Some anti-Catholic people occasionally make claims such as the one you mention, usually based on media misinterpretations and their own uninformed assumptions about Catholic doctrine and practice. What you told the lady is the truth: the Catechism lays out our doctrines, and the idea that Mary is some kind of goddess is not in it. You might suggest that she read it to prove to herself what Catholics actually believe.
What I suspect that she was referring to, and it was more like seven or eight years ago, is a grass roots campaign among certain lay Catholics to have the existing doctrines about Mary as co-mediatrix and co-redemptrix formally pronounced as dogmas. Pope John Paul II quietly told them that the time was not right and did nothing.
I have had people ask me about these doctrines, insisting that if they were ever defined, it would be tantamount to claiming that Mary is equal to Christ, thereby making her into some sort of goddess. But if you study the doctrines, they say nothing of the sort. Besides, they are already long-standing doctrines of the Church; they have just not been defined as dogmas. This website sets the record straight.
DavidLast edited on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 08:31 am by David W. Emery
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