Posted on 11/06/2026 1:19:28 PM PST by ebb tide
A year after the Vatican published its controversial instruction Mater Populi Fidelis, a group of leading Marian theologians has sent a new letter to Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández noting that he has yet to respond to criticisms they had made of the document last December.
The Theological Commission of the International Marian Association (IMA) also mentioned in their Nov. 4 letter to the Vatican’s prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) that other leading figures in the Church have since publicly criticised of the document, including former DDF prefect Cardinal Gerhard Müller, and Cardinal Raymond Burke, prefect emeritus of the Vatican’s highest court, the Apostolic Signatura.
Mater Populi Fidelis (The Mother Of the Faithful People of God) drew widespread criticism last year after it described the titles “Co‑redemptrix” and certain uses of “Mediatrix of all graces” as pastorally and theologically ambiguous, and discouraged their use in official teaching or liturgy, while not denying the truths they seek to express.
On Dec. 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the IMA published a detailed 23-page response, saying the doctrinal note “constituted omissions, minimalizations, or even in some cases contradictions of previous pre-conciliar and post-conciliar doctrinal Marian teachings.” After they received no response from the Vatican, the IMA followed up with a letter on March 19, the Feast of St. Joseph, asking Cardinal Fernández to respond.
In their latest letter sent on Wednesday, the IMA reminded Cardinal Fernández of their Dec. 8 correspondence, saying they had “identified several serious Mariological issues within your document and respectfully requested official clarification and modification.
“Unfortunately, we have received no response to date from your dicastery,” they added.
The IMA, which comprises 46 theologians including notable scholars such as Scott Hahn, Mark Miravalle, and Michael Sirilla, wrote that over the past year “numerous cardinals, bishops, clergy, theologians and faithful have also publicly voiced a similar call for clarification and modification to elements present in MPF that are difficult to reconcile with conciliar and post conciliar papal magisterial teaching on the Blessed Virgin Mary.”
They added that Cardinal Fernández himself had to offer a clarification three weeks after the doctrinal note was published, telling Vatican journalist Diane Montagna that the use of the Marian titles are “not always inappropriate” but would not be used in “official documents of the Holy See and liturgy.”
The IMA also criticised MPF’s teaching that the Virgin Mary has no secondary causal role in the distribution of graces, saying such a doctrine contradicts her ancient title of Mediatrix of all graces. Such a position they wrote, “cannot be reconciled with four centuries of papal teaching,” five encyclicals and part of Pope Benedict XVI’s papal magisterium.
“Beyond these titles themselves, Your Eminence, are the essential Catholic truths that these titles contain and convey: the subordinate and participatory co-redemption and mediation which are indispensable for authentic Catholic truth and life for the entire People of God,” the commission adds.
“Your Eminence, we again, in a true filial spirit of synodal dialogue, humbly request a response from your Dicastery,” the group writes in closing. “May we expect a clarification soon?”
The letter, published in full below, is signed by IMA’s executive committee.
His Eminence, Victor Manuel Cardinal Fernández
Prefect, Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith
Palazzo del Sant’Uffizio
00120 Vatican City State
November 4, 2026
Your Eminence:
One year ago, on November 4, 2025, your Dicastery released the doctrinal note, Mater Populi Fidelis (hereafter MPF).
On December 8, 2025, the Theological Commission of the International Marian Association, comprising 46 theologians from 18 countries, sent you a 23-page response to MPF, which identified several serious Mariological issues within your document and respectfully requested official clarification and modification. Unfortunately, we have received no response to date from your Dicastery.
Numerous cardinals, bishops, clergy, theologians and faithful have also publicly voiced a similar call for clarification and modification to elements present in MPF that are difficult to reconcile with conciliar and post conciliar papal magisterial teaching on the Blessed Virgin Mary.
For example, while MPF states that “the Co-redemptrix title is always inappropriate” (n. 22), Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former Prefect of your Dicastery stated in a recent Roman address: “When, therefore, Mary is called ‘Co-Redemptrix’ in Catholic piety and theology, this is neither a misleading attribution nor an enthusiastic exaggeration, but a truth objectively contained in Revelation” (October 8, 2026). Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, former prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, likewise stated “[t]he use of the term ‘Co-Redemptrix’ adds nothing new to the Church’s teaching, but rather coherently develops the expression of what the Church has always taught” (October 7, 2026). You yourself, Eminence, offered a clarification to MPF in a November 25, 2025 interview where you stated that the Co-redemptrix title was not always inappropriate, but with proper explanation could be used, for example, among friends and prayer groups; it would only not be used presently in official documents of the Holy See and liturgy.[1] Unfortunately, your clarifying comments were not officially promulgated.
As to MPF’s instruction on Mediatrix of all graces, i.e., that the Virgin Mary has no secondary causal role in the distribution of graces, (n. 65), this premise cannot be reconciled with four centuries of papal teaching, inclusive of explicit five encyclicals teaching, as well as the clear 2007 teaching of Pope Benedict XVI that “there is no fruit of grace in the history of salvation that does not have as its necessary instrument the mediation of Our Lady” (Homily for the Mass and Canonization of Fr. Antônio de Sant’Ana Galvão in São Paulo, Brazil, May 11, 2007).
Beyond these titles themselves, Your Eminence, are the essential Catholic truths that these titles contain and convey: the subordinate and participatory coredemption and mediation which are indispensable for authentic Catholic truth and life for the entire People of God.
Your Eminence, we again, in a true filial spirit of synodal dialogue, humbly request a response from your Dicastery. May we expect a clarification soon?
Respectfully in Jesus and Mary,
Executive Committee, International Marian Association
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