst Protestants, to go in the complete other direction, be like, Whoa, who said anything about the, the mother of God? And I understand why we, we have that hesitation. Because it implies that there's something very unique and powerful, in a sense, about Mary. 


[00:25:25] No, she is worthy of honor. God chose her for a reason, and she said yes. Also, Joseph is worthy of a measure of honor. Because he stuck around, he said yes. They both were put through hell. 


[00:25:37] Cody: Is she any more glorified as a tool of God than, say, Moses, or Jeremiah, or Elijah? 


[00:25:46] Ben: It's funny you should say that, because in many ways Jesus actually answered this. 


[00:25:52] Matthew, chapter 12, verses 46 through 50. While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, Who is my mother and who are my brothers? And stretching out his hand towards his disciples, he said, Here is my mother and my brothers. 


[00:26:15] For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my mother and sister and brother. Mary had a degree of esteem, absolutely. But she was not held higher than anyone else in the kingdom of heaven, according to Jesus. We're all equal. All of us. Mary doesn't hold some higher office. She's not the queen of the universe. 


[00:26:38] And I wish that was even a hyperbolic thing I'm saying, but that's literally what the prayer said. She's the queen of the universe. She's queen of heaven. She's queen of the angels. 


[00:26:46] Cody: Do we want to go into that background of why she's called queen? Please. Might as well. The train of thought there is old tradition is a king was born and until that king was made of age to rule, the queen would rule for them. 


[00:27:05] The queen being the mother of the king, the queen, the queen Regent. And there is some biblical foundation to verses of that. There's some genealogies in Kings. Solomon talks about getting a seat for his mom at the right hand of his rule and all of that stuff. So, there is some historical context, but that is before Jesus time, so that context I don't think fits into the historical context of when Jesus was born and when Mary wasn't. 


[00:27:36] Gina: You see an element of that in her raising Jesus, from being born to being ready for His ministry. You don't see it after His ministry. 


[00:27:47] Ben: Agreed. Like, from the verse we literally just read, Jesus made it abundantly clear when Mary and his brothers came, his whole family was coming there and wanted to speak to him. 


[00:27:57] He did not stop what he was doing immediately and go say, yes, mom, what is it? 


[00:28:02] Gina: It's funny because there are verses where he'll say to his mom, woman, that's how I hear it. And I know that there's footnotes that say that doesn't mean disrespect in that era and whatever. But I, that's how I hear it in my mind. 


[00:28:14] And it's, He loves his mother. She's still a woman. 


[00:28:17] Ben: Yeah. And I think one of the weaknesses of Protestantism is our stance. Oddly enough, it's the same thing as our strength, our focus on Sola Scriptura. Because for us, the Bible is enough. And in truth it is. But because of that, we tend to spend all of our time on the Bible and not very much on church history. 


[00:28:37] And if we spent just a tiny bit more time, not even a whole lot, but just a bit more time on church history, we would actually know that one of the big reasons, in fact, Probably the biggest reason that Protestants came into existence at all is literally because of this point. Say what you want about Martin Luther. 


[00:28:53] He certainly wasn't a perfect man, but just again I know I'm reading a lot here folks, and I'm sorry. This is a lot of data heavy stuff 


[00:29:02] Gina: But this is the logic of God 


[00:29:03] Ben: Yes And the thing is that we do need to be concise and not be presenting just our own opinions here Because this is vitally important stuff, and we'll go into why it's so important in just a bit, because ultimately you could just be sitting there as a Catholic and think, Okay, you're not Catholic, why does this matter to you? 


[00:29:18] Now, we'll get to that in a second, because I do think it's actually worth covering why this matters. In more reasons than just, you could be praying to demons, or you're giving exaltation, literal worship, to something that is not God. No, your soul. Yes, your soul. You are pledging your internal soul to Mary. 


[00:29:34] Yeah, so, setting all that aside, real quick. And 


[00:29:36] Gina: also, The Bible doesn't call us to pledge our immortal soul to anybody. Like we're called to obey through steps of salvation, but there's no like special prayer outlined in the Bible that's have my immortal soul. 


[00:29:50] Ben: Ultimately that we are handing over ownership of our lives to Christ. 


[00:29:54] But that's the thing. There's, you know, Genuinely, when you view the Gospel message as what it really is, it's God has taken the punishment meant for you onto himself. He loves you. He wants to know you. He wants to, He wants you to be a part of Him and for Him to be a part of you. It's, it's not that you're selling your soul. 


