Do Catholics Worship Mary?
Yes, yes they do. It just depends on who you're speaking to. And don't take my word for it, either! Responding to Father Gregory Pine's definition of worship.
Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.”
– Revelation 19:10
“Shrine of the Virgin” (German, c.1300). Oak, linen covering, polychromy, gilding, gesso.
Marian dogma is, perhaps, one of the strongest contentions Protestants have with Roman Catholicism. I'm sure you've heard an off-put Protestant shout, ‘I will never worship Mary!’ and a Catholic retort, ‘We don't worship Mary, we venerate her!’ Fair enough. Mary ought to be deeply honoured and respected as the virgin saint of our Lord Jesus Christ. That said, as it turns out, the Protestant suspicion of idolatry is not entirely unwarranted.
In a recent clip posted on Pints with Aquinas, well-known Catholic apologist Matt Fradd interviewed monastic Father Gregory Pine about this exact question. Father Pine was vivid and succinct: Catholics do worship Mary. Father Pine’s clarity is second to none (a virtue I respect). He feels no discomfort and sees no theological, moral, or heretical error with Catholics worshiping Mary. In Father Pine’s words, “[W]orship is honour or respect referred to another person. That’s just what worship means,” he then says, “There are two expressions of worship: In the latin tradition we talk about adoration or sacrifice [latria], and then veneration or intercession [dulia].” He, then, moves on to say that dulia can be applied to a person, place, or thing. There are degrees of worship, and Mary is the first to be worshiped below God. Fradd did not hesitate to disagree but was astute enough to curb how strong such verbiage would be perceived among his Protestant viewerbase.
No doubt Father Pine echoes the theological remarks of Franciscan preacher Bernadine de Bustis (c.1450-1513) who called Mary a “collaborator in our redemption”, arguing that through the grace bestowed to her from Christ, the church is justified and saved[1]. At the end of his Mariale, he sings her praises:
O Spring of supernatural grace! O Armory!…O Artery of our salvation! ...O Redeemeress [Redemptrix] of the universe! ...O Mediatrix between God and [humanity]! O Foundation of our faith! ...O most faithful Advocate in the presence of the judge! ...O Dispenser of God’s gifts! ...O Treasure of the Most High!”[2]
Marian worship is not just monastic, either. I’ve heard in Eastern European countries like Poland, the distinction between veneration and worship is not emphasized at all—it is just worship, as Pine says. In fact, I’ve also read several comments and tweets from Easterners who have never even heard of the word venerate or even thought to distinguish the two words from each other like we do here in the West. Congregants are taught to worship Mary, but God more.
But is this a proper function of worship? Is this the way worship is or ought to be?
What is Worship?
With all due respect, Father Pine is fatally mistaken in his reductive gradation. Worship no doubts includes deep honour and respect, reverence and awe (Hebrews 12:28-29), but it cannot be reduced to just that, and, therefore, it cannot be lowered and attributed to mere creatures. I honour and respect the President and Prime Minister (Romans 13:1,7), I honour and respect my mother and father (Exodus 20:12), I honour and respect my ancestors and forefathers (Proverbs 22:28; Acts 28:17), whether by blood or by spirit, and I honour and respect our mutual spiritual mother Mary, through whom the world would be saved (Luke 1:47-48), but in neither of these examples do I worship them. However, according to Father Pine’s assessment, I’ve been worshiping them all along! It is the semantic range of the word itself, he argues. And for that reason, not just them but all things created good under God—albeit to a necessarily lesser extent than God or, say, something transcendent and divine, whether angel or saint—but nevertheless worshiped if the criteria for worship is mere “honour or respect”. In this regard, a Catholic may honour and respect the Pope, but if we apply this gradation of worship to Mary and the saints, then Catholics do, in fact, worship the Pope. But these lower grades of worship are quite confusing, if I’m being honest, and above all, against the semantic range of the words used to translate worship in Scripture. In Greek, the words most translated ‘worship’ are latreuō/latreia (serve; sacred servitude, service, or duty), thrēskeia (religion; ceremonial observance, practices, or rituals), sebō (devout, reverent worship), or proskyneō (venerate, revere, prostrate), and are all relatively interchangeable due to the similarities in meanings and connotations—one implies the other.
