Mary Stains?

Mary Stains

On Triablogue I had posted "there is no idolatry in Catholicism" and Alan, aka Rhology, responded with a link to James White's 2005 blog comment on "More Mary Stains."  Now as for me I find these "stains" to be interesting but not necessarily a "sign" from the Blessed Virgin Mary, in fact probably easily hoaxed.  If some "hoax artist" wanted to have the Blessed Virgin mysteriously appear (even an anti-Catholic who may get a kick out of watching the hysteria) could have applied some sort of treatment to the site - hours, days even weeks prior to the "image" appearing and then as the road salts, dust, dirt, etc. settles on it - the area this was applied to would be different than the surrounding area.
However, in direct response to Alan's implied accusation that there is idolatry in Catholicism - such incidents do not point us to Catholicism and idolatry.  Even if some who are Catholic over-emphasize the appearance of such images (whether real or faked) may expose where some Catholics have taken things too far, but not where the Church itself has.

Even in cases like Fatima or Lourdes, where the Church has officially approved the pilgrimages to these places, authenticating the private revelations which occurred there - officially it is still a matter of private interpretation.  No faithful Catholic has to accept that even Fatima or Lourdes were true apparitions of the Blessed Virgin for that very reason - they are private revelations.