What does the Magisterium of the Church think of the proposal for this Dogma?

There have not been any official statements in the magisterium of the present Pontiff specifically referring to if or when he will declare this Dogma, nor should we expect such a statement until the Vicar of Christ is ready to make one.

The Christian faithful were very much encouraged by the last Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, to continue their role in the progress of Marian doctrine:

"Mariology is a particular field of theological research: in it the Christian people’s love for Mary intuited, frequently in anticipation, certain aspects of the mystery of the Blessed Virgin, calling the attention of theologians and pastors to them....As Mariology develops, the particular role of the Christian people emerges. They co-operate, by the affirmation and witness of their faith, in the progress of Marian doctrine, which normally is not only the work of theologians, even if their task is indispensable to deepening and clearly explaining the datum of the faith and the Christian experience itself" (Pope John Paul II, L’Osservatore Romano, weekly English edition, 15 November 1995, p. 11).

In June of 1997, a theological commission issued a negative opinion on the possibility of defining a dogma on Mary’s maternal mediation. The commission was composed of fifteen Catholic theologians and additional non-Catholic theologians, including an Anglican, a Lutheran, and three Orthodox. Several of the commission’s conclusions were corrected by John Paul II in his Wednesday audiences of 24 September and 1 October 1997. Although the Pope did not refer directly to the commission, his teachings were in stark contrast with its conclusions.

We also know from recent Church history that several advisory theological commissions requested by the Holy See have come to conclusions which ultimately were not adopted by the Holy See. The most radical example was the theological commission requested by the Holy See to examine the question of artificial birth control, the conclusion of which was overridden by Pope Paul VI when he reaffirmed the constant Church teaching against artificial birth control in his 1968 Encyclical, Humanae Vitae.

A far more comprehensive and thorough investigation into the theological possibilities of this Marian Dogma was conducted by another international association of theologians and mariologists, spanning several continents, many countries, and three communities of Christianity. Their findings were in favor of a definition and have been published in two theological volumes dedicated to the question of the Maternal Mediation of Mary: Mary Coredemptrix, Mediatrix, Advocate: Theological Foundations, Towards A Papal Definition?, and Mary Coredemptrix, Mediatrix, Advocate: Theological Foundations II, Papal, Pneumatological, Ecumenical (1995 and 1997 respectively, Queenship Publishing, Santa Barbara, CA).

It remains the mission of Vox Populi Mariae Mediatrici to do exactly what the Papal Magisterium of Pope John Paul II invited us to do: To "co-operate, by the affirmation and witness of their faith, in the progress of Marian doctrine," in "calling the attention of theologians and pastors" to "the mystery of the Blessed Virgin."

With the election of our new Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, our prayers and petitions now go out to him, but nonetheless we obediently await the Pontiff’s final and authoritative decision on the potential Dogma. In no way is the petition campaign a "democratic" initiative. Those who sign the petition desire for the Dogma to be proclaimed, but only in accordance with the will of the Roman Pontiff.