This is bad news!
Anglican Theologians Accept Catholic Devotion To Mary
"After nearly 500 years of intense division, Anglican and Roman Catholic theologians yesterday declared that one of the two faiths' most fundamental differences - the position of Mary, the mother of Christ - should no longer divide them.""The move, aimed at reconciling Protestants to Catholicism's devotion to the Blessed Virgin, exemplified in thousands of statues in churches and shrines across the world, cuts across one of the more arcane disputes between the two churches, but is likely to alarm some evangelicals and conservatives.""A document called Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ, published yesterday in Seattle and to be released in London on Thursday, declares: "We do not consider the practice of asking Mary and the saints to pray for us as communion dividing ... we believe that there is no continuing theological reason for ecclesiastical division on these matters."
STORY CONTINUED at http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1485558,00.html
A second article called Anglicans Invited To take Catholic View Of Mary states, "The document also describes private devotions inspired by apparitions of Mary as "acceptable".
"In the passage likely to cause most dissent, the document says the infallible dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption - the teachings that Mary was herself conceived "without sin" and that on death she was "assumed" body and soul into Heaven - are "consonant with the teaching of the Scriptures".
This can be read at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0%2C%2C3-1615252%2C00.html
A third article called Official: Mary Not A Savior says,
"However, it stops short of endorsing "private revelations", the most famous of which are the apparitions at Fatima, in Portugal, and Lourdes, in France."
"Devotional expression enriches worship of God and should be respected provided it does not undermine the pre-eminent place of Jesus in the church and is not compulsory. "The crowds gathering at some places where Mary is believed to have appeared suggest that such apparitions are an important part of this devotion and provide spiritual comfort," it says."
"We agree that doctrine and devotion which focuses on Mary … must be moderated by carefully expressed norms which ensure the unique and central place of Jesus Christ in the … church and that Christ alone together with the Father and the Holy Spirit is to be worshipped in the church." That entire story can be read at
Anglicans, Catholics Agree On Mary