— Bergoglio rejects traditional Catholic teaching on Mary as Co-Redemptrix
by Raymond de Souza, KHS, KM • ChurchMilitant.com • March 29, 2021
Catholic sources vs. pope's recent comment
When Pope Francis referred to Our Blessed Mother Mary's putative title of Co-Redemptrix as "foolishness" ("tonterias" in Spanish), it caused surprise — and even outright scandal — among many of the faithful. It was seen as yet another rejection of the traditional teaching of the Church.
"Let us not get lost in foolishness," Francis said of those wishing for a papal definition of Mary the Co-Redemptress.
"Pope Francis tells us about Mary, as "a normal girl." "Yes, "a normal girl" — and that Our Lady and St. Joseph "were not born saints, they became so." Now, there is a dogma on Our Lady, infallibly proclaimed, the Immaculate Conception.
Because Mary was never, ever, just "a normal girl," i.e., a human born in original sin and prone to actual sin as normal girls are; but by virtue of being preserved from sin by the merits of her Son, she was preserved before the time of her conception.
The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception does not talk about Mary as being simply "redeemed" like every person in the world, but "preserved." By the definition of the Immaculate Conception, the Church says definitively that Mary was always completely free from sin from the moment of her conception.
Redemption is buying back from slavery. I am reminded of the Mercedarians of St. Peter Nolasco who redeemed those Christians enslaved by the pagan Muslims.
But Mary's case is altogether different. Mary, because of her preservation, was never, ever, at any instant of her life, a slave to sin. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches in paragraph 491, Mary was "redeemed from the moment of her conception." And from that moment, by a singular grace and privilege of God, Mary was "preserved immune from all stain of original sin."
Because of this preservation, she could be part of the redemptive work of her Son — and, in fact, she was. She helped Jesus set us free, hence the term Co-Redemptrix.
It is simple for anyone to understand: God was offended by men. Mary is not of either party in this. She alone was never under the power of Satan. The dogma of Co-Redemptrix is founded on and made possible by the dogma of the Immaculate Conception and the Divine Maternity.
Now, Jesus is the sole redeemer who redeemed men from their sins. However, the redemption did not happen without a woman who was worthy enough to conceive God in her womb so that the redemption could take place. This woman is the Immaculate Virgin Mary.
Christ died for our sins, yes, but in God's plan, without Mary there would be no Christ to die for our sins. Christ's death redeems men, but without Mary, there would be no Christ to redeem men. Therefore, without Mary, there would be no redemption. Hence Mary is truly and properly the Co-Redeemer!
Christ redeemed men, but in God's plan, He would not redeem men without the help of Mary, whose flesh and blood He took, and who offered Her Son to God as Abraham offered Isaac. It is in this sense that Mary is truly the Co-Redemptrix. Indeed, popes, saints and other Catholic writers have taught that Mary is Co-Redemptrix or Co-Redeemer.
The main argument against the title Co-Redemptrix is that Mary could not effect Her own redemption. But this is false, because there are two meanings to redemption. Mary was not merely "redeemed from sin" but "preserved" from sin by the merits of her Son. Mary was not "bought back" from the slavery to sin like us, which is the normal meaning of redeemed. We are all — except for Adam and Eve before the Fall and Jesus and Mary — in the thrall of Satan from the first moment of conception because of Original Sin.
So, as the dogmatic definition says that Mary was never in sin, and so never in need of redemption in the usual sense, she was free to collaborate with Jesus in our redemption. And she did.
Let us see what, contrary to Pope Francis' accusations of tonterias, the Fathers of the early Church and Doctors over the ages have to say:
- Modestus of Jerusalem accurately defines that through Mary we, "are redeemed from the tyranny of the Devil" (Migne PG 86: 3287).
- Saint Irenaeus: "by yielding obedience, [Mary] became cause of salvation, both to herself and the whole human race" (Adversus Haereses, III, 22, 4).
- Saint John of Damascus greets her: "Hail thou, through whom we are redeemed from the curse" (PG 86: 658).
- Saint Bernard: "Through her, man was redeemed" (Sermon 3 super Salve).
- St. Alphonsus Liguori: "Saint Bernard says, 'that as a man and a woman cooperated in our ruin, so it was proper that another man and another woman should cooperate in our redemption; and these two were Jesus and his Mother Mary.' ... 'There is no doubt,' says the saint, 'that Jesus Christ alone was more than sufficient to redeem us; but it was more becoming that both sexes should cooperate in the reparation of an evil in causing which both had shared' (The Glories of Mary, Chapter IV, Section II).
