The following from a Catholic theologian on the topic of the believer's "union with Mary" shows why Mary is indeed a dividing line between Catholics and non-Catholics, including Latter-day Saints. It also shows the theological dangers of Rome's claims about the mother of Jesus; as I have said before, what Rome teaches about Mary is the single greatest disproof of her claims to be the true Church:
For more, see the presentation I gave on Mariology here in January 2017 to my home branch in Tralee, Ireland.
The Christian is united with Mary by the essential bond of the Mystical Body of Christ: a union of grace which transcends time and space, time and eternity. This union is of a special kind of reason of the relationship between Mary and the Church and her spiritual motherhood. Such things are objective, grounded in the divine economy of salvation. To what extent personality affects them in each case is more difficult to determine. Divine choice and Mary's personal choice under God are the ultimate factors: not subject to any human law, wrapped in the natural and supernatural mystery of Mary and the natural mystery of the human person.
Spiritual writers propose union with Mary as an ideal to the soul seeking perfection and indicate the ways of prayer and self-direction conducive to this end. The lives of the saints and records of devout souls afford evidence whih must be sited and assessed in the light of sound doctrine to show the validity and scope of union with Mary as an extraordinary grace in the mystical order. (Michael O’Carroll, Theotokos: A Theological Encyclopedia of the Blessed Virgin Mary [Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1982], 349-50)
For more, see the presentation I gave on Mariology here in January 2017 to my home branch in Tralee, Ireland.
