Posted on 11/21/2025 11:27:53 AM PST by ebb tide
The Marian dogmas
To understand who the Most Holy Mary is, one must consider the six truths of faith that speak to us about her person, her role, and her actions. Of these six truths of faith, only four have been solemnly defined by the Popes as dogmas. Let us briefly recall them.
Beyond these dogmas, there remain two truths of faith which are recognized as such not only because they have been believed always, everywhere, and by all (these are the three conditions for a truth to be considered of faith), but also because they follow logically from the dogmas set forth above—though they have been contested by theologians and heretics of various factions, and although they have never to this day been formally defined in a dogmatic way by Popes or Councils. These two truths of faith are:
Mary is the necessary instrument, not the agent of Redemption
All Marian dogmas and truths of faith orbit—like planets around their star—around the first dogma, namely that of the Divine Maternity, because from it they flow and to it they are ordered. To understand well the place that Mary’s Co-Redemption occupies within this framework, it is necessary to recover some of the fundamental and crystalline logical notions of Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy.
Now, Redemption presupposes the Incarnation. The Incarnation, in turn, necessarily presupposes a figure who is distinct both from Christ God (the agent of Redemption) and from the human race (the material cause or subject of Redemption, which is also the matter of the sacrifice: Christ Man). This third subject is the Mother.
All things that exist possess four types of cause: agent, goal, matter, and form. To understand why Mary is, properly speaking, Co-Redemptrix, it is sufficient to ask what the four causes of Redemption are. The goal of Redemption is the recovery of the supernatural life lost because of original sin; its form, that is, the very definition of the redemptive work, consists in a sacrifice of expiation offered for every kind of sin.
Now, Redemption presupposes the Incarnation. The Incarnation, in turn, necessarily presupposes a figure who is distinct both from Christ God (the agent of Redemption) and from the human race (the material cause or subject of Redemption, which is also the matter of the sacrifice: Christ Man). This third subject is the Mother, without whom there is no Incarnation and therefore no Redemption. The causal relationship, then, between the Mother and Redemption is of the agent type but instrumental —or, stated otherwise: Mary is the means of Redemption. Yet this is not sufficient.
The necessary instrument of Redemption is a person; therefore, Mary is Co-Redemptrix.
The hammer and the saw are necessary instruments for the carpenter, but these instruments are not persons—that is, they are not beings endowed with their own intellect and will. Therefore, the hammer and the saw are not cooperators or collaborators of the carpenter. They are merely tools.
When, however, the necessary instruments are persons—that is, beings endowed with intellect and will—these persons are called collaborators or cooperators, that is, persons who work together or act together with the first and principal agent. The conclusion that follows from our reasoning is logical. If the agent of Redemption is God, and if the necessary instrument of Redemption is a woman who voluntarily offers herself as the Mother of the Redeemer, and if this woman is a person endowed with intellect and will, then it follows that this woman acts together with the Redeemer; that is, she is Co-Redemptrix.
The problem with those court theologians who deny the truth of faith regarding Mary’s Co-Redemption is linguistic and logical even before it is theological. In fact, the prefix co- precisely denotes union, participation, and simultaneity in actions and functions, without necessarily implying absolute equality (although, as we shall see, in Mary there is, to some extent, equality with the Son). Of course, there are situations in which the prefix co- does denote reciprocal participation—for example, the father and the mother are each the co-parent of the other, and vice versa.
There are, however, numerous cases in which the relationship is not bidirectional—for example, in co-pilot and co-founder. The pilot is the one who guides; the co-pilot is the one who assists in guiding. The founder of a company is the one who has the idea; the co-founder is the one who supports it with his own creative or financial contribution. It is in this latter sense that the co- in Co-Redemptrix must be understood: Mary is Co-Redemptrix with Christ, but Christ is not co-redeemer with Mary.
