Editor’s Note: A shortened version of this article was published in The Fatima Crusader Issue 136 (Summer 2026), The Growing Attacks on Our Lady. Copies of this newest Issue began to be mailed out in June (2026). The full-length article posted here at the website includes all the original source quotations and all footnotes.
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On November 4, 2025, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Víctor Manuel Cardinal Fernández, published a “Note” entitled Mater Populi Fidelis, whose main purpose is to discuss the titles traditionally attributed to Our Lady as “Co-Redemptrix” and “Mediatrix” and comes to the conclusion that “they should be avoided.”[1] This document has provoked strong reaction from some quarters in the Church; in particular, the detailed response published by the International Marian Association Theological Commission.[2] In this article we would simply like to show that these titles are supported by Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church, which have a much greater weight than this “Note,” and so can continue to be used by Catholics as they have been for centuries.
I. What is meant by these titles
Before beginning, we must just recall the precise meaning of these titles, and their relationship to each other. In fact, as we will see in the texts quoted, taken strictly they are related as cause and effect: because Our Lady cooperated in Redemption (as “Co-Redemptrix”) She also cooperates in the distribution of the graces of Redemption (as “Mediatrix of all graces”). Often, however, both titles are contained in the general notion of “mediation,” in the sense that Our Lady is an intermediary between God and man in salvation, both in the work of salvation itself (what is called “objective redemption”) and in the application of the fruits of that work (“subjective redemption”). So we will see that often both notions are included in the general idea of mediation, while at other times their distinction appears clearly, although the two are always closely linked.
Speaking of mediation in general, Saint Thomas Aquinas explains that, strictly speaking, there is only one mediator between God and man, quoting Saint Paul in his first epistle to Timothy: “There is one God and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (I Tim. 2:5-6). But he goes on:
“Nothing, however, stops there being some others who are called mediators between God and man in a certain sense, that is, in so far as they cooperate in the uniting of men with God in a dispositive and ministerial manner.”
Following this teaching, the well-known Catholic theologian, Fr. Merklebach O.P., formulates the doctrine of Mary’s mediation in the following terms:
“The Blessed Virgin, as the New Eve, is rightly said and truly is the perpetual mediatrix between God and man: not, of course, as a principal and absolutely necessary mediatrix, but as one that is secondary and subordinated to Christ, most excellent and very useful for us, in such a way that She cooperated in the whole work of Redemption and that without Her influence no grace, after original sin, is given to us.”
Here we see immediately the two aspects of mediation. Our Lady is “Co-Redemptrix” in that She “cooperated in the whole work of Redemption,” and “Mediatrix” because “without Her influence no grace is given to us.” Fr. Merklebach explains how Her role is distinguished from that of Christ:
“She is not a principal or perfective mediator because Christ alone can reconcile us to God and merit for us in strict justice (condigno); nor is She an absolutely necessary mediatrix for the mediation of Christ suffices superabundantly: the mediation of Mary is required only because it was positively decreed that it be so by the free will of God; rather She is a secondary mediatrix, which means:
- i) dispositively, that is, by acting in a way that prepares for the mediation of Christ;
- ii) ministerially, that is, by applying the fruit of the redemption;
iii) by participation, that is, not by Her own power but in dependence on the mediation of Christ.
“Also, this mediation is subordinate not coordinate, that is, it is derived from the power and merits of Christ.
“Finally, it is said that She does this “as the New Eve,” that is, just as Eve was not the principal but the secondary cause of our ruin the Blessed Virgin is the secondary cause of salvation.”[3]
Our Lady’s mediation, then, is not at all opposed to that of Christ, for it is not at all on the same level: it is a simple cooperation in it that is completely dependent on it and simply prepares for it or applies it, analogous to how the prophets and saints of the Old Testament prepared for Christ’s redemption by announcing it and praying for it, and the apostles and their successors applied it by preaching and administering the sacraments. Our Lady’s mediation, however, differs from this mediation of other saints, says Fr. Merklebach, in three ways:
1) because She cooperated not only in the preparation of the Redemption, like the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament, and in the application of the fruits of the redemption, like the blessed in Heaven, but She cooperated in the redemption itself already from its beginning and right up until its completion on the cross;
2) because with Christ She merited in a certain way for all men and all the graces that Christ merited;
3) because Her intercession is very powerful and universal, in such a way that it can obtain for us all the means of salvation.[4]
II. Proofs from Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium
This, then, is what is meant by the mediation of Our Lady, which includes the two aspects of cooperation in Redemption itself and the application of all its fruits. Let us now look briefly at the proofs of this doctrine in Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium of the Church.[5]
1) Scripture
– The Protoevengelion (Genesis 3:15), “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed; she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.”