- Saint Bonaventure: "The woman (Eve) drove us out of Paradise and sold us, but this one brought us back again and bought us (redeemed us)" (de don. Sp. S. 6: 14).
- Saint Bridget: "as Adam and Eve sold the world for an apple, so did she with her Son redeem it as it were with one heart." (St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary, Op. cit.)
- Saint Anselm: "That although God could create the world out of nothing, yet, when it was lost by sin, He would not repair the evil without the cooperation of Mary." (St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary, Op. cit.)
- Saint Albert the Great: "She was the only one to whom this privilege was given, i.e. of sharing in his Passion. To be able to reward her for it, her Son wished her to share also in the merits of the Passion; And to make her a sharer in the benefit of the Redemption, He wished her to be His partner in the suffering of the Passion, in order that, as she was a helpmate in the Redemption, might also be mother of all by reparation. And as the whole world is indebted to God for his Passion, so all would be to their Queen for her compassion" (Mariale,150).
- St. Anthony of Padua (1195–1231): "In his writings are to be found the doctrines of her Immaculate Conception and glorious Assumption; and he never tired of speaking of her as the Mediatrix of All Graces, nor of dwelling upon her part in the redemption" (Saints to Know and Love, by The Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, St. Anthony of Padua).
- Suarez, 17th century Jesuit Mariologist: "Just as Christ, because He redeemed us, is by a special title our King and our Lord, so too is Blessed Mary (our Queen and our Mistress) because of the unique way in which she cooperated in our redemption" (1954 encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam).
- Suarez: "Mary cooperated in our salvation in three ways: First, by having merited by a merit of congruity the Incarnation of the Word; secondly, by having continually prayed for us whilst she was living in this world; thirdly, by having willingly sacrificed the life of her Son to God. For this reason, our Lord has justly decreed, that as Mary cooperated in the salvation of man with so much love, and at the same time gave such glory to God, so all men through her intercession are to obtain their salvation" (St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Glories of Mary, Op. cit.).
Part II: More saints, popes and scholars affirm Mary is the Co-Redemptrix.
2 John 9-11
Everyone who does not abide in the teaching of Christ, but goes beyond it, does not have God; whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. Do not receive into the house or welcome anyone who comes to you and does not bring this teaching; for to welcome is to participate in the evil deeds of such a person.
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| If Jorge Bergoglio really believed that Jesus is the only redeemer, he would not deceive Muslims, Jews, atheists, the idolaters who worshiped Pachamama and other false religions. |
ANALYSIS
VATICAN CITY, March 25, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis has launched yet another attack on Our Lady, as he used his weekly general audience to undermine Catholic teaching on her Divine Motherhood, as well as the understanding of her role as Co-Redemptrix, suggesting that such a title was the fruit of exaggerations.
On Wednesday morning, as the Pope addressed the handful of clergy seated around him, as well as those watching via video link, delivered an address containing a mixture of both Catholic and non-Catholic teaching.
Francis moved swiftly to denounce the teaching of Mary as Co-Redemptrix, by correctly pointing out that Christ is the mediator between God and man, but rejecting the possibility of a co-redeemer: “Christ is the mediator. Christ is the bridge that we cross in order to turn to the Father. He is the only redeemer; there are no co-redeemers with Christ, He is the only one. He is the mediator par excellence.”
The Church’s understanding of Marian co-redemption has been consistent since the days of the early Fathers — right up until recent times, when it became a controversial topic following the Second Vatican Council, due concerns from left-leaning clergy about its effect upon ecumenism.
“Mary points out the mediator,” Francis continued, “Mary is completely directed towards Him, she is more His disciple than His mother, we could say.”
This point could be read to contradict Church teaching, which has traditionally held that all the titles and honors proper to Mary, stem from her role as Mother of God, as taught in the Council of Ephesus in 431.
Seeming to comment off-script, the Pope specified his attack, saying that Christ did not intend for Mary to be Co-Redemptrix. “The mother who covers everyone under her mantle as a mother, Jesus entrusted us to her as a mother, not as a goddess, not as a co-redemptrix, as a mother.”
The Pope went so far as to suggest that such a title, by which numerous saints and popes have addressed Mary, was born out of loving exaggeration, but was not factually true. “It’s true, Christian piety likes to give beautiful titles to her, but above all she is a mother, what a wonderful title that is. But remember, all the wonderful titles that the Church gives to Mary, they don’t take anything away from the unique mediating role of Jesus. Sometimes when we love someone it makes us exaggerate.”
