Ask a Catholic

[abaris]

Why is there so much confusion as to whether or not Catholics worship the Virgin Mother Mary?

In my opinion, and being brought up as a catholic, it's mainly semantics. Of course they neither do worship Mary nor the thousands of saints, since there's only one god. But it's only a pretext to not call it politheism. They don't pray to saints as they don't pray to Mary. But they do ask for favors by saints, to whisper in god's ear and all the shebang.

So it's a technicality. No, they don't worhsip, but since you're in god's neighbourhood, couldn't you ask him for a favor? John Paul II was famous for these mental acrobatics when it came to Mary.