[00:30:13] It's that He is the rightful owner of you. And you can choose to reject Him or to not. But, at any rate, yeah, I do feel like we, we do tend to ignore Our own history here and the our history here is actually fascinating because we spent a little bit of time here We don't understand just how serious of a problem this can be when Martin Luther wrote specifically on the idea of prayer to Mary This is Luther's works 47 45 through 46 Furthermore, how will you endure their terrible idolatries of the papists meaning the people who follow the Pope? 


[00:30:48] It was not good enough that they venerated the saints and praised God in them, but they actually made them into gods. They put that noble child, the mother Mary, right into the place of Christ. They fashioned Christ into a judge and thus revised a tyrant for anguished consciences, so that all comfort and confidence was transferred to God. 


[00:31:12] From Christ to Mary. And then everyone turned from Christ to this particular saint. Can anyone deny this? Is it not true? Didn't we not all, alas, at one time try this and experience it? Are not books extant, especially those of the shabby barefoot friars, the preaching friars. I don't know if he was mocking anyone there, but Which team with idolatries, such as the Marialia, Stellaria, Rosaria, Coronaria. 


[00:31:43] They may as well be Diabolaria and Satanaria. Ugh, yeah, he was spitting flames. There still is no sign of repentance or improvement, but they obstinately and impudently insist that all this must be defended, and that they ask for your body and life for its protection. And there were people who did die for this. 


[00:32:06] He wasn't, and yeah, you, again, you can say what you want about Martin Luther, he was certainly not a perfect man, I'm not making that ad, making advocacy that he was some kind of saint. But you have to understand the environment that brought the worst out of this man. He genuinely loved, he loved the Catholic Church when he started out. 


[00:32:22] He was literally studying to be a monk, he was a monk. He was so terrified the first time he led a Latin Mass that he stammered through the whole thing and he didn't get anything right. And then he started to have some issues with the Catholic Church, starting with the indulgences. He saw the corruption that was happening. 


[00:32:37] He wrote the Ninety Five Thesis and his life was over. And then from there, it was just a cascade. It was like the floodgates opened up. And he suddenly realized, you know what, just because this is tradition, it doesn't mean it's right. I'm gonna go back to the Bible. And what he found, what, turns out all of this is complete hogwash. 


[00:32:53] Why are we praying to the saints? Why are we praying to Mary? Why are we doing any of this? But then the more questions he asked, the more he was torn apart. And the more people around him who listened to him, who even had the audacity to listen to him, their lives were destroyed. Many of them were killed. 


[00:33:08] The church had the authority to do it. And I'm not making that up. I can, I brought the receipts for that too. 


[00:33:13] Gina: What's really interesting here is how, like, if you look at. Anthropology or like the ways that culture has evolved and developed from this era that you're reading from. We have so many unhealthy cultural perspectives that come from these things. 


[00:33:33] And so, you don't even know, you might be an atheist, and you don't even know that the origin of what you're doing socially, or in your family, or in your belief system actually comes from these Things that were written hundreds of years ago, but if you look at like the unhealthy relationships and families or this reminds me so much of my own upbringing, it's kind of disturbing, but you don't think about these connections and it's, Oh, we just exist and we're just here and we just evolved, but no, there are direct links culturally to these beliefs that are being perpetuated. 


[00:34:13] And I believe that if these were things that were godly. They wouldn't be as common as they are. 


[00:34:20] Cody: The, the sad part about all of this is, as a culture today, the average person has no reason for falling into this same trap. At this time, when Luther had to write the Ninety Five Thesis, the Catholic Church had complete control of Scripture. 


[00:34:40] It was very hard for the lay person to 


[00:34:45] Gina: stand against it 


[00:34:46] Cody: to even be able to read it I'm like literacy wasn't around back then let alone literacy in Latin from a translation that was way out of date even for that time You 


[00:35:00] Gina: have the church that is very entwined with the political climate like the king or whatever you have a pope telling a king All of these things that are true, but they're not even like the royalty, the politics, the leaders of nations didn't have the ability to question it. 


[00:35:18] It was because I said, so it's not like that now, 


[00:35:21] Cody: but it's not like that, but they're still falling into that. Like we're still falling into that same trap 


[00:35:28] Ben: and it does feel like we're just doomed to repeat these same mistakes over and over. It's a bit disheartening in some ways. 


[00:35:35] Gina: I think the biggest undertone here. 


[00:35:39] Whether we like to admit it or not is laziness, complacency, it's a lot to digest for somebody who maybe isn't as intellectual, like it's a lot of information, it's a lot of big words, it's a lot of complicated theories and promises, and it's, listen, if you say it's good for me, that's good enough because I've got other things to do. 


