Vatican clarifies Marian titles: She is not ‘Co-Redemptrix’ or “Mediatrix of all graces.’
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith today issued an important doctrinal text aimed at “clarifying in what sense certain titles and expressions referring to Mary are acceptable or not.” It also seeks to “deepen the proper foundations of Marian devotion by specifying Mary’s place in her relationship with believers in light of the Mystery of Christ as the sole Mediator and Redeemer.”
“Mater Populi Fidelis” is the Latin title of the 20-page document; in English, it means “The Mother of the Faithful People of God.” The text addresses two titles, in particular, that some attribute to Mary—“Co-Redemptrix” and “Mediatrix of All Graces”—and rejects both because they risk obscuring the revealed truth that Christ is “the sole Mediator and Redeemer.”
Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, head of the D.D.F., presented the text as a response to “numerous requests and proposals” that have reached the dicastery in recent decades, “pertaining to Marian devotion and certain Marian titles.”
He labeled it an important “doctrinal note,” approved by Pope Leo XIV, when he presented it to an audience of Vatican officials and journalists at the Jesuit Curia in Rome on Nov. 4. The conference, which did not include questions from Vatican press, was chaired by the Italian monsignor Armando Matteo, the secretary of the dicastery’s doctrinal section.
Cardinal Fernández said these questions about Marian devotion “have concerned recent popes” and have been the subject of study at the dicastery for the past 30 years. During the pontificate of Pope Francis, the text published today was discussed at the D.D.F.’s plenary monthly meeting in which then-Cardinal Robert F. Prevost participated.
Cardinal Fernández underlined the fact that “the central theme that runs through all these pages is Mary’s motherhood with respect to believers.” He described this Marian devotion as “a treasure of the church.” In fact, he said, “the poor also find God’s affection and love in the face of Mary. In her, they see reflected the essential Gospel message.”
The cardinal described the D.D.F. document as “a hymn to popular Marian devotion.” He noted, however, that groups dedicated to Mary “do not share the same characteristics as popular devotion. Rather, they ultimately propose a particular dogmatic development and express themselves intensely through social media, often sowing confusion among ordinary members of the faithful.” He said these “should be avoided” because “they do not foster a proper contemplation of the harmony of the Christian message as a whole.”
When the cardinal remarked that “we have to overcome maximalist and minimalist positions on Marian devotion,” an unidentified person present in the hall publicly contested his reference to maximalist positions regarding Mary. Cardinal Fernández remained unperturbed and later recalled that throughout history, such as at the time of Pelagianism and the Council of Trent, emotions also ran high in discussing these subjects.
History of Marian Devotion
The D.D.F. text opens by saying:
The Mother of the Faithful People of God is viewed with affection and admiration by Christians because, since grace makes us like Christ, Mary is the most perfect expression of Christ’s action that transforms our humanity. She is the feminine manifestation of all that Christ’s grace can accomplish in a human being.
“In the face of such beauty and moved by love,” it says, “many members of the faithful throughout history have sought to refer to the Mother using the most beautiful words to exalt the special place she holds at Christ’s side.” It notes that certain titles and expressions referring to Mary—“Co-redemptrix,” “Redemptrix,” “Priest,” “Mediatrix,” “Mediatrix of All Graces,” “Mother of Grace” and “Spiritual Mother”—are frequently used in connection with “alleged supernatural phenomena or apparitions.”
The text observes that when these titles are not carefully employed, they “pose significant difficulties regarding their content because they can often lead to a mistaken understanding of Mary’s role, which carries serious repercussions at the Christological, ecclesiological and anthropological levels.”
Then, in a key paragraph, the text says: “The main problem in interpreting those titles as applied to the Virgin Mary is how one should understand her association with Christ’s work of Redemption—that is, ‘what is the meaning of Mary’s unique cooperation in the plan of salvation?’” In church teaching, Jesus Christ is the sole mediator between God and humanity and the sole Redeemer; while prayers to Mary have been part of church tradition for millennia, her intercessions are properly seen as taking place through the agency of Jesus Christ.
The D.D.F. text “seeks to maintain the necessary balance that must be established within the Christian mysteries between Christ’s sole mediation and Mary’s cooperation in the work of salvation, and it seeks to show how this is expressed in various Marian titles.”
“Mary’s cooperation in the Work of Salvation has been traditionally approached from a double perspective,” the text says: “her participation in the objective Redemption accomplished by Christ during his earthly life—particularly in the Paschal Mystery—and the influence she currently has on those who have been redeemed.”
The document presents an overview of how the Old and New Testaments attest to “Mary’s participation in Christ’s saving work,” emphasizing that Mary’s cooperation is seen in her “Yes” at the annunciation and at the cross.
