Mediatrix, Mother, Woman

The Second Vatican Council ended already close to fifty years ago. One of the important aspects of this Council was the debate on the Virgin Mary. What were the issues? What has become of them today? Is this debate still relevant?

Let us first recall a few facts:

After the First World War, in Belgium, a large movement manifested itself to honour the universal mediation of Mary. Rome then approved a specific office for the feast of Mary Mediatrix that was set to May 31st.

A the time of the Council, in the beginning of the 1960s, a fifth of the delegates that were present waited for the definition of the mediation of Mary, that is 400 out of 2000. They wanted to present a separate document on Mary, to emphasize the importance that they gave her alongside Christ Redeemer. However, others rather preferred to emphasize the relationship between Mary and the Church, and in doing so leaned towards a more oecumenical meaning: Mary being among the faithful, although a privileged member of the Church, it was preferable, they claimed, to insert the text that concerned her in the treaty on the Church. This issue divided the assembly. At the vote, the partisans of the insertions won by 1114 over 1074. The text became Chapter VIII in the Constitution of the Church.
Chapter VIII does not specifically mention Mary’s title as ‘Mother of the Church’.  It is on November 21, 1964 that Paul VI took the initiative to proclaim this name.  During its proclamation, certain Fathers of the Council remained seated, although others stood up and applauded.  It must be said that there was, among many of them, a strong resistance to extend the maternity of Mary to all humans.  Did the title Mary, Mother of the Church, seem to go too far?  Why then such a declaration on behalf of Paul VI, he who, a short time before, when he was still cardinal, affirmed that he was absolutely against the mediation of Mary?  It would certainly have been interesting to discover why.
So, despite the strong Marian current of the pre-council years, the Council did not engage itself in the route of the definition of the mediation of Mary.   It preferred to take an average of the trends that were present, while keeping open, for the future, any research on the subject.

It is obvious that the Council did not have as an object to “propose a complete teaching on Mary”; “ the work of the theologians has not yet reached its final point.  All the questions are not yet resolved”, we can read in Mary and the Vatican II (P.18, and note 16).  It is in this book that is written by Henri-Marie Guindon in 1971 that I found out about the issues that animated the Council during the discussions on Mary’s mediation.  I read it in the context of a research on the issue of man-woman relationships, my conviction being that the advancement of humanity passes through the renewal of these relationships, and that this will happen via a reconsideration of Mary’s vocation.  Certain aspects presented in this book seemed problematic to me with regard to this issue.  They however allowed me to perceive the presuppositions of a theological nature in which can take root a certain distortion of these men-women relationships that affect the Church.  I will unveil a few of them here.

Who is the Greatest?

Right from the beginning of the first chapters of Mary and the Vatican II, we feel awkwardness.  Where do we situate Mary, what is her place?  I was able to retain the following three attempts to define her:
– «Does she take place alongside Christ… or simply among the faithful?» (p.15);
– she is inferior to Christ, but superior to the Church (p.19);
– « alongside the Redeemer figures discreetly this maternal Associate» (p.48).
In effect, the awkwardness is intensified if we understand the process that the language uses.  For the inferior (simply and discreetly) calls the superior.  However, that that is superior exerts a fascination of which it is discussed in the gospels: “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven”, ask his disciples (Mt 18,1); even the apostles “a dispute arose among them as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest” (Lk 22, 24).
This hierarchical logic conditions the manner in which we conceive the relationships and leads to phrases such as this: “Mary is therefore, by her nature, inferior, like us, in the hierarchy of beings, to angles” (p. 52).  The human nature inferior to the angelic nature… This affirmation by the author perpetuates, among others, the idea of superiority of the spirit over matter with all that this leads to in terms of imbalances, including, eventually, that which persists between men and women.
How do we get out of this dead end of superior-inferior?  A lead might be given to us by a theologian, Mgr Joseph Lebon, that by the way, Henri-Marie Guindon quotes: “The Christ and the Virgin are associated by God’s will, in the divine plan of Redemption, in a complete principal of salvation and of life for humanity” (p. 19).  This approach has the merit of surpassing the cleavage of superior-inferior, without as far as I know, camping in a constraining parallelism, Christ and Mary, have each their own vocation.

Restrictive Maternity

“Among all the titles that can be given to Mary, nothing expresses better who she is than that of Mother”, writes H-M. Guindon (p.65). The maternal aspect is without a doubt fundamental, but it is not the whole of the feminine vocation. In the case of Mary, feminine prototype, to limit her to her role of mother, as glorious as it may be, seems to me, to eclipse and thus to prohibit the full knowledge of her vocation, and by that, that of women. And that even more so, if we present maternity as a poverty: “ in the fundamental poverty of human nature, the maternity is another dimension of this poverty” (p.55).

The author of Mary and the Vatican II bases his affirmation on that of Saint Thomas Aquinas, to the effect that the generative power of the mother would be inferior to that of the father (p.55).  We can certainly question ourselves on the meaning and the implications of such a premise, but to present from the onset the maternity as a poverty taints inevitably the title ‘Mother’ attributed to Mary: the title becomes restrictive.