This truth of faith, which speaks of Mary as the necessary person through whom God carries out Redemption, is traditionally expressed by the famous Latin motto Per Mariam ad Jesum—“through Mary one comes to Jesus.” This is valid not only from the theological-historical point of view, but also from the mystical-spiritual perspective, as we shall soon see.
If Mary had been only functional to Christ’s birth, God—who is omnipotent—could have dispensed with her, choosing other ways. Instead, He freely willed her participation, not out of necessity but out of love and respect for the created natural order.
Mary’s work is necessary for the salvation of man: without her cooperation, Christ could not have redeemed the human species; and yet, this truth does not contradict the fact that it is not Mary who accomplishes Redemption. Just as, in our metaphor, the carpenter’s or blacksmith’s tools are necessary for the construction of certain objects, no one would say that it was the nail and the hammer that built the table, but rather the carpenter.
If Mary is not Co-Redemptrix, then God merely “used” a woman
If one denies that Mary is Co-Redemptrix, one ends up reducing her mission to the role of a woman simply “used” by God. But the Catholic faith affirms the opposite: recognizing Mary as Co-Redemptrix is essential, because Redemption passes through the Incarnation, and the Incarnation requires a mother.
If Mary had been only functional to Christ’s birth, God—who is omnipotent—could have dispensed with her, choosing other ways. Instead, He freely willed her participation, not out of necessity but out of love and respect for the created natural order. Gratia non tollit naturam, sed perficit. To deny this is to empty Mary’s figure, reducing her to a mere means without dignity and making incomprehensible the veneration that the Church pays her. It is, in the end, the Protestant perspective. Not by chance did St. Thomas Aquinas warn: parvus error in principio, magnus in fine—a small error at the beginning leads to great consequences in the end.
This makes us understand that the true reason which led the neo-modernist court theologians to publish this Note—one that betrays such great concern for the possible obscuring of the “uniqueness of Christ’s salvific mediation”—is of an ecumenical nature. In fact, according to Protestants and Muslims, Mary is indeed necessary for the birth of Jesus, but only as a docile instrument in the hands of God, like a hammer in the hands of a carpenter, not as a person endowed with intellect and will. A passive object, not an active subject.
From Mary Co-Redemptrix to Mary Mother of the Church and Mother of Grace
It has been said that all Marian truths orbit around the principal dogma, namely that of the Divine Maternity of Mary. As we have seen, Mary is Co-Redemptrix precisely because she was the necessary means that made possible the Incarnation and Redemption. Without Mary’s free fiat, it would not have been possible for the Son to assume human flesh. As has been said, God could certainly have redeemed humanity in another way, but since He chose this way—so that Christ might be for us not only the victim for sins, but also the Way, that is, the model of sanctity—Mary becomes necessary for Redemption.
The Marian truth of faith concerning Co-Redemption is, however, also the middle term for understanding two other, lesser Marian truths (there are several of this kind), namely those expressed by the titles Mother of the Church and Mother of Grace.
Indeed, since Mary is the Mother of God, and therefore Co-Redemptrix (as we have seen); and since the Church, as a human-divine institution, is Christ Himself inasmuch as it is His mystical or spiritual body; it follows that Mary is the Mother of the Church because she is the Mother of God.
Pope Leo XIII teaches that “the Immaculate Virgin, chosen to be the Mother of God, and for this reason made Co-Redemptrix of the human race, enjoys with her Son a power and a grace so great that no creature, whether human or angelic, has ever been able, nor ever will be able, to attain a greater.” [Editor’s Note: this is the faithful translation from Italian, but in the Latin original there is a periphrasis instead of the term Corredentrix. See here, p. 216.]
Indeed, with good reason, Mary may also be venerated under the title Omnipotent by grace, further emphasizing her close cooperation with the Son, the Omnipotent by nature.
