Mediatrix Coredemptrix?

Judy Roberts writes about the growing movement for a possible fifth Marian dogma . . .

The Catholic Church’s four key teachings about the Blessed Virgin were the instruments that drew Dr. Richard Russell to convert from Protestantism. Now the Georgetown University professor would like the Church to proclaim a fifth Marian dogma declaring Mary “Coredemptrix.”

This fifth dogma — a solemn definition of Mary as spiritual mother of all peoples: Coredemptrix, Advocate, and Mediatrix of all graces — is a cause for which hundreds of Catholics around the world are currently praying in a year-long rosary campaign that began on the feast of the Assumption last year.

Universal appeal

Dr. Richard Russell

The new dogma is also the subject of petitions — many initiated by bishops and cardinals — that continue to flood the Vatican from five continents. Last year, in the first call for the proclamation from a head of state, then-Filipino president Gloria Arroyo wrote Pope Benedict XVI a letter asking for the fifth dogma on behalf of her people.

Appeals for the new dogma date to the 1920s and the efforts of Belgian Cardinal Desire-Joseph Mercier, an ecumenical leader who championed the cause with support from St. Maximilian Kolbe.

Russell, an adjunct professor of security studies who has been researching the approved Lady of All Nations prophecies in Amsterdam, acknowledged that the term “coredemptrix” sounds startling on first hearing. “But when you work through it,” he said, “it actually makes a great deal of sense.

“If Mary doesn’t say ‘yes’ at the time of the Annunciation, no blood is shed on Calvary,” he explained. “By pure force of logic, it has to be true. You cannot escape that she coredeems humanity. If she says ‘no,’ there is no redemption.” The Catholic Church has approved four Marian dogmas: that Mary is the Mother of God, conceived without sin, perpetually a virgin and assumed into heaven. Those who object to adding “coredemptrix” to her list of titles claim that it would wrongly place Christ’s mother on an equal plane with her son.

But Dr. Mark Miravalle, professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio, a leading proponent of the fifth dogma, said the term does not indicate equality with Christ — nor does it displace Him as redeemer of the world, deem Mary a goddess or declare her a fourth person of the Trinity.

Dr. Mark Miravalle

“The title ‘coredemptrix’ as used by popes, saints, mystics and the Magisterium,” Miravalle said, “denotes Our Lady’s unique participation in redemption. In no sense does it denote equality with God. As such, it would be heresy.”Mary participated in human redemption, he explained, in the way that St. Paul says Christians are “co-workers” with God (1 Cor 3:9).

Historical significance

In 1933, Pope Pius XI became the first pope to use the title “coredemptrix” in a papal address. Blessed John Paul II used it six times, although other popes — including Leo XIII and Pius XII — have supported the doctrine in their writings. Leo XIII, for example, taught in Iucunda Semper Expectatione (1894) that Mary shared the atonement with Jesus, “dying with Him in her heart, pierced by the sword of sorrow.”

Pope Benedict XV’s 1918 apostolic letter, Inter Sodalicia, stated that Mary “redeemed the human race together with Christ” because of the extent to which she suffered with her Son.

More recently, in a March 30 general audience, Pope Benedict XVI referred to Mary’s role in salvation history, calling her a “partner of the redemption and mediatrix of grace, mother, advocate and queen.” And on his trip to Fatima last May, the Holy Father described Mary as “advocate and mediatrix of grace.” He invited the sick to “become redeemers in the Redeemer.”

Miravalle says the Pope got it right in both instances. “All of us are called to participate in the redemption of Jesus, and Mary does it uniquely,” he said.

Father Peter Damian Fehlner, a Mariologist and rector of Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in La Crosse, Wis., agrees. This is what St. Paul means in Colossians when he says he’s filling up what is lacking in Christ’s sufferings for the sake of the Church, Fr. Fehlner said.

“He doesn’t mean that Christ’s sufferings are inadequate, but they have to be applied in each of us. Together with that, we have a role of cooperation. Jesus is uniquely the redeemer and mediator, but this doesn’t mean that others don’t also participate,” he said.

Ecumenism

A second key objection to declaring Mary “Coredemptrix” is that such a dogma would be an obstacle to ecumenical relationships with other Christians.

However, in his petition to John Paul II in support of the fifth dogma, the late Cardinal John O’Connor stated that such a declaration would assist ecumenism by clarifying what Catholics believe and don’t believe about Mary, Miravalle said.

Russell, as a convert to Catholicism, said he doesn’t think a fifth dogma would alienate Protestants and harm prospects for reconciliation. “I take the opposite view: Don’t water down the faith, and Protestants will come,” he said.

Eastern Orthodox Christians, unlike Protestants, wouldn’t likely find the fifth dogma objectionable because of their own beliefs about Mary, Miravalle said.

“The doctrine of mediation is certainly very deep and very strong with the Eastern Orthodox. Their concept in the liturgy is more focused on Our Lady’s mediation than the Roman Rite.” However, he said, the Orthodox may have a problem with an infallible papal statement simply because they don’t recognize the pope’s teaching authority.

Regardless of whether the dogma is proclaimed in his lifetime, Miravalle said he believes the state of the world today calls for Mary’s powerful intercession. Our Lady’s titles, he said, are not simply honorary, but denote her actual roles.

“The more clearly we acknowledge her titles and functions,” he explained, “the more powerfully she can exercise those on our behalf.”

Judy Roberts is a Legatus Magazine staff writer.