Mater Populi Fidelis

Before the Blessed Sacrament Exposed, I have prayed the Rosary in thanksgiving for this. See especially the following paragraphs:

19. In the Feria IV meeting on 21 February 1996, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was the Prefect of the then Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was asked whether the request from the movement Vox Populi Mariae Mediatrici to define a dogma declaring Mary as the “Co-redemptrix” or “Mediatrix of All Graces” was acceptable. In his personal votum, he replied: “Negative. The precise meaning of these titles is not clear, and the doctrine contained in them is not mature. A defined doctrine of divine faith belongs to the Depositum Fidei — that is, to the divine revelation conveyed in Scripture and the apostolic tradition. However, it is not clear how the doctrine expressed in these titles is present in Scripture and the apostolic tradition.” Later, in 2002, he publicly voiced his opinion against the use of the title: “the formula ‘Co-redemptrix’ departs to too great an extent from the language of Scripture and of the Fathers and therefore gives rise to misunderstandings… Everything comes from Him [Christ], as the Letter to the Ephesians and the Letter to the Colossians, in particular, tell us; Mary, too, is everything that she is through Him. The word ‘Co-redemptrix’ would obscure this origin.” While Cardinal Ratzinger did not deny that there may have been good intentions and valuable aspects in the proposal to use this title, he maintained that they were “being expressed in the wrong way.”

22. Given the necessity of explaining Mary’s subordinate role to Christ in the work of Redemption, it would not be appropriate to use the title “Co-redemptrix” to define Mary’s cooperation. This title risks obscuring Christ’s unique salvific mediation and can therefore create confusion and an imbalance in the harmony of the truths of the Christian faith, for “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). When an expression requires many, repeated explanations to prevent it from straying from a correct meaning, it does not serve the faith of the People of God and becomes unhelpful. In this case, the expression “Co-redemptrix” does not help extol Mary as the first and foremost collaborator in the work of Redemption and grace, for it carries the risk of eclipsing the exclusive role of Jesus Christ — the Son of God made man for our salvation, who was the only one capable of offering the Father a sacrifice of infinite value — which would not be a true honor to his Mother. Indeed, as the “handmaid of the Lord” (Luke 1:38), Mary directs us to Christ and asks us to “do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5).

This is not about ecumenism. The Truth is the Truth, and there will only ever have been anything much to ecumenism when a church full of Pentecostalists chanted Salve Regina. Rather, the Church’s defined dogma is already complete with regard to Our Blessed Lady’s cooperation in the Redemptive Work of Her Divine Son, and the movements to proclaim Her Co-Redemptrix have been motivated by the desire, not to summarise that dogmatic corpus in that title as Popes had occasionally done, but to assert Her equality with Him in that Work. The Collyridians probably never existed in the days of Saint Epiphanius of Salamis. But they do now, complete with the pastries.

Their position is blasphemy and heresy, leading to idolatry and sacrilege. It is “another Gospel”, resembling Mormonism in its distortion of classically Christian vocabulary into a polytheism that included a Mother Goddess, although Mormons rarely mention theirs, whereas what we have here is more like Shaktism. Both are called to mind by the prominence of ostensible seers and gurus. Catholics are required to accept the principle of private revelation, permitted to accept those specific examples which the Church had formally approved, and forbidden to accept those which She had formally repudiated. In any event, no private revelation can be a basis for dogma. Those invoked by the proponents of Marian Co-Redemption manifestly fail 1 John 4:1, and any apparent blessing flowing from them should be referred to Galatians 1:8 and to 2 Corinthians 11:14.