[00:36:02] Cody: But what value in life is that if you believe what these people are saying? If you believe in Jesus at all, what, what value is it to be complacent and to three sheets to the wind? I'm just going to go with what they say. What value is that to you at all? 


[00:36:20] Gina: When Madeline was born, she's 12 now. But when she was born, nobody wanted to have these conversations with me. 


[00:36:27] It was, do you want to promise her to the Catholic church or not? No, I don't personally. So I didn't, we didn't, we left the Catholic church, but it's not presented in this package that we've kind of unpacked. It's put in a box with a shiny bow and they're like, listen, this is like mom's China that you put in the cabinet and you don't look at. 


[00:36:50] And you don't touch what's there. 


[00:36:51] Cody: But this is all denominations. 


[00:36:54] Gina: That's what I'm saying. Yeah, 


[00:36:55] Cody: non denominational you got the flavor of name it and claim it and that's the stamp of approval and most people don't make it past that who fall into that trap. 


[00:37:06] Gina: We're all looking for a physical manifestation. Of God on earth. 


[00:37:12] And you have really smart, crafty, wonderful, sometimes people, even inside the Catholic church, wonderful people that believe these things are confident in these things and their confidence is enough to get people on board without an explanation, that's complacency. 


[00:37:32] Ben: Kind of closing us out here. If you're a Catholic, you may be hearing all this, and maybe this is all new to you, maybe it isn't. 


[00:37:39] Maybe you think we're being unfair, I hope you don't think that, and I, I know there's been some overreactions, partly for cartoonish effect, just to make things fun, but also, genuinely, this stuff, I think it weighs on all of us. I think we see the potential for a lot of danger in these different dogmas. 


[00:37:56] But you may be hearing all this, and thinking, you guys aren't Catholic, so it doesn't matter. Why do you care? You're Protestant. One, truth matters. I think we all agree that truth matters. 


[00:38:07] Gina: I'm sorry. I could tell a story right now. No, 


[00:38:11] Ben: no, by all means. 


[00:38:13] Gina: Our six year old daughter went to school. So we previously homeschooled. 


[00:38:17] Our six year old daughter went to school this week. And she told the whole class, Santa is not real. 


[00:38:25] That she needed to be more respectful of other people's beliefs because now all of the other kids are telling her she's lying and Santa is real. And she keeps going back to school and being like, listen, your parents are lying to you. The truth is important. Lying is a sin and I'm not going to lie to you. 


[00:38:42] Santa's not real. So I just, that whole thing that you just said reminded me of Ellie, six years old. Being like, your parents are lying to you and the truth matters. Lying is a sin. God hates liars. 


[00:38:56] Ben: I mean, I wouldn't have put it so eloquently, but you're not wrong. 


[00:39:00] Gina: That's what she's saying to the five year olds in her class. 


[00:39:03] Ben: God bless her. 


[00:39:05] Gina: She's ruined Christmas for everybody. 


[00:39:07] Ben: And you know what? Christmas was never an issue for me. I always knew that Santa wasn't real. My parents didn't lie to me. 


[00:39:16] Gina: Okay. I'm sorry. That just made me laugh. 


[00:39:18] Ben: No, it's fine. And honestly. That's the truth here. It's that if you're coming to this and saying, you're not Catholic, so it doesn't matter. 


[00:39:24] What we're talking about is truth. We're brothers and sisters in Christ, no matter what. So first and foremost, your thought shouldn't be, why does it matter to you what I believe? No, it matters to us what everyone on earth believes. We care. Do you believe the truth? Do you want to know the Lord or do you not? 


[00:39:42] If we're doing something wrong, we need to know. And if you're doing something wrong, you need to know. If you haven't heard this stuff, you need to confront it. If it's the truth, you need to understand why. Not just simply accept it because you were told, but to fully grasp it, in fear and trembling working out your salvation. 


[00:40:00] And the same needs to be true for us. If we're wrong on any point here, And we've literally read verbatim from multiple Catholic sources tonight. It would be very difficult for us to be wrong to be reading them directly. And there was no wiggle room for interpretation. They're actually very clear. But if we're wrong on something, we need to know. 


[00:40:18] If we should all be Catholic, which is what the Catholic Church's position is, then we need to turn. We need to repent. 


[00:40:25] Gina: And that's not to say that Protestant churches don't have the same issues on a different spectrum. Absolutely. 


[00:40:31] Ben: Yes, absolutely. We've said multiple times tonight, it's not that Protestants are perfect. 


[00:40:36] Gina: No. 


[00:40:37] Ben: And there are areas that Catholics excel in. There is genuine beauty to the Catholic faith. I'm not going to sit here and say that everything about it is wrong. 