If Mary is Mother of the Church, then she is also Mother of Grace, since grace is the gift of Christ’s love that sanctifies us. Being the Mother of God, and since grace comes from God (in a sense Grace is God, cf. John 14,6 where ‘life’ means ‘grace’), Mary is rightly called Mother of Grace. On the Cross, Christ uttered seven words, and one of these was addressed to Mary and to Saint John, “the disciple whom He loved,” the image of those who live in the grace of God by preserving charity.
“Woman, behold your son,” He says to Mary; and to John: “Behold your mother.” In so doing, Christ was declaring Mary the new Eve. Just as the first woman was called Eve because she was the mother of all the living, so Mary on the Cross becomes the new Eve, because she is the Mother of the true living.
Immaculate Conception and Co-Redemption of Mary
Why was Mary conceived, by a singular privilege of God, free from original sin both in its guilt and in its effects? Could not God have generated the immaculate flesh of Christ in the womb of a woman stained by original sin? Certainly. In fact, Mary herself, though she is the Immaculate Conception, was conceived through the sexual union of two persons, Saints Joachim and Anne, who were certainly stained by original sin, as were all the descendants of Eve.
Why, then, did God will that the Mother of Christ should be, like the Son, immaculate? To understand this, we must first grasp what kind of victim the redemptive sacrifice required. For we have already said that the definition of Redemption is this: a sacrifice of expiation for original sin and for all the personal sins of humanity.
After original sin, man had lost the greatest treasure, namely original justice and the life of grace—in a word, God Himself. Moreover, man had sinned, and therefore man had to make expiation. But since God is infinite, only a man capable of infinite merit could satisfy such a debt of justice as original sin. Thus, since original sin is transmitted from father to son, no man, burdened with the lowly dignity that resulted from it, could ever accomplish an effective sacrifice or penance. Hence, God, out of mercy, became incarnate—that is, He united His own nature, the bearer of infinite dignity, to human nature, in order to sacrifice in place of Adam and his offspring.
However, precisely because she is Immaculate, Mary can offer something of herself to God in sacrifice. What does she offer of herself? The Son. Only Mary can offer Christ to the Father as something truly her own, both because she is the Mother and because she is the All-Pure.
Now, human nature itself also had to be perfect in order for this sacrifice to be effective. Indeed, the nobler the victim, the nobler the sacrifice. For this reason, the humanity of Christ had to be conceived free from original sin, and the sacrifice had to take place at the best moment, that is, in the full maturity of His life. The lamb sacrificed by the Israelites on the night of Passover is an image of Christ: “a male, without blemish, born in the year, immolated at sunset”—that is, at the perfection or completion of the day.
In three places in the Old Testament we read the command, “do not cook the lamb in its mother’s milk,” which foreshadows the privileged relationship between the Divine Victim and the Mother—a relationship of intimate purity. Milk, in biblical language, is one of the symbols of new life and grace. Consider the way in which God describes the land of Canaan, a prefiguration of Paradise, as “a land flowing with milk and honey,” that is, with grace and truth. Not cooking the lamb in its mother’s milk means, in the deepest sense, not mingling the purity of the Mother with the suffering of the Son, as though she were a sharer in the sin that the Son expiates. Here we find a great prefiguration of Mary Immaculate.
However, precisely because she is Immaculate, Mary can offer something of herself to God in sacrifice. What does she offer of herself? The Son. Only Mary can offer Christ to the Father as something truly her own, both because she is the Mother (Jesus was woven in her womb with her biological and genetic material) and because she is the All-Pure. This condition of immaculateness allows the Mother to participate in the Passion of Christ in a perfect manner—indeed, we could even say, as a co-victim. In classical theology, it is also said that Christ redeems humanity de condigno, that is, by a dignity proper to Him, arising from His twofold human-divine nature; Mary redeems humanity de congruo, that is, by a certain equality. For Mary, as a woman free from original sin, is equal to Christ according to human nature, though not according to divine nature.
