Most non-Catholics are brought up to believe that Catholics are a little “extreme” about Mary. Few Protestants think much about her, though there are rumors of more Protestants saying the Rosary.
“We worship The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.”, most Protestants will announce when pushed on the subject. They let people know their beliefs in a stern, positive, we-do-know-what’s-best tone that’s designed to imply “Some of those Catholics, quite frankly, may be worshiping graven images.”
The Church rightly understands the importance of Saints. The Book of Revelation, 4:4, makes it clear that there are “Elders”. Twenty four of them sit on thrones around the throne of God. They have access to The Loving Programmer. That access would be useless if they could not use it to provide programming assistance from Him, through His angelic programming assistants, to those who request it on earth.
If the Elders are Saints, then requests to them may be passed on to The Loving Programmer. Or, the Saints may deal with the Elders. The point is that only the most self-centered would ever think that God would not provide means of access to Him.
Mary is more powerful than any of the Elders. She is more powerful than any of the Heavenly creatures and beings described anywhere in Scripture. She is, outside The Holy Trinity, the most powerful being in The Creation Program.
Probably the stupidest thing that any of us human programs can do is to ignore Mary. The biggest error that Protestants make is to ignore the part of the Scripture that the most faithful of them revere where Luke, 1:28 begins, “Hail Mary, full of Grace. The Lord is with thee.”
Reading Luke from 1:28 – 56 lets us know that we may begin our pilgrimage by recognizing that Mary is important. After that recognition, the progress we make toward God is directly proportional to the reverence we have for Mary. We ignore her at our peril.
Among the most favored of women after Mary are those with sons who become priests.
