Hello and welcome to Mariology Without Apology. This is Dr. Mark Mirvalle. I am joined by my dear friend and colleague, Dr. Robert Festiggi, whose list of academic accomplishments would be so long, we'd have no time to talk about Our Lady. But since he's a humble man, he will accept. Just acknowledging him, he's got the chair of Systematic Theology at the major seminary in Detroit, Sacred Heart. So, Robert, thank you for joining us.
My honor, Mark. Thank you so much for having me. And we join in prayer through Our Lady's intercession for peace in the world.
Absolutely. Absolutely. That always has to be in our hearts. Exactly. So, we're talking today about ecclesiotypical Mariology. And I want to say a few introductory comments so that our extensive commentary can be put into context. First of all, there's great beauty to ecclesiotypical Mariology, asking the question, who is Mary in relation to the Church? And certainly, we've had an extension of this theme since the Council in very positive ways. But there's also a certain danger when ecclesiotypical Mariology, in a certain sense, usurps what is Christotypical Mariology. Who is Mary in relation to Christ? So, as most of you know, the standard understanding is that, and the classic understanding, is that Our Lady's relationship to our Lord, or Christotypical Mariology, must always be the foundation from which we can derive very beautiful and very important conclusions about Mary's relationship to the Church. But if those roles are reversed, if ecclesiotypical Mariology becomes dominant, then the great danger is we hesitate, both by presupposition and by application, to predicate things about Our Lady that we can't say about the Church. That's extremely concerning. And that would be, quite frankly, erroneous. When I woke up today, I did not look in the mirror and say, you know, I think I'm immaculately conceived. I'm sure, Robert, you didn't either.
So, there are certainly elements that are unique to the Mother that must always be cherished and celebrated, and acknowledged. And we'll see some strong pastoral reasons for this at the end of our theological analysis of this. Sometimes you'll also have, you'll find works that will make an occasional reference to Mary having certain elements beyond the Church. But it's really an 80 or 90% take of the opposite. They're allusions, but fundamentally the thrust is, and therefore the theological and pastoral conclusions are, that really Mary and the Church are two aspects of the same mystery. And this, I think, really calls for a clarification. So we are going to discuss, just as an example, a new book published by Emmaus Road Publications, and this is A Bride Adorned. This is Mary–Church Perichoresis in Modern Catholic Theology by Father John Nepil. And I want to say, again, both about ecclesiological, ecclesiotypical, or ecclesiological Maryology in general, and also particular about this text, which we're going to use as an example among others. There's some beautiful insights and important truths. The real issue is, A, does it give proper due, proper justice, proper veneration, proper acknowledgment of the truths about Our Lady that are absolutely unique, that do not bring us to a conclusion that they are two aspects of the same mystery, that no, Our Lady is a unique mystery of which the Church finds great meaning and modelship.
But we want to be very careful to not talk about Mary and the Church in such ways that we come with the theological nosegay after reading something that they're essentially the same. And that really does call us to make some clarifications. So again, it doesn't take away the book I've just mentioned, and we're going to use that as an example, but has some very good scholarship. It has certainly the best of intentions, and I think some also beautiful texts regarding Mary and the Church in ways that's a real contribution. I think it also, though, articulates some of the common foundational inaccuracies, quite frankly, or ambiguities that are common, which, lead to some of these conclusions, which therefore have to be checked, have to be examined. Robert, your comment on that long introduction?
No, I appreciate that, and I think Fr. Nepil’s book is well worth reading for all the good reasons you see, and he examines the relation between Mary and the Church. Mary is the type of the Church in some outstanding theologians. But I think it's important to understand that at Vatican II, there were these tensions. And a book by someone we know, Dr. Laurie Olsen, which Mary, the Blessed Virgin Mary at Vatican II, the untold story of chapter eight of Lumen Gentium, will be coming out probably early next year. But she points out that there were three tensions. One was where to place Mariology, whether within the text of the Constitution of the Church, which came to be known as Lumen Gentium. The other was over Mary, entitled Mediatrix. There were actually Fathers at the Church who didn't want to call Mary Mediatrix, so eventually, it was included in Lumen Gentium 62. And then the third was over Mary as Mother of the Church, which is kind of ironic. Some resisted calling Mary Mother of the Church, and actually, it doesn't appear explicitly in chapter eight of Lumen Gentium. St. Paul VI had to proclaim, or he decided to proclaim, Mary Mother of the Church on November 21st, 1964, when Lumen Gentium was affirmed. But I think that Mary is a type of the Church, but she's also the mother. And in that sense, she has privileges and a role in the Church that other members of the Church don't have. Now, Fr. Nepil acknowledges this when he's going over Cardinal Journet's Mariology, that Mary can't be subsumed in the Church.