Pius XII teaches that Mary, “immune from every stain, both personal and hereditary, and always united with her Son, offered Him to the eternal Father on Golgotha.” Note well: I am not saying that Mary redeemed humanity, but that Mary perfectly understood, felt, and lived the pain that Christ endured—not only when He offered Himself as a perfect oblation for us all, but from the very moment of the Nativity, though without suffering in her body, but rather—just as intensely—in her soul. For this reason, we read that Mary “kept all these things in her heart,” that is, she meditated upon the supreme sacrifice of the Son, and through this meditation she suffered continually.
For this reason, the traditional liturgy of the Seven Sorrows of Mary (significantly celebrated on September 15, that is, the day after the Exaltation of the Holy Cross) says that Mary, “without dying, merited the palm of martyrdom beneath the Cross of the Lord.”
Saint John Paul II - a post-Conciliar Pope - in perfect continuity with the Tradition of the Church, recalled that Mary’s participation in the Passion of her Son was not merely affective, but an active collaboration in the work of Redemption. In the General Audience of September 8, 1982, he in fact declared: “Mary, though conceived and born without the stain of sin, participated in a wondrous way in the sufferings of her divine Son, so as to be Co-Redemptrix of humanity.” In these words of the Pontiff resounds the perennial doctrine that sees in the Immaculate Virgin not a mere spectator, but a Mother intimately associated with the redemptive work of the Son, “standing by the Cross,” as the Gospel teaches.
St. Pius X teaches as follows: Mary “had to guard, nourish, and present that Victim upon the altar [of the Cross] on the appointed day. Thus there was between Mary and Jesus a continual communion of life and of suffering, so much so that the words of the prophet may be applied equally to both: My life is consumed with sorrow, and my years have passed in lamentation."
St. Pius X, echoing this pious tradition, teaches as follows: Mary “had to guard, nourish, and present that Victim upon the altar [of the Cross] on the appointed day. Thus there was between Mary and Jesus a continual communion of life and of suffering, so much so that the words of the prophet may be applied equally to both: My life is consumed with sorrow, and my years have passed in lamentation. When the final hour came for Jesus, His Mother stood by the Cross, crushed by the tragic spectacle and yet blessed, because her Son was offering Himself for the salvation of humankind. Moreover, she shared so fully in Christ’s sufferings that she would have infinitely preferred to take upon herself all the torments of her Son, if such a thing had been possible.”
And indeed, St. Pius X goes so far as to say: “[Mary] became legitimately worthy to repair the ruin of mankind and therefore to dispense all the treasures that Jesus obtained for us through His death and His blood. Certainly, Jesus Christ alone has the proper and unique right to dispense those treasures, since they are the exclusive fruit of His death, He being by nature the mediator between God and men. Nevertheless, by reason of that communion of sorrows and anguish, it was granted to the August Virgin to stand beside her only Son as the most powerful mediatrix and reconciler of the whole world.”
An ambiguous and improper term?
According to the doctrinal Note, the title of Co-Redemptrix would be inappropriate “to define Mary’s cooperation” in the salvation accomplished by Christ, since “it can generate confusion and imbalance in the harmony of the truths of the Christian faith.” And further: “When an expression requires numerous and continual explanations in order to prevent it from straying from its correct meaning, it does not serve the faith of the People of God and becomes unsuitable. In this case, it does not help to exalt Mary as the first and greatest collaborator in the work of Redemption and grace, because the danger of obscuring the exclusive role of Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man for our salvation, the only one capable of offering to the Father a sacrifice of infinite value, would not constitute a true honor to the Mother.”
This fallacious reasoning should also lead one to recognize, among other things, the inappropriateness of other theological terms not explicitly used in Scripture and which, even from a historical perspective, have caused multiple misunderstandings and theological debates lasting for centuries—for example, the term Trinity when referring to God. Muslim theologians, for instance, even today do not understand the difference between the Trinitarian God and tritheism.