First, James articulates worship as much broader than honour and respect towards another person. While the word thrēskeia is often translated “religion”, its broader range connotes ‘religious worship’. James identifies proper worship in Christ as keeping oneself clean from sins and defilement of all sorts:
If anyone thinks he is religious [thrēskeia] and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless. Religion [or worship] that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
– James 1:26-27
Next, Paul in Romans 12 is also clear that worship is so much more than honour and respect, even if it is honour/respect to the nth degree. It is a sacred self-sacrificial obedience toward spiritual transformation. It is the higher form of worship Pine speaks of, and then some:
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your [proper] spiritual worship [latreia]. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
– Romans 12:1-2
Honour and respect alone is veneration, it is the lower form of worship Pine discusses, but it cannot be used to define the higher form of worship because it lacks the breadth of meaning the word worship demands.
Even so, the Scriptural descriptors of worship are always reserved for and directed towards God alone—no one else. Worship is an integral, directional, and holistic aspect of being, an unconscious and intentional harmonious participation of becoming, of conforming to the image of the invisible God in body, soul, and spirit. It is a self-sacrificial love, humble devotion, referent fear, innocent wonder, immeasurable joy, and faithful embrace of Christ's atonement in and through our lives. The direction of worship is never aimed toward the creature, nor is it restricted and reduced to degrees of honour/respect. It is fundamental to being. A creature cannot fulfill the needs that worship demands. Worship is about giving your whole life to Christ, to be transformed by him; a fact that Pine acknowledges is the higher form but through the pathway of the lower (and through the sanctifying act of consuming the Eucharistic sacrifice). Granted, Protestants may at times, as well, be too narrow in their scope of worship, reducing worship to, say, mental ascent or assurance or the moment of salvation. The greatest command is, after all, to love God above all, and the royal law is like it: to love those made in God’s image (Mark 12:29-31). So, if you overlay the greatest command atop of Paul’s and James’ concessions to proper worship, then to visit orphans and widows and be unstained from the world and to present your body as a living sacrifice in order to love your neighbour is a way to worship God! In other words, you worship God by following through on His commands and obeying him to the fullest. Therefore, to give Father Pine his due, honouring and respecting the saints, angels, and Mary is part of the way we worship, but he is mistaken in that it is not who or what we worship. It is a means of worship, not an end. The greatest command is to love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and the second is like it—it is not it. Veneration, then, ought to be just that—a way or means we show our adoration and devotion and commitment and worship of God. But that is not exactly what’s happening here, unfortunately. As far as I can tell, there is some in-house confusion as to whether Mary is (or is not) a target of worship[3].
The Scale of Worship
Now, every Catholic I know will persist that they only venerate (hyperdulia) Mary and, therefore, do not worship (latria) Mary. But as I indicated before, this is merely semantics: There are hierarchal degrees of lower worship and higher worship baked into Roman Catholic dogma—from dulia to protodulia to hyperdulia to latria. It’s the same scale, only God is more intensified, which is precisely what Father Pine was getting at. So, when a Protestant asks, ‘Do you worship Mary?’ the contrast between veneration and worship is not strong enough that it should warrant a Catholic to retort, ‘I don’t worship Mary, I venerate her’. Rather, a Catholic should say, ‘Sort of, kinda, yea’.
The enormous difficulty I have with this gradual ascent of worship is twofold: it is nowhere to be found in Scripture, and every instance of worship and veneration directed toward someone (or something) other than God is explicitly condemned. There is no semantic range when it comes to worship—you either worship God or you don’t. It is black or white. Truly, it is that simple. Throughout the text, all the persons, objects, and practices of worship are not set on a scale or hierarchy. The persons, objects, and practices of worship are reserved for and directed toward God alone. The irony, here, is that when Catholics object to worshiping Mary, they instinctively know that worship is binary.
Persons of worship (angels, saints, Mary, etc)
Scripture is very clear that there is a clean-cut threshold between creature and Creator, not a levelling system of worship. Otherwise, if it were the case, there wouldn't be instances of apostles and prophets condemning cold turkey the practice of worshiping creatures, whether angel, human, or beast. In the opening chapter of Romans, Paul explains that the Gentiles “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being…. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped [sebazomai] and served [latreuō] created things rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:23-25). The Greek word sebazomai (root word, sebō) is only used once, here, in the text and refers to reverent honour and worship, similar in connotation to venerate. Of course, Paul does specify that they worshiped the creature “rather than” the Creator; he does not say they worshiped the Creator through the creature, as a both/and form of worship.