The Vatican text then reviews “the theological development of these themes,” from the church fathers and first ecumenical councils to modern popes and the Second Vatican Council. In Vatican II’s dogmatic constitution “Lumen Gentium,” the church sees Mary “not merely as a passive instrument in the hands of God, but as freely cooperating in the work of human salvation through faith and obedience.’ This cooperation is present not only in Jesus’ earthly life (at his conception, birth, death, and Resurrection) but also throughout the life of the Church.”
The D.D.F. text then turns to “some [titles] that place greater emphasis on her cooperation in the redemptive work of Christ, such as ‘Co-redemptrix’ and ‘Mediatrix.’”
Mary as Co-redemptrix
“The title ‘Co-redemptrix’ first appeared in the fifteenth century as a correction to the invocation ‘Redemptrix’ (as an abbreviated form of the title, ‘Mother of the Redeemer’), which had been attributed to Mary since the tenth century,” the Vatican text says.
Although the designation “Redemptrix” persisted throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, the D.D.F. text says it disappeared entirely in the 18th century, having been replaced by the title “Co-redemptrix.”
The text notes that while some modern popes used the title “Co-redemptrix,” the church fathers at Vatican II “refrained from using the title for dogmatic, pastoral, and ecumenical reasons.”
St. John Paul II referred to Mary as “Co-redemptrix” on at least seven occasions, until 1996, when his prefect of the congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, weighed in on the subject. When asked if a request to “define a dogma declaring Mary as the ‘Co-redemptrix’ or ‘Mediatrix of All Graces’ was acceptable,” Cardinal Ratzinger replied: “Negative. The precise meaning of these titles is not clear, and the doctrine contained in them is not mature,” and “it is not clear how the doctrine expressed in these titles is present in Scripture and the apostolic tradition.” John Paul II did not use the title after that.
According to the D.D.F. document, Pope Francis “on at least three occasions…expressed his clear opposition to using the title ‘Coredemptrix,’” arguing that Mary “never wished to appropriate anything of her Son for herself. She never presented herself as a co-Savior…. There is only one Redeemer, and this title cannot be duplicated.”
Regarding the use of the title “Co-redemptrix,” the D.D.F. document concludes:
Given the necessity of explaining Mary’s subordinate role to Christ in the work of Redemption, it would not be appropriate to use the title “Co-redemptrix” to define Mary’s cooperation. This title risks obscuring Christ’s unique salvific mediation and can therefore create confusion and an imbalance in the harmony of the truths of the Christian faith.
It adds that “the expression ‘Co-redemptrix’ does not help to extol Mary as the first and foremost collaborator in the work of Redemption and grace, for it carries the risk of eclipsing the exclusive role of Jesus Christ.”
Mary as Mediatrix
The Vatican document next looks at a second title that is expressed in various ways, linked to the concept of Mary as “Mediatrix”
“The biblical statement about Christ’s exclusive mediation is conclusive,” the D.D.F. text says. “Christ is the only Mediator, ‘for there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all’ (1 Tim 2:5-6).”
It adds: “Given this clarity in the revealed Word of God, special prudence is required when applying the term ‘Mediatrix’ to Mary. In response to a tendency to broaden the scope of Mary’s cooperation through this title, it is helpful to specify the range of its value as well as its limits.” For example, it says, “the title ‘Mediatrix of All Graces’ risks presenting Mary as the one who distributes spiritual goods or energies apart from our personal relationship with Jesus Christ.”
The text notes that “the Second Vatican Council’s terminology regarding mediation primarily refers to Christ; it sometimes also refers to Mary, but in a clearly subordinate manner.” The council’s terminology for Mary instead “centered on cooperation or maternal assistance.”
“The Council’s teaching clearly formulates the perspective of Mary’s maternal intercession, using expressions such as ‘manifold intercession’ and ‘maternal help,’” the D.D.F. says. “These two aspects together define the specific nature of Mary’s cooperation in Christ’s action through the Spirit. Strictly speaking, we cannot talk of any other mediation in grace apart from that of the incarnate Son of God.”
At the same time, the text says, “we need to remember that the unicity of Christ’s mediation is ‘inclusive,’” and “in communion with him, we can all become, in some way, cooperators with God and ‘mediators’ for one another.”
Referring to Mary’s role in the history of salvation and the history of the church, the D.D.F. text says:
This is not on account of her own merits but because Christ’s merits on the Cross were applied to her fully—in a particular and anticipatory way—for the glory of the one Lord and Savior. She is, in the end, a hymn to the efficacy of God’s grace such that any acknowledgment of her beauty immediately points back to the glorification of the original source of all good: the Trinity. Mary’s incomparable greatness lies in what she has received and in her trusting readiness to allow herself to be overtaken by the Spirit.
The Vatican text says that “any gaze directed at Mary 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.”
“The faithful People of God,” the text concludes, “do not distance themselves from Christ or the Gospel when they draw near to Mary; rather, they can see ‘in this maternal image all the mysteries of the Gospel.’”
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