[00:40:44] Yeah. 


[00:40:45] Ben: However, there is the central, the handful of central doctrines that will always prevent me from siding with the Catholics. I cannot be a Catholic because of papal infallibility, because of the bodily assumption of Mary, because of the worship of Mary. 


[00:40:59] I, I'm not going to call it veneration. It is legitimate worship. You can't look at any of those prayers with an objective eye and say that it's not worship. But lastly, from the Catholic perspective. If we disagree with any of these points, and if you as a Catholic is listening to this and you disagree with any of those points and you think it's okay, according to the Catholic Church, no, it's not. 


[00:41:20] If you go against any dogma, you are anathema. This is lined up multiple times in the Council of Trent. It's lined up multiple times throughout church history. If you disagree with any point, any dogma, In the Catholic Church, your salvation is rejected. You are anathema. Maybe you've heard that term before in the Catholic Church. 


[00:41:39] Maybe you haven't. I don't know. Gina, have you heard the term anathema before? 


[00:41:42] Gina: I've heard the term anathema before, but not because of mass and not because of anything a priest ever said. 


[00:41:49] Ben: Gotcha. Well, the idea that if you reject and you can go through the Council of Trent and look at the canon, it says tons and tons of times, if anyone does not believe X, let them be anathema. 


[00:41:59] Anathema. Anathema. This is mentioned multiple times in several different councils, even, throughout church history. Let them be anathema. What does that mean? If you talk to modern Catholics, again, they will give you a very soft answer. It means you're just not a part of the Catholic Church. Okay, but what does that mean? 


[00:42:16] According to the Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea, an anathema is a terrible thing. It drives its victims far from God and expels them from the kingdom of heaven, carrying them off into the outer darkness. If you are anathema, if you disagree with any of the dogma of the Catholic Church, you are anathema, you are cast off into the outer darkness, you're going to hell. 


[00:42:35] And you may think, okay, that's just one source. According to Pope Zachary, year 751 to 752, this is pretty early on, not the earliest on in church history, but this is a ritual. Forecasting people out of the church. This is where the phrase bell, book, and candle comes from. It refers to a Latin Christian method of excommunication by anathema, imposed on a person who committed an exceptionally grievous sin, or someone who just rejects the Catholic dogma. 


[00:43:02] And this is what is said during that ritual. Apparently, there would be twelve priests bearing candles, and there would be the bishop, and then they would pronounce this ritual over you, and then you would be rejected from the church. Wherefore, in the name of God, the all powerful Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, of the blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and of all the saints, in virtue of the power which has been given us of binding and loosing in heaven and on earth, we deprive, insert name here, himself and all his accomplices and all his abettors. 


[00:43:34] of the communion of the body and blood of our Lord. We separate him from the society of all Christians, and we exclude him from the bosom of our Holy Mother, the Church in heaven and on earth. We declare him excommunicated and anathematized, and we judge him condemned to eternal fire with Satan and his angels and all the reprobate. 


[00:43:54] Gina: This sounds so much like an abusive relationship it's not even funny. 


[00:43:57] Ben: Yeah. 


[00:43:58] Gina: Gaslighting and triangulation. Man. And just a lot of toxic traits. 


[00:44:05] Ben: You can't quit because you're FIRED. Yeah. It You're going to be afraid to even question anything. Because you can't. If you question the dogma, you're threatening your own salvation. 


[00:44:17] Gina: Questioning things has been one of the most beautiful aspects of my faith. I couldn't imagine being forbidden to have questions and to disagree. And that's why I love having the spine versus rib conversations. Because we can have healthy, loving, respectful conversations. Still come to the end and totally disagree with each other, but never, ever call out our salvation or accuse one another of going to hell or any horrible thing just because we have a disagreement. 


[00:44:51] It's so personal. But it's like, we're free to have these questions and to say, listen, I don't know if I agree with you. And just because you're a leader in the church doesn't mean that you're like the end all be all, you know, forever dogma. I don't know, it's just, it's like, super, super weird. volatile. 


[00:45:12] Ben: Any thoughts, Cody? 


[00:45:13] Cody: Oh, just bringing it back to prayer and the whole discussion around even needing an intercessory person or saint or angel, again, turn to scripture. So Romans 8, 26 through 27, likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness for we do not know what to pray for as we ought. But the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 


[00:45:44] And he who searches hearts knows what it is that the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 


[00:45:54] Gina: I just think that the most beautiful and empowering thing you can do is pray directly to God. 


[00:46:00] Ben: Absolutely. 


[00:46:01] Gina: There is nothing like a personal relationship with Him and it's not just a personal relationship with God. 