Pius IX applied this text to Our Lady in his encyclical, Ineffabilis Deus, in which he defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and explained how it shows the role of Our Lady in the victory of the Redeemer over the devil.
– Various figures in the Old Testament, especially Judith and Esther, are seen as showing the role of Our Lady in salvation. See, for example, the second homily of St. Bernard on the Gospel: Missus est angelus, where he gives a long list of these different figures which he begins by saying:
“[This Virgin] was not newly discovered or found by chance, but was chosen from all ages, foreknown by the Most High and prepared for Himself, guarded by angels, prefigured by patriarchs, promised by prophets. Scrutinize the Scriptures and test what I say.”[6]
– The Annunciation (Lk 1:26-38). We can simply quote a meditation on this text by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Octobri mense, September 22, 1891, where he concludes from it directly to Our Lady’s mediation of all graces:
“It is with a profound reverence that one must contemplate the ways of God. In order to redeem man and elevate him, the eternal Son of God decided to assume a human nature and by that very fact be united in a certain mystical marriage to the whole human race. He did not realize this plan, however, until She Who was chosen to be His Mother had given Her perfectly free consent, She Who, in a certain way, represented humanity itself, as St. Thomas Aquinas writes so truly: ‘By the Annunciation was awaited the consent of the Virgin, Who took the place of all human nature.’ (Summa Theologicae, III, q. 30, a. 1)
“From this one can affirm in a manner that is not less true nor less proper, that nothing at all of that immense treasure of grace which Our Lord gained (for us) – for “grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” – nothing is given to us, by the will of God, except by Mary.
“Thus it is that, just as no one may approach the Most High Father except through the Son, in a similar way, no one may approach Christ, except through Mary.”[7]
– The Visitation (Lk 2:38-44). Through Our Lady’s word John the Baptist, the Precursor of Christ, is sanctified by the Holy Ghost in his mother’s womb.
– The Wedding at Cana (Jn 2:1-11). At Mary’s intercession, Jesus works the first of His miracles.[8]
– Mary assists at the foot of the cross at the death of Jesus and is declared Mother of St. John (Jn 19:25-27). With regard to this declaration, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes in his book, The Mother of the Saviour:
“It was on Calvary that Jesus proclaimed Mary our Mother when He addressed to St. John, who personified all the redeemed, the words: “Behold thy Mother.” Tradition has always understood the words in that sense: they do not refer to a grace peculiar to St. John alone but go beyond him to all who are to be regenerated by the cross.”[9]
Now the “regeneration” of which She is the Mother is precisely the supernatural rebirth of men by grace.
– Pentecost (Acts 1:14). Mary prays with the Apostles as they wait for the coming of the Holy Ghost. About this Pope Pius XII writes:
“It was (Our Lady) Who obtained by Her very powerful prayers that the Spirit of the Divine Redeemer… be communicated on the day of Pentecost to the Church that had just been born.”[10]
2) Tradition
The mediation of Mary first appears in Tradition in the form of a parallel between Her role in man’s salvation and the role of Eve in our ruin. The Church Fathers speak already in the Second Century of Mary in this way as “the New Eve.” About this Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange writes:
“The doctrine of Mary as the second Eve was universally accepted in the second century. The Fathers who taught it then did not regard it as the fruit of personal speculation but as the traditional doctrine of the Church supported by the words of St. Paul, which describe Jesus as the second Adam and oppose Him to the first as the Author of salvation to the author of the fall. (…) It is necessary therefore to regard the doctrine of Mary as the second Eve, associated with the redemptive work of Her Son, as a divino-apostolic tradition.”[11]
He summarizes the doctrine of the Fathers on the subject saying:
“What, according to Tradition, is the sense in which Mary, the New Eve, was associated with the work of redemption?