However, Paul does warn about the worship of angels and does not indicate or suggest any levels/degrees, he simply condemns the worship of angels in general.
Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship [thrēskeia] of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.
– Colossians 2:18-19
Even stronger exemplar is John, who bowed down and worshiped the angel who gave him his most revered apocalyptic vision:
I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship [proskyneō] at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship [proskyneō] God.”
– Revelation 22:8-9, cf. 19:10
Did the angel say to John who was prostrating before him, “Worship me, but make sure you worship me less than God.”
No. He said in fear, “You must not do that! Worship God.”
There is no gradient or levels in worship, where each person is an end of receiving worship in their own right. Notice also the Greek word proskyneō, which means, ‘venerate, prostrate’ (or literally, “a reverent kiss towards one”), is the word used for worship, here, which is the later Latin equivalent for adoratio (adoration) and venerārī (venerate, meaning, “to revere, or hold in awe”). This is a big deal. It suggests this verse can also mean that John “fell down to venerate [proskyneō] at the feet of the angel” and the angel gasped in a knee-jerk reaction, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets. Venerate God.” The reverential act of John bowing or prostrating himself toward a spiritual being was too close an act of worship (cf. Matthew 4:9). It is not only dangerous for the angel, who may be tempted to receive such worship and fall into condemnation, but to the worshiper as well, who may fall prey to variations of idolatrous deceptions. If worship is a gradation or hierarchy, then the angel would not have interrupted and prohibited John from prostrating/venerating him.
Also consider the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Satan’s prime desire was to be venerated. After Satan offers Christ the kingdom’s of the world, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship [proskyneō] me.” (Matthew 4:9) You do not fall down and prostrate yourself before those you merely honour and respect. Worship is so much more than that. It is life-giving. What you worship has total authority over you. But Jesus answered him and said, “It is written, “‘You shall worship [proskyneō] the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve [latreuō].’” (Luke 4:7-8) As you can see, the word used for venerate, proskyneō (in Latin, adoratio, venerārī, and also dulia) and the word used for worship, latreuō/latreia (in Latin, latria), are both used in conjunction with each other—one implies the other. It should be no surprise, then, that the word latria, which means “serve” is hardly different from the Latin word dulia (in Greek, douleía), which means “slavery”. They are synonyms! The etymological root of veneration, then, is only more damaging—if dulia denotes a higher form of worship and servitude, then hyperdulia all the more. That is why, I think, Father Pine is comfortable with saying he worships Mary. The semantic range of the words worship and venerate are very, very similar.
Worship is reserved for God alone, which is why we worship and serve Christ. If creatures can be worshiped and venerated in the way Scripture condemns, as Pine suggests, then this not only affects our theological interpretations and ecclesiological applications, but it also means we would have to toss out much of the Scriptural prooftext of Christ’s divinity. We worship Christ because He is God, not because He is the best of creatures. There is no clear distinction between veneration and worship in Scripture. The lower forms of worship—in reverence and awe—are always reserved for and directed toward God.
Objects/practices of worship (candles, incense, bowing, etc)
Incense. Scripture is explicit that worship is more than invisible inward feelings. There are holy rituals, visuals, practices, and objects reserved for the worship of God alone that ought not to be mixed with the common or creature. For instance, King Hezekiah instituted an iconoclastic reform that included the destruction of a famous relic used in false worship: “He removed the high places, and broke the pillars, and cut down the Ashe’rah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had burned incense to it; it was called Nehush′tan [piece of brass].” (2 Kings 18:4) Israel worshiped the bronze serpent like an idol by burning incense to it, and Hezekiah faithfully “kept the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses” (v.6) by destroying it [3]. While there is no clear explanation for why Israel began to worship the bronze serpent, and speculation can abound, the point of Hezekiah’s reform almost becomes clearer because of the lack of explanation: the objects and practices of worship reserved for God alone were used for something other than the worship of God. The only indication of false worship in the text was that the incense reserved for God was burned to the bronze serpent, a holy relic of Moses. The visible distinctions of sacred worship dissipated—no longer were the objects/practices of worship set apart for God. The bronze serpent was consequently destroyed because the congregation of Israel blended honour/respect with worship.