If one understands the authentic meaning of the term Co-Redemptrix, every difficulty vanishes. Far from requiring numerous and continual explanations! No Catholic theologian has ever understood this word to mean an absolute equality between Mary and Christ in the work of redemption, but certainly a participated equality, by virtue of the fact that Mary and Jesus share the same uncorrupted human nature, whereas any other human being does indeed share with Jesus the same human nature, but not at the same level of perfection—since all other men, including great saints such as Saint Joseph and Saint John the Baptist, were conceived in original sin.
This pronouncement—truly inappropriate and confusing, as well as erroneous—represents a significant obstacle to the process of solemnly proclaiming the dogma of Mary Co-Redemptrix. Yet neo-modernism will be defeated, like every heresy, precisely by the Most Holy Virgin, who is also venerated as Queen of Victories and Vanquisher of heresies. Then in the Church there will once again resound, as in ancient times, the motto: de Maria numquam satis — ‘of Mary one can never say enough.’ Whoever honors the Mother, honors the Son.
Ping
In short no.
There are, however, numerous cases in which the relationship is not bidirectional—for example, in co-pilot and co-founder. The pilot is the one who guides; the co-pilot is the one who assists in guiding. The founder of a company is the one who has the idea; the co-founder is the one who supports it with his own creative or financial contribution. It is in this latter sense that the co- in Co-Redemptrix must be understood: Mary is Co-Redemptrix with Christ, but Christ is not co-redeemer with Mary.
Is Mary the Mother of God?
The dogma of Mary, Mother of God (Theotokos), defined by the Council of Ephesus in 431, affirms that Mary is truly the Mother of God, because she gave birth according to the flesh to Jesus Christ, whose nature as true man is united—while remaining distinct—to his nature as true God. God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, One in Being with the Father, thru Him all things were made. Mary I learned was His Mother.
You took my suggestion for posting this thread. Congratulations. Let’s see where it takes you.
Let's see where your continued support of sodomy and sodomites takes you.
Of course not, since God never gives her that Title in Scripture.
That is getting off track though from the false dogmas you listed - unless you mean whatever you proclaim without scripture is true?
It’s funny how this was left out of the Bible. Pretty negligent of God to omit this important news. Otherwise people might get the idea that it is Jesus alone who saves. They may think it is the Blood of Jesus that saves them and never know Mary is part of salvation. In fact, after the crucifixion, she is never mentioned. The Pope should really give God an earful over this indignation.
I appreciate these sorts of posts.
They help me understand how the Pharisees came to be.
Agreed. Mary is not co-redemtrix, nor is she Latinx, nor is she Mucinex.
Ebb, awesome explanation. Thank you.
+3!
Is Jesus, her Son, God?
—> It’s funny how this was left out of the Bible. Pretty negligent of God to omit this important news.
This is why it is up to Mary to continually appear everywhere - to kids, in reflections on cars, in corn chips, etc. - too add all new things that were accidentally left out of the Bible.
Also to boost sales of wearable idols like the scapular.
Latest news is she’s renegotiating her public appearances contract to include a change of clothing.
Thanks for giving positive evidence to Cronos and Tucho that this pathetic "ecumenical kow-tow" was a huge failure.
What a bunch of CRAP!
Catholics demean Jesus with this “holy Mary CRAP. At the same time demeaning Mary herself who would not claim to be “Holy”.
This Pope said this, that “writing” (other than the bible) said that.
Try reading the bible instead of what some “MAN” said. The “pope” is not “God inspired”. He is just an old man, chosen by a group of other old men, with less holiness in them than the average sinner.
The BIBLE is all you need, along with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirt/Ghost.
Question: In the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirt/Ghost (Trinity) which one is Mary?
The gospels also only mentioned the “Peter/Petra” thang in Matthew. Something so relevant and pertinent to the formation of the early church was only mentioned once?
Supporting sodomy takes you right to Protestantism.
See how many Protestant churches officially support sodomy.
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