“It was not merely by having conceived the Redeemer physically, by having given Him birth and nourished Him, but rather was Her association moral, through Her free, salutary, and meritorious acts. Eve contributed morally to the fall by yielding to the temptation of the devil, by disobedience, and by leading up to Adam’s sin; Mary, on the contrary, cooperated morally in our redemption by Her faith in Gabriel’s words, and by Her free consent to the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation and to all the sufferings it entailed for Her Son and for Herself.
“[Clearly, Mary is not the principal and perfective cause of the Redemption (…) But She is really a secondary cause of salvation, dispositive, and subordinate to Jesus. (…) Mary’s association with Jesus in the redemption is therefore not like that of the Apostles but is something still more intimate. That is what St. Albert the Great formulated so happily when he said: ‘The Blessed Virgin Mary was chosen by God not to be His minister but to be His consort and His helper – in consortium et adjutorium – according to the words of Genesis: Let us make him a help like to himself’ (Mariale, q. 42)].”[12]
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange goes on to show how Tradition on this subject simply became more and more explicit and universal.[13] The evidence from Tradition for this doctrine is stronger, says Fr. Merklebach, than that for the Assumption, which was defined a dogma, nevertheless, solely on the basis of Tradition. Thus, he says, to deny it is “at least temerarious.”[14]
3) Magisterium
Finally, after seeing the evidence from Scripture and Tradition for this doctrine, we can hear what the Magisterium of the Church, basing itself on this evidence, teaches us.
Leo XIII, in Jucunda semper (September 8, 1894), makes his own a text of St. Bernadine of Siena affirming the universal mediation of Mary:
“That we seek Mary’s help by prayer, he says, rests, as upon its foundation, on that office She unceasingly exercises before God for us of obtaining us divine grace… by that law of reconciliation and prayer expressed by St. Bernadine: ‘Every grace that is communicated to this world has a threefold course. For by an excellent order, it is dispensed from God to Christ, from Christ to the Virgin, from the Virgin to us.”[15]
The same Pope, in another encyclical a year later, writes:
“For thereupon (that is, after Her Assumption into Heaven), by a divine plan, She so began to watch over the Church, to be so present to us and to aid us as a Mother, that She Who had been the minister of the mystery of human redemption, became equally the minister of the graces that were to flow from it for all time, practically immeasurable power being given to Her.”[16]
Fr. Merklebach explains this link between these two “ministries” of our Lady, which are, precisely, Her Co-Redemption and mediation of graces:
“The Blessed Virgin is Mediatrix, not only by Her special cooperation in the work of redemption, but also by Her powerful intercession because by the very fact that the Mother of God the Redeemer and our Mother, together with Christ, exercised in a certain veritable way a mediation in redeeming mankind and in acquiring universally for all the helps necessary for salvation. She has also the title and the office of cooperating, by Her continual intercession with Christ, in the application of the fruits of redemption and the dispensation of all the helps of salvation that must be made to individual souls. (Pars III, Q. 2, art. 3)”
St. Pius X in his encyclical on Our Lady, Ad diem illum, speaks of this as well:
“Now by this common sharing of will and suffering between Christ and Mary, She ‘merited to become most worthily the Reparatrix of the lost world’[17] and therefore Dispensatrix of all the gifts which Jesus gained for us by His Death and by His Blood. (Thus) it was given to this august Virgin to be for ‘the entire world the most powerful mediatrix and reconciler with Her only-begotten Son.’[18] [Therefore, the fountain is Christ and ‘from His fullness have we all received’ (Jn 1:16) (…) But Mary, as St. Bernard fittingly remarks,[19] is the ‘aqueduct’ or, again, the neck, through which the body is joined to the head, and likewise through which the head exerts its power and strength on the body. ‘For She is the neck of our Head, by which all spiritual gifts are communicated to His Mystical Body.’[20] It is evident, then, that we are far from attributing to the Mother of God the power of creating grace, which belongs to God alone. However, because She surpasses all creatures in holiness and union with Christ, and since She has been associated by Him with the work of salvation, She has merited for us de congruo, as it is termed, all that Christ merited for us de condigno, and is the principal minister in the distribution of graces.”[21]
De condigno merit is that which belongs to an act that is truly worthy of reward in justice: thus, for example, a soul in the state of grace merits de condigno eternal life. De congruo merit is that which belongs to an act that doesn’t merit a reward strictly in justice, but which has a certain title to it because of the friendship of charity: thus someone in the state of grace, because of the friendship that they enjoy with God, can obtain graces for someone else from Him. No one but Christ, not even Our Lady, can merit grace de condigno for someone else: Christ can, because He is head of the Mystical Body and so His merits can be applied to His members as if they were the acts of the members themselves.[22]
Benedict XV adds his voice to those of these previous Popes, in particular with a very important text with regard to Our Lady’s cooperation in Redemption:
“She has so suffered and almost died with Christ suffering and dying, She has to such an extent given up Her motherly rights on the life of Her Son and, in order to appease the divine justice, immolated, in so far as it belonged to Her, Her Son, that one can truly affirm that She has redeemed the human race together with Christ. (…) For this reason, it is clear that every kind of grace we receive from the treasury of Redemption is administered, as it were, through the hands of the same Most Sorrowful Virgin.”[23]
Pius XI continues this same teaching in his encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor:
“Since She gave birth to the Redeemer and offered Him as a victim on the cross, by a mysterious union with Christ and by an entirely singular grace on His part, She also was and piously is called Redemptrix. We confide in Her prayers before Christ Who, although He is the one “mediator of God and men,” willed to accept His Mother as the advocate of sinners before Himself and the minister and the mediatrix of grace.”[24]
The same Pope calls Our Lady “the treasurer (sequestra) of all graces with God.”[25]“ and writes:
“God alone gives the grace (needed for sanctity), but if the grace is from God, it is nevertheless given through Mary, Who is our advocate and Mediatrix. God grants the graces; Mary obtains them and distributes them.”[26]
Pius XII is equally clear. In his radio message to Fatima on May 13, 1946, he says:
“Having been associated, as Mother and Minister, with the King of martyrs in the ineffable work of human Redemption, She is always associated, with a practically measureless power, in the distribution of the graces that derive from the Redemption.”[27]
And in another address to Fatima in July of the same year, he declares:
“Blessed be She Whom the Lord has placed as Mother of Mercy and our Advocate full of love, Mediatrix of all graces, Distributor of His treasures.”[28]
And in his encyclical Mediator Dei, he writes:
“She teaches us all virtues, She gives us Her son, and with Him all the aids we need, for God has willed that ‘we should receive all through the intercession of Mary ‘.”[29]
III. Conclusion
After all this evidence for the mediation of Our Lady from Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium supporting the attribution to Our Lady of the titles of Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix, one wonders what authorities the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith relied on in order to come to the conclusion that they “should be avoided.” The main argument seems to rest on an intervention of then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in a mere meeting of what was then called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, of which he was the prefect. He is quoted as having said that the “precise meaning of these titles is not clear” and “the doctrine contained in them is not mature.”[30] It is certainly a flimsy argument of authority in comparison to the evidence to the contrary present in the traditional teaching of the Church, as we have shown.
To conclude we can give one last argument, this one given by Our Lady Herself, when She appeared to Saint Catherine of Labouré in Paris in 1830 and revealed to Her the Miraculous Medal. In Her apparitions, Our Lady never proclaims new dogmas because it belongs to the authority of the Church to do that, but She often will confirm dogmas by Her apparitions. The most obvious example of this is the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which was defined as a dogma by Pope Pius IX in 1854 and then confirmed by Our Lady Herself in 1858 at Lourdes, where She said: “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
To confirm, then, these doctrines of Her Co-Redemption and Mediation of all graces, which, as we have seen, were already clearly present in the teaching of the Church and were to become even more explicit later, Our Lady revealed this medal which expresses these doctrines in a simple, pictorial representation that even children can understand. On the front of the medal, we see Our Lady with outstretched hands standing on a globe which, She explained, “represents the whole world and each individual soul.” From Her hands were flowing rays of light which, She said, represented “the graces She gives to those who ask for them.” On the back side of the medal there is a cross, planted firmly on a large ‘M’, and at the foot of the cross the Sacred Heart of Jesus crowned with thorns and the Immaculate Heart of Mary pierced by a sword.
This simple image expresses precisely the doctrine we have seen taught by the Church. The front of the medal depicts the distribution of graces. The back of the medal shows where these graces come from; that is, from the cross of Jesus with Mary at its foot, their two Hearts united in obtaining the graces that are shown distributed on the front side of the medal. The practical consequence for us all is spelled out in the invocation that appears on the edge of the front side: “O Mary conceived without sin pray for us who have recourse to Thee.”
