PAT

I hope you will permit me to focus my reply on that which pertains to the original posting and point of that post. It is not that adequate answers cannot be given to the other questions, but to try to answer them here could move things off topic. In reality, those questions have been answered by many Catholic apologists and there are many good resources on the web — such as Dave Armstrong’s Biblical Evidence for Catholicism — which answer them quite deeply and from a number of perspectives.

So, let me get to the questions:

3) Why does Mary have to be special?
Mary is “special” because she was chosen by God to carry, give birth to, raise and protect our Lord and Savior. As I said in my blog entry, the implication of all this is unique to her and makes her distinct from all other women in history.

4) Mary is just a woman = yes
I believe we are in agreement with this. Perhaps to put it another way: Mary is human, not divine. The point of the blog entry was not to suggest she was divine, or like Jesus (both human and divine). Rather it was to point out her distinction from all others throughout history, which many are content to dismiss.

As for point #5, when it comes right down to it, you’re right. But the vehemence with which some react to Mary, and their choice to focus on the doctrines ad nauseum, as though it were the foundational doctrines of the Catholic Church, in my opinion tend to do injustice to the Mother of our Lord and Savior.

To answer point #6 with any meaning, requires knowledge that we — mankind — are not privy to. There is speculation among theologians throughout history that, had Mary not given her unconditional “yes” to God, He simply would have found another means by which to save mankind. However, that gets into a whole other discussion that really cannot be done justice in this forum.

Hope that begins to answer your questions.

Pax,
Matt