While praising devotion to Mary, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has firmly rejected moves to formally proclaim Mary as “co-redemptrix” or “co-mediatrix”. Source: CNS.
In a lengthy doctrinal note titled Mater Populi Fidelis (Mother of the Faithful People of God), the dicastery said the title co-redemptrix or co-redeemer “carries the risk of eclipsing the exclusive role of Jesus Christ” in salvation.
And, regarding the title co-mediatrix or co-mediator, it said that Mary, “the first redeemed, could not have been the mediatrix of the grace that she herself received”.
However, it said, the title may be used when it does not cast doubt on “the unique mediation of Jesus Christ, true God and true man”.
Pope Leo XIV approved the text on October 7 and ordered its publication, said the note, which was released yesterday.
Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the doctrinal dicastery, presented the document during a conference at the Jesuit headquarters in Rome and said its teaching becomes part of the Church’s “ordinary magisterium” and must be considered authoritative.
For more than 30 years, some Catholics, including some bishops, have asked for formal dogmatic declarations of Mary as co-redemptrix and co-mediatrix, the document’s introduction said.
But Msgr Armando Matteo, secretary of the dicastery’s doctrinal section, told the conference that the Vatican’s first study of the doctrinal implications of the titles goes back to 1926.
The new document said that titles used for Mary should speak of her motherly care for all people and her place as the first and perfect disciple of Jesus but must not create any doubt that Catholics believe Jesus is the redeemer of the world and the bestower of grace.
“Any gaze directed at her that distracts us from Christ or that places her on the same level as the Son of God would fall outside the dynamic proper to an authentically Marian faith,” it said, because Mary always points to her son.
FULL STORY
Mary, mother of Jesus and all believers, is not co-redeemer, Vatican says (By Cindy Wooden, CNS)
RELATED COVERAGE
Doctrinal Note on Marian titles: Mother of the faithful, not Co-redemptrix (Vatican News)
