Roman Catholic tradition has God morally bound to discharge a debt He owes to Mary.
Let us first answer the question with an emphatic, No! The Scripture says that God owes no man anything, and He has no need of anything that man may offer or produce. The reason is that He already owns everything. What does He need from us that is not already His for the taking?
“The earth is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” (Psalms 24:1)
“For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.” (Psalms 50:10-12)
Statues depicting the apparition of Mary to Benoite Rencurel at La Laus, France.
One of the most fervent forms of devotion in Roman Catholicism is to the visions of Mary, commonly called “apparitions.” For many centuries, in many locations around the world, Mary is alleged to have appeared to visionaries of the Roman Catholic Church. These visionaries typically report conversations with Mary, and the apparition of Mary has many times delivered messages that have been documented through the official channels of the Roman Catholic Church. There have been many hundreds of alleged apparitions throughout history, but only a few have been approved officially by the Roman Catholic Church. These few are considered to be actual bodily appearances of Mary, and therefore “worthy of belief.” Among them are the Apparitions of Mary at Guadalupe, Mexico (1531); Paris, France (1830); La Salette, France (1846); Lourdes, France (1858); and Fatima, Portugal (1917).
The approval process for an alleged apparition can take many years, and it is rare for one to be elevated formally to the same level as those listed above. When that approval becomes official, it provides a tremendous amount of insight into the visions of Mary themselves because interviews with the visionaries are meticulously inspected, and the vision’s messages and teachings are rigorously documented through the approval process. It also provides tremendous insight into the Roman Catholic Church, because the teachings of approved apparitions are consistent with Roman Catholic teaching—otherwise they would not have been approved.
I became a believer in 1990, and because I was saved out of Roman Catholicism, and into Christianity, I just assumed all of my fellow Protestants understood why Roman Catholicism was out of accord with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that will offend some people, but let’s be honest. The debate over the true church took place 500 years ago, and both sides—Protestant and Roman Catholic—concluded that the other side was in error. There have been many failed attempts since then to gloss over the differences, but those attempts always fail because one side believes in justification by faith + works, and the other believes in justification by faith alone. The two positions are irreconcilable. Continue reading From the heart→
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