Questions about Catholic "Marians". [View all]
Are most Catholics considered Marians, seeking salvation from Jesus by expressing their devotion to Mother Mary, or are they mostly a minority among Catholics?
I seem unable to find statistics online about it, and it's quite possible that my ignorance about Catholics in general makes it a dumb question in the first place.
My early childhood neighborhood was kind of bizarre because my Methodist parents moved into a new middle-class housing development of suburban Dayton OH in the early 1970's, and it was mostly inhabited by Catholics from Pittsburgh with men working at GM. So when I brought up the Cincinnati Reds / Pittsburgh Pirates NL Championship series to some kids at our local elementary school in 1979, for example, I was so surprised to hear most of them say that they hoped the Pirates would win it. (Which they did, and I only later learned those kids' families had recently moved to the area from Pittsburgh.) I suspect that most of those former Pittsburgh families moved to Dayton to continue working in a union at GM after lay-offs at Pittsburgh steel mills, moving en masse to a new neighborhood instead of finding used homes scattered around the Dayton area, but I didn't ask those kinds of questions as a child.
Anyway, ALL of those Pittsburgh families were Catholic. And when I attended their local church with a young Catholic friend and his family a few times, for whatever reason, it seemed so strange to me that I rarely heard the word "Jesus" at all. Instead, "Mother Mary" was mostly mentioned by the priest and the congregation during various rituals.
Those childhood memories came back to me recently, so I looked up Catholics who focus on Mary. That's when I first saw "Marians" described, and I also noticed that there seemed to be several Marian churches around Pittsburgh such as this one:
https://diopitt.org/to-jesus-through-mary
I've been a long-time atheist, so I certainly don't have any opinions about anyone worshipping the "right way" or "wrong way". I'm just curious if there's indeed some big differences in Catholic churches, with me only experiencing a particularly Mary-focused one as a kid.
Thanks!