After the preceding interview about the DDF’s document on the term “Coredemptrix” and other Marian titles, Fr. Manfred Hauke wrote a commentary on the topic for the German Catholic newspaper Die Tagespost. It appears here with permission.
A Conflict of Theologians over Mary
Only “Mother of the faithful people”? Why the Doctrinal Note about the Mother of God from the Dicastery on the Doctrine of the Faith calls for clarification
by Manfred Hauke
In the view of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, someone who invokes the Virgin Mary as “Mother of the faithful people” is doing everything right: at the start of November the document “Mater populi fidelis. Doctrinal Note on some Marian titles regarding Mary’s cooperation in the work of salvation” appeared.
For the Latin expression “Mother of the faithful people (of God)” the Note refers to St. Augustine, who speaks of how Mary “cooperated by charity that faithful might be born in the Church.” The singular cooperation of Mary in the Redemption is a leitmotiv of the Marian chapter in the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, which also cites the same passage from Augustine (at Lumen gentium 53).
The occasion for the Note is the Dicastery’s involvement with alleged Marian apparitions in which certain titles which can pose difficulties appear. Cardinal Fernández’s reference to the past thirty years in the prologue relates particularly to the Marian apparitions in Amsterdam, judged as inauthentic by the Dicastery, apparitions that spread proposals for a Marian dogma under the three titles of Coredemptrix, Mediatrix of all graces, and Advocate. This problematic demand was spread foremost through an international petition drive addressed to the public since 1993 under the leadership of the American theologian Mark Miravalle, which collected millions of signatures for the proclamation of a dogma by the Holy Father. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led at the time by Cardinal Ratzinger, also took up the issue, particularly in its meeting of February 21, 1996.
But more important than the efforts promoted in connection with Amsterdam are the initiatives of the Belgian Cardinal Mercier, in the last year of whose life (1926) begins the dossier with which the Dicastery was occupied. From 1915 on, Mercier and the Belgian bishops supported declaring a dogma about Mary as “Mediatrix of all graces” and reached an important stage on the way to that goal in the optional Feast introduced by Pope Benedict XV in 1921 under that very title. They were blocked from reaching that goal, above all by the considerations already expressed in 1916 by Fr. Alberto Lepidi, O.P., against a cooperation by Mary in the Redemption, which the Belgian bishops had described with the title “Coredemptrix”. These dogmatic considerations, however, have been largely overcome by the Marian chapter of Vatican II, which speaks clearly throughout of a singular cooperation of Mary in the Redemption (Lumen gentium 61). In the mystery of the Redemption Mary was, according to the witness of the Church Fathers, “not merely passively used by God”, but “cooperated in free faith and obedience for the salvation of men”.
The singular cooperation of Mary in the Redemption was summed up briefly with the word “Coredemptrix”. The Council’s Theological Commission described the term “Coredemptrix of the human race” and similar expressions as completely right (verissima), but did not use them in the prepared text, out of consideration for the Protestants (Acta synodalia, per. I, pars IV, 99). The references provided by Karl Rahner, S.J., during the Council are interesting. For example, during a subcommittee session in regard to the use of the title “Mediatrix” on June 3, 1964, the Jesuit emphasized: Mary is “mediatrix” and consequently also “coredemptrix”. Some days earlier he had also observed in the general session of the Council’s Commission on Faith and Morals that Lumen gentium (now in numbers 55–59) was presenting the doctrine of Coredemption (Laurie Olsen, Mary and the Church at Vatican II. The Untold Story of Lumen Gentium VIII, Steubenville, Ohio, 2024, p. 112 and note 627; also pp. 118 and 200, with long unknown evidence from audio-tape archives of the Council).
The most important problem for the reception of the document set forth by Cardinal Fernández is the fact that the Note criticizes the concept of “Coredemptrix” as “always inappropriate”, although the doctrinal truth expressed by it is recognized throughout: namely the singular cooperation of Mary in the Redemption. In the first press reports it was emphasized above all that the Note was taking a position against the concept of “Coredemptrix”, and also another important title, “Mediatrix of all graces”, with reference to, among other things, a statement by Cardinal Ratzinger from 1996, marked with a question mark.
The problem with this approach appears in an exemplary way in the Note’s two citations of probably the most relevant contemporary magisterial document on “Coredemption”, in the Marian Catechesis of John Paul II, on April 9, 1997. Its title reads “Mary as singular cooperator in the Redemption”. In it John Paul II distinguishes the specific cooperation of Mary, which extends maternally over Christ’s whole work of salvation, from the cooperation of Christians, which takes place after the sacrifice on the Cross at Golgotha. Mary herself is connected with the sacrifice on the Cross which merited salvation for all mankind. The Doctrinal Note takes up this distinction with a reference to Mary’s participation in the “objective Redemption” (in Christ’s work of salvation on earth), in distinction from her present-day influence on the redeemed. The original title of the catechesis, whose content is strongly influenced by the work of the Belgian Jesuit Jean Galot, read clearly “Mary Coredemptrix”; this can be understood in the context of John Paul II’s reference to the 15th century in which the title of “Coredemptrix” pops up for the first time, while the first explicit witnesses of any discussion of the cooperation of Mary in the Redemption go back to the tenth century. Apparently the title of the talk was changed prior to publication on the advice of the Secretariat of State, perhaps in order to avoid controversies over the title “Coredemptrix”.
The effort to set aside the concept of “Coredemptrix” is apparently already being minimized by Cardinal Fernández by means of the introductory remark that the Doctrinal Note is not intended to correct the devotion of the faithful People of God in any way. But that is where word of Mary as “Coredemptrix of the human race” became widespread, above all since the pontificate of Leo XIII, who approved an indulgenced prayer with that title. Since the 16th century the concept has been found among theologians and saints. St. John Henry Newman, recently named as a Doctor of the Church, defended the description of Mary as “Co-redemptress” against the Anglican Edward Pusey: If he, knowledgeable about the Church Fathers, recognized concepts such as “Second Eve”, “Mother of the living”, and “Mother of God”, these were even much stronger concepts than the title under criticism. There are also some possible misunderstandings with the title “Bearer of God” (Theotokos), a title which the Dicastery’s Note itself mentions as obvious despite Protestant objections.
The critical remarks on the concept “Mediatrix of all graces”, with reference to Cardinal Ratzinger’s name, are also astounding, because Benedict XVI expressly used this concept in his letter to Archbishop Sigismund Zimowski of January 10, 2013, and paraphrased its content in a homily for the canonization of the Franciscan Fra Galvão (May 11, 2007). On May 12, 2010 in Fatima, on the occasion of the Year of the Priest, he addressed Mary as “Mediatrix of grace”, “fully immersed in the one universal mediation of Christ”. Pope Francis also recognized the “old” invocation of Mary as “Mediatrix of all graces”, in his message to the Archbishop of Sassari in Sardinia on May 13, 2023. Much more could be said about the strengths and weaknesses of the Dicastery’s Doctrinal Note. In view of the questions already mentioned, it would really not be surprising if after some time something might take place similar to what happened after the document “Fiducia supplicans”, on the subject of various blessings, when the head of the Dicastery made a few clarifications.
The author is Professor of Dogmatic Theology at the Theological Faculty of Lugano, member of the Pontifical International Marian Academy (PAMI) and, since 2005, Chairman of the German Society for Mariology. The translation is by Richard Chonak (11/28/2025), and this commentary first appeared in Die Tagespost on November 13, 2025.