[00:46:07] It's a personal relationship with Jesus and with the Holy Spirit is interceding for us, is here with us, is in us. Scripture promises so many different things for God's presence. In the Trinity, and I just don't see why complicating it with these promises of giving up our soul or asking somebody who's dead to pray for us is as valuable as the relationship that we get to have with God. 


[00:46:36] And I know it's hard like Cody mentioned, having a one way conversation and for super logical people, I know that can be really challenging. But at the same time. It's not more comforting for you to pray to a saint. It's the same thing. It's a one sided conversation. It's not going to change anything for you. 


[00:46:56] Like having the prayer one on one with God and then whatever God does. It's not always God's voice in your mind or in your heart or, you know, an audible answer. Sometimes it's something will happen and you have confirmation or whatever. God works in mysterious ways, but you have that answer and you know that he's heard you and there's just nothing like that. 


[00:47:21] And you're never going to get that from praying to anybody other than God. 


[00:47:25] Ben: I think there are a lot of people who are genuinely afraid to approach God, and I understand that fear. And it's not just Catholics, but I think in Catholic theology, there's kind of this feeling that God is always very angry. He views you as a disgusting, terrible sinner. 


[00:47:42] You see this kind of repeated throughout the prayers to God. I am a horrible, terrible, degenerate, and you are the only good thing. And maybe that's true. In fact, it is. We are sinners. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But a lot of people look at that and think, he's just waiting for me to do something wrong. 


[00:47:59] And the second I do something wrong, he's looking to throw me into hell. And he's angry with me. And I don't know what I can do. And then you hear about the saints, and these are people who managed to succeed in pleasing him in some way. And you hear about Mary, and she's a nice lady. She was the mother of God. 


[00:48:15] She's nurturing. She'll be able to help you out. She'll be able to, in some instances I've seen this explanation, change God's mind. To try to coax Him into having a better temperament. To be nice. That's kind of the attitude that this is approached in. 


[00:48:30] Gina: Grandpa's cranky today, go ask your mother. 


[00:48:32] Ben: That really does feel like how it is. 


[00:48:34] He's a very cranky, grumpy, angry old man. And the saints and Mary are your brothers and sisters and your mom. And your mom loves you and she's really nice. They effectively look at Mary the way that we as Protestants look at Christ. And in many ways, I can't fault them for that because that kind of is the way with venial and mortal sins. 


[00:48:54] You make one wrong move and God's gonna throw you into hell and it doesn't matter how much you love him or how well you've served him. He's just waiting. And the second you misstep, you're out. You're treated the same as a heathen. And we as Protestants don't see that. But there's still, for many of us, despite the fact that we don't have that doctrine, we have the doctrine of, okay, it is by grace we've been saved through faith. 


[00:49:15] God loves us. He took the sins of the world on himself for us. One sec, there's one more thing I think is worth reading. By this faith I am assured, and by this assurance I feel the remission of my sins. This is it that maketh me bold. This is it that comfort me. This is it that quencheth all despair. Thus I feel myself to come, as it were, in a new garment before God, and now by his mercy to be taken as just. 


[00:49:49] Gina: It reminds me of, it's a song, but it's spoken prayer and it's a Puritan prayer that he's reading. It's a song by a band called Attalus called Safe. And it's like this description of your soul being safe. And it's so comforting. If you want to listen to something that will take your breath away with just the beauty of Christ's love, go listen to it. 


[00:50:12] But, I don't know, it, it, it is an indescribable kind of, uh, release of that shame that sin puts on us as Christians, whether we're Catholic or not. 


[00:50:25] Ben: And that is the true beauty of the gospel message. It's that all of your sin has been washed away. There is no guilt. There's no shame. All that's left is God's love for you. 


[00:50:37] If you choose him, then it doesn't matter who you were before. And you don't have to keep coming back over and over before a vengeful and angry God to constantly keep making atonement for your sins, because He's already forgiven them. 


[00:50:50] Cody: Gotta remember, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 


[00:50:54] Something that is not gained from moral perfection cannot be lost from moral imperfection. No matter what you do, you didn't do anything for your salvation. God did that. At the end of the day, what you do to be a good person is not anything to do for your salvation. God already paid that price. So what you can't lose from moral imperfection, you can't gain from moral perfection. 


[00:51:23] Gina: Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to our podcast today. If you liked what you heard, please feel free to subscribe and share and leave a positive review. And if you would like to connect with us on social media, you can do so on Instagram and Facebook at the podcast. The logic of God. You can also send us an email at Maine dot the Logic of god@gmail.com. 


[00:51:46] Thanks again for listening. We hope you have a great day.