Jim,

Well, for one thing, the Rosary is a private devotion and is incidental to the Catholic Church, not part of its essence. It did not exist for the first millennium of the church or so. So the Catholic Church was already the Church of Christ well before the Rosary surfaced, and I see no reason to believe that because some private devotion, however meritorious or aberrant, surfaced well after the founding of the Church, that the Church is somehow invalidated. Jesus promised that the Gates of Hell would not prevail against the Church (Matthew 16:18).

I'm sympathetic to your argument. To be perfectly frank, this is precisely why I virtually never pray the Rosary myself. (No one is required to pray the Rosary as a Catholic; it is not part of our public prayers, as I said.) One can make the argument that all the prayers ultimately end up going to Jesus, as the "Hail, Mary" is just a request for Mary to pray to Jesus for us. So, in a sense, it "all goes down the same tube". All the prayers end up at Jesus's feet. One can also make the argument that the Rosary is a meditation on the mysteries (mostly) of the Gospel, so you're thinking about the Gospel while you're praying.

I don't expect to convince you to pray the Rosary. But I believe the Catholic Church is the one true Christian Church, that it was before the Rosary surfaced, and that it was after the Rosary surfaced, because it is just not central to constitution of the Catholic Church.

Eric
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