Dr. John Bergsma

There's a hyperdulia, which is for the blessed mother, because she has this singular role in salvation.

And then there's Latreia, which is in Latin adoration, which is that's only to God.

That's what the angels are talking about at the end of Revelation, where John falls down to them and they're like, no, no, no, no, that's only for God.

So we come up with this language.

So I think that people should see that there's a positive role for these distinctions that actually help us to think clearly about what it is we're doing and what's appropriate to human beings and what's appropriate to the divine.

Yeah, one could argue that, but I think that in the lived Catholic experience, this is not a problem.

I, you know, when I would watch, okay, let me just give, you know, existential answer, okay, personal experience answer.

When I was a non-Catholic and I would look at what Catholics did to the blessed mother, I was offended.

And I thought that to me looks like worship based on how I interpreted certain body language and certain terminology on my Protestant background.

But Matt, when I saw what Catholics would do in adoration and benediction and at mass, I was like, oh, okay.

What they do to the blessed mother really isn't, you know, what they do for Jesus and what they do for God.

And, um, and that, that has been my experience as a Catholic as well.

Yes.

You know, praying the rosary, it looks very, you know, worshipy to a Protestant, but compared to the kind of interior and exterior acts that I make in the presence of the

Well, no, I would have a problem because there's a common ritual language.

So prostration in front of a statue of Mary, I would take that person aside and give them a fraternal correction.

If they were prostrated?

Okay, I would say, okay, well, exercise some care in that because that's not how your gestures are commonly understood by the family.

Okay.

You know, so we have a...