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MARY TODAY
In the Church and in the World (cont.)

A dogmatic definition is intended to preserve, defend and venerate a particular aspect of the mystery of Revelation. By analogy with the special role accorded to sacred images in the Christian East, one might describe each dogma as an intellectual icon, representing a particular truth rather than a particular saint. The Protestants have to some extent lost this sense of dogmas belonging to an organic unity: to them, the Catholic Church has been inventing new doctrines not present in the Bible, not discovering truths that were already implicit. For them, the authority of Scripture is sufficient.

The Orthodox have had no great need, up to now, for a central authority to define doctrine and adjudicate in theological disputes -- or rather, the authority to which they turn is that of Tradition and the Seven Councils. A time may be coming, however, when the insufficiency of Scripture and Tradition in the face of the modern crisis becomes evident, and then the Catholic solution may start to seem more attractive again.

If it is a particular merit of the Roman tradition that it does have an authority capable of deciding how certain words are to be defined and applied in the realm of faith, then it would be a terrible mistake to renounce that authority, especially in a time of great need. Genuine ecumenism surely can not involve the compromise of important elements within anyone communion. Are Catholics expected to repudiate the definitions already made, concerning the Assumption and Immaculate Conception? Is the Church to be allowed to complete the dogmatic portrait or icon of Mary, or must it be left forever unfinished?

The magisterium of the Church, speaking through the bishops and the Pope, may come to be seen increasingly by Christians as a vital organ for the development of the living tradition. Precisely at the point when the role of women and the destiny of Israel have become burning topics for the future of Christianity, it is only the papal magisterium that can force the clarity required to achieve a new synthesis of theological reflection.

That synthesis will be Marian, because in her --the Daughter of Zion --both questions meet and embrace. It is likely to focus on Mary's maternity, and thus set the seal on the development of the "theology of the body" and of Christian personalism.

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