Do Catholics worship idols / practice idolatry?

In brief: Mary had a very special place – but one of privilege, not of authority or power. Praying to Mary is simply idolatry. Worship belongs to God.

Yet the cathedrals and churches of Rome are filled with images, and their adherents are encouraged to pay them homage, pray to them, and give them votive offerings. Idolatry is encouraged and practised, and Rome will have to answer for this to an offended God.

Most of us have been familiar with the names of what may be called universal saints, such as the early fathers and the patron saints of kingdoms; but to discover on a closer search the extent of this idolatry is truly appalling. Throughout the extent of Roman Christendom there is to every country community, and individual, an intercessor with Christ, who is the One Great Intercessor between God and man. Many Catholics chose their patron saint from their birthday — the saint's day on which they were born. The saint is regarded as the peculiar protector of the individual, community, or country; so that scarcely less than divine power and divine will are assigned to the patron saints. The argument is that having been human, and still possessed of human sympathies, they are less awful, more accessible, than Christ, and may exercise their influence with Him for the benefit of the places and companions of their earthly sojourn. They are represented however as being changeable, and easily offended. Fruitful harvests, victory in war, deliverance in affliction, safety in travelling, and the like mercies, are attributed to their prayers; but, if there should be calamities, the saint is supposed to be offended, and must be appeased. More honour must be paid to his shrine, and more costly offerings must be laid upon his altar.

Reverence for the blessed virgin was now an established doctrine and practice in the church of Rome, and has so continued down to the present day. Romanists may affect to deny that they honour Mary with the worship due to God only, but in their books of devotion prayers to the virgin occupy a prominent place. No prayer, we believe, is in more constant use than the "Aye Maria," or "Hail Mary," which, after quoting a passage from the salutation of the angel Gabriel to the virgin, adds these words, "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and in the hour of death, Amen." Again, in another prayer, the virgin is thus addressed, "We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God, despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us from all dangers, O ever glorious and blessed Virgin." Another runs thus, "Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope! to thee we cry, poor banished sons of Eve, to thee we send up our sighs, mourning, and weeping in this valley of tears, turn, then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us," etc. She is also called, "Ark of the Covenant," "Gate of heaven," "Morning Star," "Refuge of sinners," and many other such terms, which plainly show the idolatrous place which Mary occupies in the devotions of the Romish church.*

In conclusion it was decreed that even as the figure on the cross was honoured, so images of the Saviour and blessed Virgin, of angels and of saints, whether painted or mosaic, or any other suitable material, are to be set up for kissing and honourable reverence (proskunesin); but not for real worship (latreian) which belongs to divine nature alone. Incense and lights are to be offered to them, as to the cross, the Gospels, and other holy memorials; "forasmuch as the honour paid to the image passes on to the original, and he who adores an image, adores in it the person of him whom it represents."

Scripture calls the virgin Mary highly favored and blessed among women, but to Roman Catholics Mary is much more. Special honor and veneration for the Virgin began in the early centuries of the Church and turned into what many evangelical Protestants believe is the pure and simple worship of Mary, which has finally reached the point of saying her role in Redemption is of equal importance with Christ's.

Catholics, however, have an answer for the "you worship Mary" charge by pointing out the different levels of worship used in the Catholic church: latria, adoration for the triune God alone; dulia, veneration due the angels and canonized saints; and hyperdulia, a category reserved for Mary alone in which she is given 'superveneration'.

312 "The correctness of a formal and deliberate confession of faith is not always of itself a sufficient safeguard against error, in the habitual impression of the mind. The Romanists flatter themselves that they are safe from idolatry, because they distinctly acknowledge the truth, that God only is to be served (namely, with latria), though they allow adoration (hyperdulia and dulia) to the virgin and their saints, to images, and to relics. To which it has been justly replied, that, supposing this distinction correct in itself, it would be in practice purgatory, since the mass of the people must soon, as experience proves, lose sight of it entirely in their habitual devotions."

After this disloyal and offensive salutation, the pope attempts in the usual way the defence of image-worship. He endeavours to prove to Leo the vast difference between christian images and the idols of antiquity. The latter were the fanciful representation of demons, the former are the genuine likeness of Christ, His mother, and His saints. He then appeals in justification of their worship to the decorations of the Jewish temple; the mercy-seat, the cherubim, and the various ornaments made by Bezaleel to the glory of God. Only the idols of the Gentiles, he affirms, were forbidden by the Jewish law. He denies that the catholics worship wood and stone: these are memorials only, intended to awaken pious feelings.

Romanists tell us this is hyperdulia, that is, worship of a very high order, but short of Latria, worship to God alone, but higher than Dulia, a lower sort of worship accorded to saints and angels. But worship is sternly forbidden to all but God alone. The worshipping of angels is forbidden, the intruding into those things we have not seen (See Col. 2:18).

We thus see how the worship of images was solemnly ordained in a council of the church. It is in vain that we are now told that images are not worshipped. An image was adored in the council itself, and the council itself declared that the veneration paid to an image passed to the person represented. Alas, that scripture should be thus utterly rejected, and men's thoughts set up in place thereof. We also see to how low a standard that which is called worship had fallen in those days. It could be given to a picture of our Lord, or even to one of the saints!

The reader will be interested to learn that the word chosen by the council to designate the sort of worship to be given to images is the word used in Matthew 4:10: "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." It is also used in John 4, when our Lord was speaking to the woman of Samaria. Also in Revelation 19:10: "Worship God;" and in other places.