Editor’s Note: Linked at one single webpage are several videos and articles by The Fatima Center which explain the Catholic Church’s teaching regarding these two specific Marian titles. Please visit: fatima.org/marian-titles-defense/
Andrew Klavan, a host of The Daily Wire, acknowledging the disproportionate number of Catholics associated with that conservative media outfit, jestingly described it as being “like the Vatican except for straight people.” That pointed assessment, of course, says more about the credibility of Rome in our time than it does about the religious affiliations of the Wire’s spokespersons. Today’s Vatican is a land of make-believe where anything goes, with scandals ranging far beyond its male prostitutes and drug-fueled homosexual orgies. In recent news, Our Lady Herself has been blasphemed by these men’s revisionist ravings which they purport to be the actual teachings of the Church.
Our Lady of Fatima warned of just such scandalous times in which, at the very highest levels of the Church, the faithful would find blind guides leading them into the pit. “In the Third Secret,” said Cardinal Luigi Ciappi, “it is foretold, among other things, that the Great Apostasy in the Church begins at the top.”
Much could be said in response to the recent Doctrinal Note issued by Cardinal Fernández of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) calling Our Lady’s titles of Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix “inappropriate” and “unhelpful.” Our response should be first of all to make reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for this new blasphemy. We can do so at the personal (private) level but also on a public scale. We can offer Mass, Holy Hours, Rosaries and other prayers and sacrifices in reparation for this insult. We can ask our priests if we may organize Rosaries of Reparation at the parish, or he might lead a Holy Hours. We can offer stipends as well for Masses of Reparation. Even simpler, we can add invocations to Our Lady under these titles after each decade of our daily Rosaries. At the same time, we would do well not only to publicly affirm the correctness of these titles, but also to explain the teachings behind them in the hope of dispelling these errors which now more than ever threaten to mislead the faithful.
Mary, Our Co-Redemptrix
Fr. William Most is an excellent guide for the laity in understanding the teaching of Our Lady as Co-Redemptrix. In his 1954 book, Mary in Our Life, he distinguishes our subjective Redemption (i.e., the working out of an individual’s salvation) from the objective Redemption merited by Jesus Christ at Calvary on behalf of mankind. Fr. Most explains Our Lady’s role in that Sacrifice on Calvary by which we were objectively redeemed.[1]
Simply put, Mary’s role is certainly dependent upon and subordinate to the unique role of Jesus Christ, but Her cooperation in His act of Redemption is truly singular and of a different nature than that of any other saint or angel. This title in no way diminishes or competes with Christ’s work of Redemption. It does not mean She is equal to Christ or that She could have wrought redemption, or any part thereof, without Him. It does mean God divinely willed to have Mary share a privileged, unique, and necessary role in all of mankind’s Redemption. Jesus Christ and Mary have a supernatural union established in an eternal decree by God. Moreover, as Eve was condemned to share in the curse of Adam, so Mary is even more privileged to partake of the Passion of Christ. Our Catholic faith affirms what eludes human reason, namely Mary’s sufferings, like Her Son’s, are ongoing – until the end of time! Hence, for all these reasons and more, it is fitting for us to imitate countless saints and Popes in asserting that Mary is the Co-Redemptrix.
A Deficient Understanding Lacking Historical Depth
Cardinal Fernández refers to the distinction between the subjective and objective Redemption at the beginning of his text (§4), only to carefully ignore it thereafter, leaving it entirely out of his discussion of Our Lady’s role in our Redemption. The impression given is that Her co-operation was merely remote – what Father Most described above as being of the same kind as St. John’s but more excellent. The Cardinal then proceeds to give historical references to the use of the title “Co-Redemptrix,” suggesting in numerous ways that neither the title nor the theological concept of a joint work of Redemption pre-dates the 15th Century. Father Most, on the other hand, demonstrates that the teaching does indeed extend back to the early Church. Both St. Justin Martyr and St. Irenaeus (two 2nd-Century Church Fathers) speak directly about Our Lady’s role at Calvary as the New Eve.
