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A NEW MARIAN DOGMA?

A number of indications suggest John Paul II is preparing, before the year 2000, to promulgate a new dogma: the Virgin Mary as "Coredemptrix" (cont.)

Vox Populi can cite Marian theologians from Cardinal Mercier (who requested of Pope Benedict XV a feast of Mary Mediatrix) to Jean Galot, S.J. (who recently defended the use of the term "Coredemptrix" in L’Osservatore Romano), Michael O’Carroll CSSp, Father Arthur Calkins of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, and Bertrand de Margerie, S.J. (the last three presented papers at the conference.

Miravalle drew attention to the Holy Father's own teaching, not only in his encyclicals and exhortations on Mary and on the role of women, but in a recent series of Wednesday catecheses. Clearly the Pope himself would have no problem with the definition, and indeed is on record as using the term "Coredemptrix" (for example, at an address in Guayaquil on 31 January 1985). A study of John Paul II's teaching at the conference by Father Calkins concluded that "if the subject of Marian coredemption has regained respectability after a long post conciliar ‘dark night,' this is due in no small measure to the vigorous and persistent teaching of Pope John Paul II.

"And why is this teaching so important to John Paul II? There can be many answers, but several were brought out by Professor Josef Seifert, friend of the Pope and Rector of the International Academy of Philosophy in Liechtenstein, where the Pope's personalist philosophy is one of the subjects of study. "In this true and yet utterly mysterious dependence of God's redemptive action Mary's free human decision, the whole unspeakable dignity and mission of the human person emerge clearly before our minds." If the new dogma is declared, he said, it would "rightfully be perceived as a supreme confirmation of the dignity of human freedom" in a century when that freedom, along with the dignity of human life and of motherhood, has been desecrated as never before. It would be the basis for an adequate "Catholic response to feminist theology." Furthermore, it would emphasize the coredemptive role of the Jews, which they share to some extent with Mary, as the chosen people of God."

The Pope would evidently welcome the opportunity to declare such a dogma, but what would be the wider impact of such a decision? Who would oppose it, and why? For the second part of this report, see the next issue of Inside the Vatican.

Leonie Caldecott coordinates the Marian Research Project of the Centre for Faith and Culture at Westminster College, Oxford. She attended the Rome conference May' 30-June 2.

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