Now parallel this with the Roman institution of burning candles and incense to statues and icons of Mary. Once again, it is too close for comfort. The same objects used to worship God are now used for Mary. There is no visual distinction, that I’ve discerned, between worshiping Mary and worshiping God (apart from a different kind of worship service, i.e., Eucharist). It looks the same.
For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.
– Malachi 1:11
In the Mosaic Law, incense was an offering to the Lord (Exodus 30:7–8). In Revelation, burning incense is the prayers of the saints rising up like smoke before God (Revelation 5:8, 8:3-4). This symbolism carries forward when incense is burned to Mary. Prayers are offered to Mary (not with) as their intercessor, mediator, and redeemer, a dispenser of Christ’s propitiation. Prayers are a form of offering.
Bowing. Now, there is some confusion among Protestants about whether or not bowing is a worship practice reserved for God alone. While I am inclined to say the act of bowing is not always an act of worship, and the heart determines the direction of worship, given that a bow can be a cultural greeting or gesture of mutual respect, such as a slight bow or polite nod like in Oriental cultures, it is true that the bigger the bow the more honour/respect the person is rendered. There is quite a range of meaning in the act of bowing: genuflection, the act of bending one knee to the ground; double genuflection, the act of bending both knees to the ground; and prostration, the act of bending both knees and your whole torso toward the ground. Hence the biggest bow—prostration—is reserved in almost all cultures for religious prayer and worship toward ultimate authority; it is an expression of submission, humility, dependency, and helplessness toward the subject/object of worship. Whenever Scripture says, “fall down and worship” (Isaiah 44:15-17, 46:6, Daniel 3:5-6,10-11,15; Matthew 4:9; Revelation 4:10), it indicates prostration, not a polite nod, bend of the torso, or a knightly kneel (Psalm 95:6). While there are instances of men bowing their heads and worshiping the Lord (Genesis 24:26,48; Exodus 4:31, 12:27; 2 Chronicles 29:29-30), this is not as subtle as it is today, and seems to be an abbreviated description of either double genuflection or prostration, “And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.” (Exodus 34:8) and also “When all the people of Israel saw the fire come down and the glory of the Lord on the temple, they bowed down with their faces to the ground on the pavement and worshiped and gave thanks to the Lord, saying, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.”” (2 Chronicles 7:3, cf. 20:18) And again “they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.” (Nehemiah 8:6) Therefore, a biblical bow is not a medieval kneel nor is it genuflection necessarily, it is chiefly prostration or double genuflection. There are degrees of expressing honour/respect. Should we never bow our heads and remove our hats in a moment of silence again? Or hold our hand over our heart during the national anthem? This should be self-evident. Either way, it still matters who or what you are bowing to. A polite nod still shows respect. A kneel still pledges allegiance. Double genuflection still invokes prayer. Prostration is worship.
Be that as it may, bowing to inanimate objects, like idols or ancestral statues or creaturely images, no matter how subtle or steep the bow, was seen as idolatry. Suffice to say, I don’t have space to delve into right now and I think this topic deserves careful inspection, especially regarding our Catholic and Orthodox brothers who recognize our Trinitarian God as the rightful ultimate authority but still “fall down and worship”—that is, genuflect both knees or prostrate themselves—to venerate holy objects such as the Cross, statues, icons, relics, and the Eucharist.
Invisible Veneration
Like I said before, there is no visual distinction (objects/practices of worship) between veneration and worship, and there is no Scriptural basis to make a distinction in the first place. Prostration is used for both veneration and worship; incense is used for both veneration and worship. And if there is no visual distinction, then the only distinction that can be had is invisible. Therefore, if there is an invisible line between veneration and worship, that is already blurry according to Scripture, can anyone really blame Protestants for believing Catholics worship (latria) Mary? In fact, when Catholics charge Protestants for believing in the “invisible church” or “faith alone” as gnostic—dividing the spiritual from the physical—they should really look in the mirror. There is no visible distinction between the adoration and devotion, veneration and worship, of Mary and God. Protestants must take Catholics at their word.
