So, it has come to this.
And many of us have sadly called it.
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its new document Mater Populi Fidelis, has seen fit to banish from Catholic vocabulary one of the most venerable Marian titles in our tradition — Co-Redemptrix. With cold bureaucratic precision, paragraph 22 dismisses the title as “inappropriate,” claiming it “risks obscuring the unique salvific mediation of Christ.”
To those formed, or being formed, in the pre-conciliar Faith, such reasoning sounds all too familiar. The same tired refrain of “avoiding confusion” and “ecumenical reasons” that for sixty years has hollowed out Catholic doctrine until only soft edges remain.
For over five centuries the Church has gloried in Mary as Co-Redemptrix — not as Christ’s rival, but as His chosen companion in suffering. The term arose naturally from the Church’s meditation on the New Eve standing beside the New Adam. The saints and popes saw with supernatural instinct that Mary’s fiat was not a footnote to Redemption, but the very human echo of the divine decree: “Be it done unto me according to thy word.”
From Benedict XV’s 1918 decree recognizing her “redeeming the human race together with Christ,” to Pius XI’s invocation of her as Corredentrice — the continuity is undeniable. It is written in the blood and tears of Calvary, not in the minutes of post-conciliar committees.
Yet the architects of Mater Populi Fidelis, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández and Rev. Prof. Maurizio Gronchi, would have us believe that all this is mere misunderstanding, theological “immaturity.”
Tell that to the saints who sang Stabat Mater dolorosa — the hymn of the Co-Redemptrix herself.
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