Viewed in the faulty light set out by Fernández, it is no surprise that Marian doctrines appear to modernist theologians as “false and immoderate exaggerations” posing a barrier to the supposedly more temperate beliefs of Protestants. Thus, what we see developing in the Church today is yet more of the same poisoned fruit served to the faithful since the Second Vatican Council. The Council documents carefully distanced their expressions from ‘controverted’ Marian teachings, which are true and rightly Catholic. They downplayed the role of Our Lady and even failed to correct heretics and schismatics in their blasphemies against the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This pattern has continued and worsened. Today’s theologians are desecrating Catholic doctrine on the altar of ecumenism … directly in the face of Our Lady of Fatima’s revelations and warnings.
In fact, we find clear affirmation of Our Lady’s role as Co-Redemptrix in the Message of Fatima. Consider the extraordinary phrasing of the Fatima Prayer taught by the Angel:
“Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I adore Thee profoundly, and I offer Thee the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the Tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference with which He Himself is offended. And through the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I ask of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.”
The angels do not speak on their own wisdom, authority, or opinion. They are God’s perfect messengers. Thus, an angel’s words are an accurate and faithful presentation of the mind of God Himself. This prayer explicitly refers to the united merits of Jesus and Mary, leading us to understand that the Eternal Father accepted them as a united offering in the objective Redemption.
Mediatrix of All Graces
The Church’s teaching on Our Lady’s role as Mediatrix of all graces is likewise certain, even if not as yet defined by an act of the extraordinary magisterium’s charism of infallibility.[2] St. Pius X tells us that it is on account of Our Lady’s unique role on Calvary, being formally united to Her Son in offering His Sacrifice for our Redemption, that She was established as Mediatrix of All Graces. The Pope explains that Mary is like the neck in the Mystical Body of Christ whereby nothing can flow from the Head to the body, but through the neck. The neck is not the origin of power, and it does not alter what comes from the head, but the neck is how God has ordained that all things will pass from head to body.[3]
That holy Pope’s successor, Benedict XV, stressed the same connection:
“[O]ne can truly affirm that together with Christ She has redeemed the human race. … [F]or this reason, every kind of grace we receive from the treasury of the Redemption is ministered as it were through the hands of the same Sorrowful Virgin… [W]hatever graces [Our Lord] confers on humans are always conferred with Her as minister and decision-maker [administra et arbitra].”[4]
We could continue with many other examples of saints and Popes affirming this doctrine.[5] In fact, the unanimity of theologians on this prerogative of Our Lady was officially noted in a decree of the Congregation of Rites whereby Pope Pius XII approved two miracles for the canonization of St. Louis de Montfort. The decree notes this saint’s teaching that “God wished us to have all through Mary,” and continues, “All theologians now agree in holding this most tender and salutary doctrine.”
The overwhelming evidence from Catholic tradition, magisterial teaching, and the saints’ writings amply demonstrates that the title “Mediatrix of All Graces” is taught by the ordinary and universal magisterium of the Church. Any doctrine taught in such a definitive and consistent manner by ecclesial authorities is theologically certain and already has the status of dogma.[6]
A Powerful Fatima Connection
We would be remiss if we did not add Our Lady of Fatima’s special revelation for us in this age of diminishing faith and progressively lost dogmas. This is the time in which God wills to establish in the world devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary as our Mediatrix. As the dying Jacinta exhorted Lucia in her parting words to her:
“Tell everybody that God grants us graces through the Immaculate Heart of Mary; that people are to ask Her for them; and that the Heart of Jesus wants the Immaculate Heart of Mary to be venerated at His side.”
What deep wisdom from a simple child! Yet it was precisely through Our Lady’s special mediation that Jacinta became such a heroic penitent and profound mystic at such a tender age.
