Dear Phil:

I praise God that this forum has been useful to you.

I know you mean well with your observations, but my "lashing out," as you put it, is not unChrist-like, in fact it is just the opposite. The idea that we are to never step on toes or always be "nice" (a word that in Latin means "ignorant") is unBiblical and not consistent with the model we see from Christ himself and many of the Saints, including Doctors of the Church.

Let us take a look at some examples in Scripture of "harshness". In Matthew 23 Jesus is very harsh to the Pharisees. He even calls out insults to them like in verse 33, "You serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you escape the sentence of hell?" Calling a first century Jew a serpent and brood of vipers was a MAJOR insult. This was a good 'ol fashion name-calling toward a bunch of hypocrites.

Jesus was also not very nice when he said in Mt. 7:5-6 "You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces."

Jesus also declares that his presence will bring harshness for those who will not listen to truth:

St. James is also harsh with those he is arguing with. Take a look at the narrative in James chapter 2. In fact St. James calls the people he is arguing with a bunch of ignoramuses. James 2:20 "Do you want proof, you ignoramus, that faith without works is useless?" This is from the New American Bible. Other translations use the word "vain" meaning empty and "fool".

We also have examples from Doctors of the Church not being too nice: 

The pacific St. Thomas Aquinas forgets the calm of his cold syllogisms when he hurls his violent apostrophe against William of St. Amour and his disciples: "Enemies of God," he cries out, "ministers of the Devil, members of AntiChrist, ignorami, perverts, reprobates!"

The seraphic St. Bonaventure, so full of sweetness, overwhelms his adversary Gerard with such epithets as "impudent, calumniator, spirit of malice, impious, shameless, ignorant, impostor, malefactor, perfidious, ingrate!"

St. Francis de Sales was asked by a Catholic, who desired to know if it were permissible to speak evil of a heretic who propagated false doctrines, he replied: "Yes, you can, on the condition that you adhere to the exact truth, to what you know of his bad conduct, presenting that which is doubtful as doubtful according to the degree of doubt which you may have in this regard."

In his Introduction to the Devout Life, that precious and popular work, he expresses himself again: "If the declared enemies of God and of the Church ought to be blamed and censured with all possible vigor, charity obliges us to cry wolf' when the wolf slips into the midst of the flock, and in every way and place we may meet him."

You are incorrect to suggest that my manner of handling certain people is unChrist-like because it is harsh. Actually, I am following the example of Christ, the Apostles, and the Doctors of the Church.

There is a time for gentleness, but there is also a time for harshness.

In fact, brain research in the past ten years proves that we sometimes need to slap some people upside the head. The cliché "I have made up my mind so do not confuse me with the facts" and also "He won't come to his senses until he hits bottom" are two behavioral truths that are biologically based.

In the left hemisphere of our brain is what one could call a library of our knowledge, opinions, and beliefs. The information in that library is, in essence, written in stone -- it is not about to change, hence, "don't confuse me with the facts".

So how does this library of information and beliefs ever get changed or corrected when there is erroneous information? Well, the right hemisphere has the ability to make those corrections in the library. The problem is getting the right hemisphere motivated to make the corrections. What it takes to motivate the right hemisphere is a trauma (a hitting bottom) to knock some sense into the person.

We all have most likely experienced arguing with someone and parting in a huff. After we have calmed down we get to thinking about the argument and admit to ourselves that the other person was right after all. We may not ever admit that to the other person, but we realize that the other person was right. The anger in the argument was the "trauma" the "slap upside the head" that was needed to wake up the right hemisphere to realize that some information needed to be corrected in the library of our left hemisphere.

Thus, not only do we see the harsher charism modeled by Jesus, the Apostles, and Doctors of the Church, but there is scientific evidence to prove that sometimes the slap upside the head approach is needed.

When you see me take a harsher approach it is usually because I feel the Holy Spirit is calling me to take that approach.

I have had many emails both criticizing and praising my "style." The most valuable emails however are from those who were the target of my "style" who said things like, "Brother, two weeks ago you insulted me and upset me terribly. But, after I calmed down I realized that you were right and it changed my life."

I would recommend to you two resources:

1) Three Secret Strategies of Satan

2) "Liberalism is a Sin" by Father Sarda -- a book, which is FULLY endorsed by the Vatican, that fully explains the need sometimes to be hard.

Now to your question...

Veneration is not worship that is due to God alone; it is offering respect to someone or something worthy of respect. To quote from an article at Catholic Answers:

As the terminology of Christian theology developed, the Greek term latria came to be used to refer to the honor that is due to God alone, and the term dulia came to refer to the honor that is due to human beings, especially those who lived and died in God’s friendship—in other words, the saints. Scripture indicates that honor is due to these individuals (Matt. 10:41b). A special term was coined to refer to the special honor given to the Virgin Mary, who bore Jesus—God in the flesh—in her womb. This term, hyperdulia (huper [more than]+ dulia = "beyond dulia"), indicates that the honor due to her as Christ’s own Mother is more than the dulia given to other saints. It is greater in degree, but still of the same kind. However, since Mary is a finite creature, the honor she is due is fundamentally different in kind from the latria owed to the infinite Creator.

All of these terms—latria, dulia, hyperdulia—used to be lumped under the one English word "worship." Sometimes when one reads old books discussing the subject of how particular persons are to be honored, they will qualify the word "worship" by referring to "the worship of latria" or "the worship of dulia." To contemporaries and to those not familiar with the history of these terms, however, this is too confusing.

Another attempt to make clear the difference between the honor due to God and that due to humans has been to use the words adore and adoration to describe the total, consuming reverence due to God and the terms venerate, veneration, and honor to refer to the respect due humans. Thus, Catholics sometimes say, "We adore God but we honor his saints."

Bottomline: To venerate is to give respect due to humans or to objects that represent God. The Crucifix is the symbol of our Lord's Passion. Thus, we kiss it in respect and recognition of that symbol and the sacrifice Jesus made for us.

We kiss the Gospel or the Breviary as a sign of respect to the Word of God that the book of the Gospels, or that the Breviary contains.

Hope this helps.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary