Catholicism in TV shows...

[dreamhacker]

Often when I watch TV-shows, Catholics pray to Jesu mother (Mary is her english name?), calling her God's Holy Mother and such. Does Catholics acctually pray to her, stating such things as she is holy, or is this just on TV? 'Cause to me, that don't seem far from worshipping her instead of Jesus, even close to idolatry... :S

[Slater]

From what I've heard... Catholics pray to those saints who have moved on with the idea that those saints will pray to God for them... sort of a router, if you will, but not really. The reasoning behind this is that catholics believe that, since the dead saints are with God, they are better at praying than we are and are better able to communicate with God than we can. However, the praying to Marry alone may be attributed to many things... some claim that this idea came about through a very errored reading of a piece of one of the gospels, yet I haven't researched it much.

While I do agree with you that this form of prayer and worship is a form of idolitry, I have to admit that the reasoning behind that form of prayer is quite sound, but I don't think that we as Christians need any help praying since our prayers are essensially from God anyways. Intercessory prayer is extremely good (read the book of James), but I don't think that we should seek it from our brothers and sisters who have moved on to the afterlife.

[dreamhacker]

From what I've heard... Catholics pray to those saints who have moved on with the idea that those saints will pray to God for them... sort of a router, if you will, but not really. The reasoning behind this is that catholics believe that, since the dead saints are with God, they are better at praying than we are and are better able to communicate with God than we can. However, the praying to Marry alone may be attributed to many things... some claim that this idea came about through a very errored reading of a piece of one of the gospels, yet I haven't researched it much.

Anyone can pray to God as good as the "saints", God hears every prayer anyways, so it won't help to pray to them just because they are in Heaven.

But, what piece of what gospel do you talk about?

[Slater]

There is a piece of scripture where it says that the disciples were praying with Mary, and it is possible that the idea of praying to Mary comes from this, but again I will say that I'm not banking on it.

As for your comment about God hearing everyone's prayers, that's right, and that's why this sort of networked prayer isn't necesarry. (remember that prayer is an act of worship and that we are only to worship our Lord Jesus Christ).

Also, I read Matthew today. I found it interesting that Jesus claimed that Mary was not necesarrily his mother, but He said that those who follow Him are His mother (this is the same passage about us also being His brother if we follow Him).

[shooraijin]

This thread isn't going to go anywhere good, so I'm going to close it now before interdenominational issues crop up. We do have a number of Catholic users on the site, and I urge them to contact dreamhacker directly to explain their rationale for their belief if more questions remain.