This doctrine gives no injury to the fact that Christ is our one essential Mediator, for it is His own express will that He dispense the graces which flow from His mediation through secondary agents, including not only ourselves as we pray for one another, and His priests in their sacred duties, but above all, His Mother. How tragic it is that this sweet mediation, which Heaven wills to be revealed to the world in our time as never before, is anathema to the present-day usurpers of Church authority. Frère François de Marie des Anges explains:
“The views and ecumenical plans of Our Lord for our century, clearly revealed at Fatima, do not agree at all with the ecumenism of Vatican II. The revelations at Fatima teach us that God wants first to save and convert Orthodox Russia through the double mediation of His Most Holy Mother and of the hierarchy of His unique and true Church. When the Pope and bishops accomplish the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Church will demonstrate her communion in faith with the Orthodox, since in the East the dogma of the Mediation of the Queen of Heaven is very much rooted in tradition.
“Now, according to the promises of Heaven, it is through that act of faith in Mary the Mediatrix, it is through that appeal of the Catholic hierarchy to the all-powerful Mediation of the Immaculate Virgin which will have obtained the grace of conversion of the Russian Orthodox people, that is their return en masse to the unique cradle of Christ, an event truly unheard of, an incomparable miracle which will provoke first the wonder of all the schismatics and heretics of the whole world and soon their conversion.
“At the Council, while extolling Congarian ecumenism, the Church has undertaken another road. Vatican II has neither hoped for nor even conceived of the return of the lost souls to the bosom of the unique Church of Christ, but it has recommended seeking Christian unity in an egalitarian reconciliation with the schismatic and heretical sects. To make peace with the opponent, to lead a dialogue filled with esteem at first with the leaders of heretical and Protestant communities, renouncing everything which could create obstacles and mutual understanding, was supposed to lead the Council Fathers to joyfully sacrifice the Catholic Faith. Did not Paul VI himself say: ‘We do not wish to make our faith a reason for controversy with our separated brothers’? The dogmatic surrender of the Council and its outrages to the Immaculate Mediatrix were the fruits of that fatal ecumenism.”
(Fatima: Tragedy and Triumph, pp. 107-108.)
As we see in this new outrage inflicted on Our Lady by the Vatican’s DDF, that “fatal ecumenism” is far from having finished its deadly course.
O Mary, Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces,
may Thou be honored by all men across all ages.
Show Thyself our Mother
in Thy powerful redeeming mediation and pray for us!
ENDNOTES:
[1] “There are two stages in the Redemption. The first consists in Christ’s atonement and once-for-all acquisition of the entire treasury of all graces for mankind. This was accomplished through the whole life and death of our Savior, culminating on Calvary, and is called the objective Redemption. The second stage is the distribution of that forgiveness and grace to men, and it is called the subjective redemption.
“It is obvious at once that Mary co-operated in the objective Redemption, at least remotely, by being the Mother of the Redeemer. For She, as representative of the human race, gave flesh to the Divine Victim so that He might be able to suffer and die for us. But did She also share immediately in the objective Redemption by serving in the role of the New Eve on Calvary itself? If She co-operated immediately in the objective redemption on Calvary, then what the Eternal Father accepted was a JOINT OFFERING, made by the New Adam, and through Him, with Him, and subordinate to Him, by the New Eve.
“If we say that Mary was present on Calvary much in the same way as John, as a patient spectator, suffering at the sight of the pains of Her Son, offering up Her sufferings in union with Christ in much the same way as John did, this would not necessarily mean that She co-operated immediately in the objective Redemption. For if Her atonement and merit were of the same type as John’s, Her offering would be valuable, very valuable, but it would belong to the order of the subjective redemption only. It would not constitute part of the price accepted by the Eternal Father. But if Her merits and sufferings were those of a person appointed by God the Father to co-operate officially with the work of the Son, She would then share in a joint work, just as the Old Eve had shared in the joint work of Original Sin.
“Of course, we would not thereby imply that the price paid by Christ Himself was in any way insufficient. We would merely mean that one and the same thing – Redemption – would be earned on two different titles: the one a perfect and, in itself, completely adequate title; the other, a title of a lower order, quite insufficient of itself. Then the Redemption would really be parallel to the Fall: in both we would have had a head of the race, whose work alone was sufficient and necessary, joined by an inferior sharer, whose work alone would be definitely insufficient.