Again, there is no indication or hint that there are degrees of worship anywhere in Scripture. There is no instance where worshiping Mary, saints, angels, or someone else other than God is permissible. There is no command or expectation to worship anyone else but God. You worship God, and that’s it. End of discussion. So, even if worshiping Mary is just semantics, the word choice of “worshiping” Mary is still a grave error. Christ and Scripture forbid attributing even the word worship to anyone else but God. In other words, the immediate apostles of Jesus Christ would never say “I worship Mary”—so why do modern apostles say such things?
That doesn’t mean Protestants are off the hook, either. In large we have all but abandoned any visual indication of worship—prostration and incense included! Father Pine is also not wrong for saying there is a relationship between honour and worship. There are Greek words for dignity, respect, and honour, such as timaō/timios/timē, which applies to both God and earthly authorities like your father and mother, kings and rulers, et cetera (Exodus 12:42, 20:12, 28:2; 1 Chronicles 29:28; Matthew 15:4-8; Mark 7:6-7), and the same goes for Hebrew.
‘This people honors [timaō] me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
in vain do they worship [sebō] me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
– Mark 7:6-7
But again, worship cannot be reduced to honour/respect. That is bottom-up thinking. Father Pine is right in that there is a strong relationship between the two, but that is because honour is a constituent of worship, not the other way around. Worship entails honour, honour does not entail worship.
Honour Among Brothers
Just so that I am abundantly clear: I am not arguing that all Roman Catholics, laymen and clergy alike, worship Mary in utter devotion like they do God, nor do I believe they do. Marian veneration and worship is not necessarily uppercase ‘I’ Idolatry. That said, I think it can lead to it, and at times it is lowercase ‘i’ idolatry because of how blurry the visual line is between veneration and worship. That, and the fact that veneration and worship have equal consequential weight in later Ecumenical Councils—venerating Mary (as well as the saints and angels) is necessary dogma lest ye be anathema, accursed, condemned. It is a great point of contention among the greater Christian community of Protestants, it fosters confusion among the Catholic community, and is quite a big stumbling block for many Christians with idolatrous and iconoclastic motives, especially for those who cannot proportionally understand hierarchies all that well—and truth be told, there are a lot of them! In fact, near the end of the video Fradd even acknowledges this stumbling block, that for some folk it may “take the attention off God and onto a creature in an unhealthy way”, and in doing he even recommends not to pray the Rosary if Marian devotion is taking away from Christ’s glory. Protestants, then, have a right to stay clear from such dogmatic practices on the ground of conscience (1 Corinthians 10:27-33; Romans 14:13-23).
What is keeping the visible church apart is the visible church itself. If veneration were to simply mean “honour or respect”, then it is in the Christian world's best interest to distance the persons, objects, and practices of veneration from the persons, objects, and practices of worship. There ought to be a chasm between the two, just as there is an ontological chasm between the Creator and His creatures, just as the holy objects/practices in the Tabernacle were instructed to be set apart and distanced from the congregation in order to make the visible line between the holy and the common, between honour and worship, extremely clear so that people do not conflate honour with worship.
By worshiping God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, you will honour authorities and love your neighbour as yourself—not worship authorities and venerate neighbour as yourself. We are all brothers and fellow servants of Christ. Mary deserves our honour and respect as the Mother of God, and so do the saints and angels. It is part of how we properly worship God. But we cannot worship them—ever.
Matlock Bobechko | September 5, 2023 – 9:00AM EST
[1] Flynn M. Fernandes, “Mary: Co-redemptrix, mediatrix of all graces, and advocate of the people of God: An interdisciplinary exposition and evaluation of the proposed fifth Marian dogma”, 15-6. Extracted from Mariale, 7.4.2, c. 3; eVerona, cols. 926-27, in Gambero, Mary in the Middle Ages, 310, 323.
[2] Ibid. Extracted from Mariale, 12.2.1, in Gambero, Mary in the Middle Ages, 324.
[3] Sin is the opposite of worship. It misses the mark. Sin is uses archery language for missing worship. Here is an analogy I was considering: Roman Catholicism’s definition of worship is like shooting the arrow through several targets to hit God’s target. The problem is that sometimes the arrow loses its umph on the way to hit the target of God and stops in the second last target—Mary. Protestant worship aims to shoot the arrow at only one target—God. What do you think is a stronger safeguard against idolatry?