With Francis casually dismissing devotion to Mary as Co-Redemptrix as an exaggeration, he seemed to reject the perennial teaching of the Church on this topic — albeit not a dogma declared ex cathedra. Indeed, U.K. Catholic commentator Deacon Nick Donnelly noted that Pope Francis was “waging a campaign against Catholic Marian doctrine.”
In comments to LifeSiteNews, Deacon Donnelly pointed to a deliberate ignoring of Scripture on the part of the Pope: “By restricting the titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary to only ‘Mother’ and ‘disciple,’ Pope Francis ignores the Protoevangelium’s and Simeon’s prophecy that she would play an essential role in the redemption of mankind. The title Co-Redemptrix safeguards divine revelation about the role of Mary.”
What is co-redemption?
The word Co-Redemptrix itself is composed of the two Latin words cum and redimere. Cum translates to “with” in English, denoting one person acting alongside another, but never means “equal” or “interchangeable” in the manner of “co-pilot,” for instance. Redimere is the verb meaning “to buy back, set free by payment.” When combined with the female ending of the verb, one gets the meaning “she who buys back with.”
Drawing heavily from Scripture, figures such as Saints Irenaeus, Ephraim, Jerome, and Augustine laid the foundations for the understanding of the term in the first centuries of the Church, before later theologians such as Saints Bernard, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Louis de Montfort and Alphonsus Liguori fully expounded the mysteries contained in the title.
In addition to numerous other non-canonized scholars, the Holy Office has also weighed in on the issue, writing in 1908 in response to a query about the feast of the Seven Sorrows of Mary that “the devotion of the Sorrowful Mother may increase and the piety of the faithful and their gratitude toward the merciful Co-Redemptrix of the human race may intensify.”
Five years later, the Holy Office granted a partial indulgence to a prayer addressing Mary as “Co-Redemptrix of the human race.”
Pope Pius XI also used the term Co-Redemptrix as part of his public addresses, in 1933, 1934 and 1935, building on the previous papal support for the teaching as expressed by Popes Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, and Benedict XV.
Pope John Paul II also used the term at least seven times during his pontificate, both in his writings and addresses, as well as teaching the meaning of the title in his encyclical Redemptoris Mater and in his General Audience’s between 1995 and 1997.
So in-depth and constant is the teaching of the Church on this topic, that in 2017 the International Marian Association released a statement as part of a longer appeal to Pope Francis, saying: “Not only is the Co-redemptrix term theologically acceptable in articulating the intimacy and complementarity between the divine Redeemer and his immaculate human mother, but the title is actually necessary to properly denote and signify in a single term the providentially designed unity between Jesus and Mary, God-man and human woman, New Adam and New Eve, Redeemer and Co-redemptrix, in the historic work of Redemption.”
However, the latest general audience is by no means the first time the current Pope has attacked Marian co-redemption. On December 12, 2019, Francis proclaimed that moves to officially declare Mary Co-Redemptrix, were “foolishness.”
In response, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò sternly rebuked Francis, saying that “Pope Bergoglio once again gave vent to his evident Marian intolerance, recalling that of the Serpent in the account of the Fall, in that Proto-Gospel which prophesizes the radical enmity placed by God between the Woman and the Serpent, and the declared hostility of the latter, who until the consummation of time will seek to undermine the Woman’s heel and to triumph over her and her posterity.”
It is no coincidence that the heretical papal preacher Raniero Cantalamessa also disparages and discredits the Marian titles that he describes as exaggerated, and outside the biblical context. According to this defender of the Protestant heresy, the Church has used them as weapons against Protestants.
ReplyDeleteCantalamessa's anti catholicism:
☠ This is not the place to do a historical review. I merely want to point out what seems to me the path that leads away from this unfortunate situation about Mary. That path includes an honest recognition of the fact that often, especially in the recent centuries, we Catholics have contributed to making Mary unacceptable to Protestants by honoring her in ways that are often exaggerated and ill-advised and above all by not keeping devotion to her clearly within a biblical framework that demonstrates her subordinate role with respect to the Word of God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus himself. Mariology in recent centuries has become a non-stop factory of new titles, new devotions, often in polemic against Protestants, sometimes using Mary—our common Mother!—as a weapon against them.☠ December 18, 2015