“The truth is that God wished to combine both adequate and inadequate reparation in order to exercise better His infinite mercy. That is, He freely decreed that what He would accept as the price of the Redemption was the joint work of two: the one, a divine Person, Who alone could really pay the debt and Whose work by itself would be fully adequate; the other, the greatest of all mere creatures, whose work would not add anything to the intrinsic value of the infinite reparation of the God-man, but whose labors, nonetheless, were ordained by the Father to be accepted with, through, and subordinate to those of the great Redeemer.
“The Fall had come about through two: Adam, the head of the race, who alone was able to ruin all his posterity; and Eve, who alone could not bring on Original Sin, but who could and did co-operate in her own subordinate way in effecting the disaster of Original Sin. It was fitting, therefore, that the restoration should follow the pattern of the Fall.”
[2] This is an important distinction. For example, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception has always been true. It had already been taught by the Apostolic and Church Fathers. In It is contained within Scripture through type, preferment and allegorical understanding. It was held as certain doctrine by all the Church and was very clearly explained by the Franciscan, Dons Scotus, in his famous “potuit, decuit, ergo fecit.” However, it was not defined by an act of the extraordinary magisterium’s charism of infallibility until 1854 by Pope Pius IX. This does not mean Catholics did not believe it before then. They in fact did. Even less does it mean that the Church “invented” this dogma apart from Divine Revelation in 1854. It is similar with the titles of Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces. They have always been true and believed by the Catholic Faith faithful. We can pray and hope that one day they will be formally defined by an act of the extraordinary magisterium’s charism of infallibility.
[3] In his encyclical, Ad diem illum, Pope Pius X writes:
“[Our Lady] was associated by Christ with Himself in the work of human Redemption, meriting for us congruously, as they say, what Christ merited condignly…. Now from this common sharing of will and suffering between Christ and Mary, She merited to become most worthily the Reparatrix of the lost world and therefore Dispensatrix of all the gifts which Jesus gained for us. …
“Mary, as St. Bernard fittingly remarks, is the ‘channel,’ or even 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.’”
[4] Litterae Apostolicae, Inter Sodalicia, March 22, 1918, and Encyclical, Fausto Appetente Die, June 29, 1921.
[5] Let’s review just a few some of these oft-repeated expressions lest we lose sight of how firmly established this teaching is:
“God wished us to have nothing that would not pass through the hands of Mary.” (St. Bernard of Clarivaux †1153, Sermon on the Vigil of Christmas)
“Every grace which is communicated to this world has a threefold course. For, in accord with excellent order, it is dispensed from God to Christ, from Christ to the Virgin, from the Virgin to us.” (St. Bernardine of Siena †1444, Sermon on Nativity of B. V. M. n. 6.)
“God has committed to Mary the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through Her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will, that we obtain everything through Mary.” (Pius IX, Ubi Primum, 1849.)
“[T]he Virgin Mary … is the treasurer [sequestra] of our peace with God, and the Mediatrix [administra] of graces….” (Leo XIII, Supremi Apostolatus Officio, 1883.)
“[M]ay He hear the prayers of those who pray through Her, Whom He Himself willed to be the Mediatrix [administram] of graces.” (Leo XIII, Superiore Anno, 1884.)
“Of the great treasury of all graces given to us by Our Lord, nothing comes to us except through Mary’s mediation, for such is God’s Will. Thus, as no man goes to the Father but by the Son, so no one goes to Christ except through His Mother.” (Leo XIII, Octobri Mense, 1891.)
“She Who had been the minister [administra] of the mystery of human redemption, was equally the minister [administra] of the grace to be given from it for all time…” (Leo XIII, Adiutricem Populi, 1895.)
“For from Her, as in a must abundant conduit, the drafts of heavenly graces are given.” (Leo XIII, Diuturni Temporis, 1898.)
“[Our Lady] is always associated, with a practically measureless power, in the distribution of the graces that derive from the Redemption….” (Pius XII, Radiomessage to Fatima, Bendito Seia, May 13, 1946.)
[6] Moreover, such a teaching is among the doctrines eligible to be defined in the future by an act of the extraordinary magisterium’s charism of infallibility.