DATE CHANGE!  You're invited to join us on Thursday, April 20, for a 90-minute Question & Answer session, prefaced with an introduction to the Catholic Church and St. John Vianney Parish.  We will be in the Parish Hall (the back, 2-story building), and it will be a casual gathering. Please contact us with any questions at any time.

Full disclosure, I am a Catholic priest and am a little biased here, and thereby you might think you could not trust my answer. However, there is a basic universally accepted definition of what defines a Christian.  Just so you know that it is not just me saying Catholics are Christian... it’s many, many more.
Now there are all sorts of theologies, and these can get pretty deep in the weeds. Marian theology, Calvinism, Arminianism, Lutheranism… all are theologies that differ, but they are all Christian theologies. The Christian Church is unfortunately very segmented into denominations, something I believe makes Christ very sad, but the fact remains. But we should be careful here. Christians disagree on things like Mary's place in the faith, or the reality or symbolism of the Eucharist, but at the end of the day we all can agree that we are all Christian. How is this?
Over the centuries, the various churches found the need to define what a Christian is. With so many denominations cropping up, and so many pastors preaching so many different translations of the Gospel, there needed to be some unofficial rules on who could call themselves Christian. The answer turned out to be a simple yet un-definable answer.
The Trinity. One God, Three persons. Any faith that affirms this belief is known to be Christian. It is a simple proof, though it is a difficult theology, as though we try we cannot define God. All Christians, to be called Christians, must believe and profess the triune God.
The Catholic Church wrote the Nicene Creed, which does profess this truth. Therefore, no matter how much some may disagree with the Church’s theology, they cannot say that we are not Christians.

Why does the Catholic Church have so many rules? The Church does have rules for every aspect of our lives, and many outside the Church might look in and ask why so many rules?

Let's start with talking about rules in general, as many believe that they can and should write the rules for their own life.

If I were to walk off the side of a 100 foot cliff, what would the likely result be? Most would answer death or something very close to it. This example shows two life rules. The first being the rule of gravity. The second is the fragility of our bodies. We are born with many rules that we have to follow if we want to live. We do indeed have to follow rules that we did not create. Gravity, breathing, eating, drinking water, just to name a few. We often think of these as “realities” as opposed to rules, but I think reality and rule go together.

Our problem is that we have some manmade rules that are arbitrary. The speed limits for various streets can seem, and probably are, just random rules; but God's rules, the rules of the Church, are based in reality, not just random decrees.

As we study the law of the Church, we find that these laws are not simply arbitrary rules, but they are rules that help us live the best life we can, such as don't walk off a 100' cliff. There are many rules in the Church, and I certainly won't try to go over them all in this short essay, but rest assured as we look at each law, we can first find its origin in scripture. Secondly we can reason that such a law will help us in the reality of life, as opposed to hinder us.

If your life is not as you want it, it is a pretty good chance it is because you are living against one or more of God's rules. God made us, and He knows best how we should live.  It is simply for us to be humble and accept those rules.

Does the Catholic Church worship Mary? No. Does the Catholic Church venerate Mary? Yes. This is an important clarification for both those within the Church and those outside the Church.

To venerate someone is to revere them, to respect them for who they were and what they have done. Those in the United States would venerate George Washington or Martin Luther King, two men who did great things for our country.

We venerate Mary for several reasons. First, because she was created specially by God. Sin separated man from God. To end this exile of man, God sent His only Son born of a virgin; Mary. But Mary had to carry Jesus for 9 months, and since sin and God cannot co-exist, Mary had to be made without sin; this being the immaculate conception. Though created without sin, Mary still had free will, but chose by her fiat, her yes, to live to God and to fulfill His plan for her life. We look to Mary as an excellent example of how to live our lives; and every time we look at an image of her it reminds us to live as she did, to God only.

The second reason we venerate Mary is for a very simple reason, she is Christ's mother. Joseph and Mary both hold high places in the Church. They also hold high places in heaven. This is why we ask Mary to pray for us. Yes, Catholics pray to Mary. But before there is misunderstanding, let me offer a simple definition. Merriam Webster defines “pray” in this way: “to make a request in a humble manner”. To pray is to ask. We ask God for blessings or for supplications. We ask Mary to ask God and her Son for the same. Just as you might ask your neighbor to pray for you during a trying situation, we ask Mary to do the same. What's more, Mary is in heaven with God the Father and Jesus; thereby being in the perfect place to ask our triune God for those things that merit their attention.

Still, with all the veneration and prayer to Mary, we have to understand that she is not God. Mary always leads us to her Son, Jesus. There have been some unfortunate instances within the Church where the faithful crossed the line from veneration to worship. These rare instances have been suppressed by the Catholic Church, and the Church has repeatedly stated the fact that veneration cannot be synonymous with worship.

The Catholic Church does not worship Mary, but its members do venerate her. Learning of her life and modeling our life after hers is one of the best ways to get to heaven that we have available to us.