[1] Paragraph 4 of the “Presentation” of the document by Cardinal Fernandez. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20251104_mater-populi-fidelis.
[2] This long, well-argued response is available online at: ima_response_to_mpf.pdf.
[3] Merkelbach, Benedictus Henricus, O.P., Mariologia, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1939, Pars III, Q. 2, a. 1.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Here we will be able to give only a few of these proofs. The document of the Theological Commission quoted earlier gives many more, although it is far from being exhaustive. A Capuchin friar in France has made a collection of over 1200 quotes from various ecclesiastical authorities supporting the mediation of all graces of Our Lady.
[6] Patrologia Latina 183, 63.
[7] ASS, 195-196.
[8] Cf. Saint Louis de Montfort applies this text, along with those on the Annunciation and the Visitation, to the mediation of Mary in True Devotion to Mary, n. 19.
[9] Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Fr. Reginald, The Mother of the Saviour and Our Interior Life, trans. Bernard J. Kelly, C.S.Sp., St. Louis, Herder, 1949, p. 190. The author continues in a footnote: “This explanation, suggested by Origen in the third century, Praef. in Joan., I. 6, is explicitly advanced by many authors, especially from the twelfth century on, from which time it became common. It has been regarded in different papal documents as the common belief of the Church.” There follows a list of references to these papal documents.
[10] Mystici Corporis Christi, June 29, 1943, AAS 35, 247-248.
[11] Op. cit., p. 184. There follows here a long list of references to different Fathers on this subject.
[12] Op. cit., pp. 185-186.
[13] He gives a long list of references on pp. 200-203. Particularly remarkable is the famous sermon of St. Bernard De aquaeductu.
[14] “Ad minus temerarium,“ Mariologia, p. 348.
[15] St. Bernadine of Siena, Sermon on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, n. 6. ASS 27, 1894, 179.
[16] “Nam inde, divino consilio, sic illa coepit advigilare Ecclesiae, sic nobis adesse et favere mater, ut quæ sacramenti redemptionis administra fuerat, eadem gratiæ ex illo derivandæ esset pariter administra, permissa ei pene immensa potestate.” (Adiutricem populi, Sept. 5, 1895, ASS 28, 1895, 130)
[17] Eadmer, De Excellentia Virginis Mariae, 9.
[18] Pius IX in the Bull, Ineffabilis Deus.
[19] De Aquaeductu, 4.
[20] St. Bernardine of Siena, Quadrag. De Evangelio aeterno, Sermo X, a. 3, c. 3.
[21] Ad diem illum, Feb. 2, 1904, AAS 36, 1904, 453-54. [St. Thomas Aquinas expresses the same idea already in his commentary on the Angelic Salutation when he says, with regard to the angel’s words: “Hail, full of grace”: “The Blessed Virgin is full of grace (also…) in so far as grace overflows from Her upon all men. For it is a great thing in any saint when they have so much grace that it suffices for the salvation of many; but if they had enough for the salvation of all the men in the world this would be the maximum, and this is the fullness of grace that is in Christ and in the Blessed Virgin.” (Expositio salutationis angelicae, a. 1)]
[22] Cf. Garrigou-Lagrange, op. Cit., pp. 207-212.
[23] Apostolic Letter, Inter Sodalicia, March 22, 1918, AAS 10, 1918, 182.
[24] — Miserentissimus Redemptor, 8 Maii 1928, AAS 20, 178.
[25] Apostolic Letter, Galliam, Ecclesiae filiam, March 2, 1922, AAS 14, 1922, 186 and the Apostolic Letter, Cognitum sane, January 14, 1926, AAS 18, 1926, 213.
[26] De Tuto, Blessed Jeanne Autide Tournet, August, 15, 1933.
[27] Bendito seia, May 13, 1946, AAS 38, 1946, 266.
[28] Cited by Fr. O’Carroll, op. cit., p. 161.
[29] Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947, AAS 39, 1947, 582-583.
[30] Mater Populi Fidelis, n. 19. The document of the International Marian Association nonetheless found some quotes of Cardinal Ratzinger after he became Pope in which he speaks of Our Lady as “Mediatrix.” (Cf. in particular, Response to Mater Populi Fidelis, n. 27.)