An attention to the language can also bring us to reflect upon the fact of using the word father to designate priests and that of mother to designate nuns. Is it, in this case, poverty to be a mother? Are the fathers superior to mothers? Certainly, we have moved to the use of brothers and sisters in the pastoral usage but there persists, in the sacerdotal attitude especially, a relationship of these versus the others and similarly in the man-woman relationship, the type of superior to inferior, that does not have its place between those who are fully baptized. The submission tied to evangelical obedience is of a completely different nature.

Futhermore, if there are fathers and mothers, there are sons and daughters. However, the mother-son relationship or the mother-daughter relationship does not cover the entire reality of human relationships in which women are engaged. How to consider, for example, the announce of the resurrection to the apostles via Mary Magdela first then to the other women? ‘ But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them” says Luke (24,11) Why this skepticism from the apostles? The women were not acting as mothers, so in what right were they?

Further on in the book, we see a restrictive effect of this insistence placed on the maternity in the manner in which the Marian catechesis is presented (p. 170). Mary is presented as if fulfilling an affective need for the child and the adolescent, and even for the adult (p. 173). Personally, I think that Mary’s presence goes far beyond the affective need. An so, does she act in a particularly effective manner among Christian adults in the full exercise of their fait and their baptism. I would say that her action is more effective than affective, ans this, a many levels.

Passive Maternity

We can find in the Tradition of the Church different titles that designate Mary. In researching the history of the title Mary, Mother of the Church, Henri-Marie Guindon reports the following: New Eve, Tree of Paradise, Arch of the Covenant, Jacob’s Ladder, Tabernacle of the Most High, City of God, Woman enemy of the Serpant, Women draped by the Sun. With respect to the Popes’ written works, he mentions: “Doctor” and “Queen”, for Leon XIII among others (p. 70).
The Council text that talks about Mary quotes the Scripturs: “ Woman, here is your son” (John 19, 26-27).  The word Woman is very important.  It is used in the Genesis and referred to by Jesus at two key moments, that is the Wedding at Cana and at his agony on the cross; that is at the beginning and at the end of his public life, which is very significant. H-M. Guindon himself highlights that the use of the word ‘Woman’ indicates a plan of relationship between Jesus and Mary other than that of mother (chapter V). But after having opened the way, he closes it immediately in only placing emphasis on the personal holiness of Mary, proposing her as model without truly acknowledging her active participation in the work of redemption. Mary remains passive, contenting herself with receiving graces of salvation.  

Passive? Would it be a side effect of the though of Fathe Guindon stipulating the poverty of maternity? However, the different titles given to Mary (“Jacob’s ladder, for example) seem to me to go in the direction of an active mediation, rather than an essentially passive maternity.

Conclusion

It seems that at the Council, the momentum towards a definition of the mediation of Mary was dampered by the ecumenical argument. Strangely, Cardinal Mercier, a pioneer in the beginning of the 20th century of the Anglican-Catholic rapprochement, worked to promote the mediation of Mary, sustaining that Mary Mediatrix would contribute to Christian unity. Far from harming, Mary Mediatrix would favour the unification of Christians; an even yet would bring a universal attraction for a renewed man-woman dynamic.

The ecumenical argument seems to hide a yet more profound and stubborn resistance, relative to the Church’s hierarchical structure. But the reticence of the ‘Fathers’ of the Council are also justifiable: the could express the premonition that the reflection on the subject was not yet ready, or rather, that it would lead to a new way that merited further in depth exploration.
What was proposed at the Council concerning Mary’s mediation implied a new vision of the insertion of man and woman in humanity and in the project of salvation. It was not ready yet at the time of Vatican II but it might be today.  Witness of this, these numerous films and contemporary literature… we are looking for the woman… who is she? What is her mission?
But the restoration of humanity on the move towards its accomplishment also implies a reconsideration of men-women relationships and a more dynamic and fruitful comprehension of all interpersonal relationships. It appears to me that a gesture was made in this sense at the opening of the Council.  John XXIII entrusted the Vatican Council II to Joseph, even offering him his papal ring. A gesture of such a reach is not indifferent. It cannot be the sign of John XXIII’s personal devotion, he who, by the way was also named Joseph. It is a gesture that revealed the Church’s aspiration, by the intermediary of the successor of Peter, to an aggiornamento not only of ecclesiological reflection or even Marialogical, but a reflection on the relationships between Joseph, Mary and Jesus, premises of the Church.

In this year of the faith, where Benedict XVI invites the Church to rediscover the Council texts, we can remember that they considered that new studies had to be undertaken, in particular to give new anthropological and theological bases for Marian reflections.

It is, certainly, a beautiful invitation to respond to.

This article was originally published in French on the website Tendances et Enjeu, December 12, 2012.

Sylvie Trudelle