Column

A Mariology Too High

by Gerard V. Bradley

Jesus Christ, true God and true man. Begotten not made. One in being with the Father. We say so at Mass, and have for years. Those affirmations are so familiar, so settled, that we forget that for centuries after Jesus' Resurrection they were denied. During the great "Christological" controversies of the early centuries "Monophysitism" and "Nestorianism" plagued the Church. They were not bacterial diseases, but heretical accounts of who Jesus was, that in him there was just one divine nature (Monophysitism), and that he was really two persons, not one (Nestorianism).

"Mariology" - a compact term for beliefs about the Blessed Virgin, her role in salvation history and in the devout life - was not so controversial. Since the Reformation it has, however, been hard to speak of the differences between Protestants and Catholics without speaking of what Protestants call "Mariolatry," our alleged exaggeration of Mary's person and place. Some Protestants think Catholics have deified her. Not so. Mary is first among God's creatures but she was never "one in being with the Father."

Mary is a great unifying force in the Catholic Church. To cite just one example from my experience at Notre Dame, people who strongly disagree about many things Catholic - contraception, the role of the Magisterium in the life of this Catholic college - are attracted to the Grotto, the replica of Lourdes located near St. Mary's Lake. The Rosary is said there every evening. Any time -day or night, winter or summer - you will see people kneeling in prayer at the shrine, always illuminated by the hundreds of devotional candles that the faithful have lit.

Still, Catholics have never confused Mary with the Trinity. Mary, true God and true woman? You have never confessed that at Mass. If you ever stumble into a feminist pseudo-mass, you may be asked to. I hear that some feminists will soon speak of Mary not as Mother of the Redeemer, but as Co-Redeemer.

The source of my fear is a recent article in Theological Studies, a Jesuit scholarly publication. The author is Sister Mary O'Neill, R.S.M. She states her conclusion as "boldly" as she "can": "Jesus alone could not accomplish the redemption of all humanity." Are some of us unredeemable? No. Another redeemer must be posited, precisely to redeem those whom Jesus - a male - could not redeem. That co-redeemer would have to be Mary. Sister recognizes the implications of such a supposition: we will have to "revise all our theology"; apocryphal literature, teachings condemned as heretical "are to be brought into the work of doing theology, often on a par with or as a means to judge the authoritative texts" -like the Gospels. Maybe the Monophysites and the Nestorians will resurface in Sister's new church, this time as proponents of doctrines about Mary. At least Protestants now have a genuine target for their Mariolatry indictment.

Please do not advise Sister to plead "not guilty by reason of insanity." While I know not of another author who so "boldly" states this conclusion, I do think that it follows (if not logically, at least naturally or easily) from what a lot of feminist theologians hold. Let me mention just two tenets. One is an anthropology of "difference" between male and female so deep and broad as to make them two species. A man (Jesus) is thus incapable of redeeming women as, I suppose, would be a turtle (male or female?).

The second tenet is more insidious because it undermines the entire deposit of faith. Feminists like Sister Mary O'Neill preach a deep "suspicion of," even disdain for, the whole Tradition, including the New Testament and the infallible teachings of the Magisterium. Those texts cannot be a "authoritative" for Sister because they were produced by an "exclusively male group" within the Church. If not produced precisely to oppress women, that has been its main practical effect. Meditation on women's experiences is a necessary corrective to the patriarchy. And, make no mistake about it, this unsurpassable emphasis upon "experience" is heretical. It is the Modernism of Loisy and Tyrell in skirts.

Gerard Bradley is Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame and a regular columnist for Catholic Dossier.