But there is a part at the beginning where he talks about Mary's co-redemptive presence, but it's more like she's there under the cross as receiving the grace. Now certainly, but she received the grace of the redemption when? Dogmatically, we say at her conception.
So she was full of grace, and that wasn't the moment that she received it. This is the receptive causality of Semmelroth and others. But Vatican II actually rejected that in Lumen Gentium 56, that Mary had an active role in the work of redemption. But if I may, I'd like to bring in a very important theologian who became Pope, Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger. And as a fairly young priest, he was there as a paritus at Vatican II, and he's still in his mid-30s.
And then, right after the Council, he has the theological highlights of Vatican II, and where he discusses the Mariological question. He has some good insights, but again, they show that his major concern was ecumenism. So he talks about Mary in light of the mystery of the Church, and he says, in her own life, Mary appeared as the humble servant, exalted in her humility by God. That's certainly true. She exemplifies the paradox of grace that touches those who cannot accomplish anything by themselves. She personifies the Church of the poor, the Church that moves through history as a humble servant, and by that very fact, is in a position to express the mystery of God's promise and proximity. Mary also embodies the Church that sprung from the root of Israel, that carries the hope of the world, that secretly lives beneath its heart during this strenuous journey through history. Thus, the decision in the matter of Mariology did open the way to something positive. It may have brought us nearer to the time when it will again be conceivable that Christians of different denominations will understand one another on this particularly divisive issue. So in 1966, he was seeing, well, this choice to include Mary in the Church as the model of the Church, really the model of Christians, was a way of achieving ecumenical consensus on what he calls the decisive, the divisive issue of Mariology.
Well, I'd like to turn to what he says over 30 years later, and he co-authors a book, Mary, the Church at the Source, published in 2005 by Ignatius Press, but the German comes out in 1997. So just 31 years after he has his highlights of Vatican II, this is what he said, you know, he says, an additional factor was that the new ecclesiocentric Mariology was foreign, and to a large extent remained foreign precisely to those council fathers who had been the principal upholders of Marian piety, nor could the vacuum thus produced be filled in by Paul VI's introduction of the title Mother of the Church at the end of the Council, which was a conscious attempt to answer the crisis that was already looming on the horizon. In fact, this is the key quote. In fact, the immediate outcome of the victory of ecclesiocentric Mariology was the collapse of Mariology altogether. 
It's extraordinary. It's extraordinary admission of the tree and fruits to this, and yes, Robert, again, for many books, Mariological texts that are predominantly Christotypical, and sometimes they quote the Council as if it was the definitive word or was a clear directing that had to happen, it could be a little misinformed about the dynamism of what happened at the Council. And you know, there's Father Wiltgen, what he used to call The Rhine Flows into the Tiber, now it's the inside story of Vatican II as well, which made it very clear that, you know, the Rhineland theologians or the European Alliance theologians were in conflict with the Tiber theologians, which really represented, you know, much of the rest of the world other than Europe, but that ecumenism, as articulated by Karl Rahner, was really the principal reason why they made the adjustments they did. It wasn't this new insight about, you know, Mary in the Church, and we want a new unity for it in itself, it was by their own admission a concept that, as you just quoted Ratzinger saying, that would be more welcomed to Christians that have a difficult time. Now, we're certainly in favor of ecumenical goals and Christian unity, but not at the cost of truth. And so, I find too, in this text and others like it, a number of foundations, which really don't manifest an awareness of what took place. I mean, for example, even in one of these works, not important which one, but they mentioned, you know, Father Carlo Balic as a cardinal. Well, Balic was not a cardinal. In fact, if anyone had done, you know, the necessary reading to understand the background, Balic was the other, peritus, along with Phillips, who had to, you know, recraft this document.
And this was an ongoing battle for a council that had to conclude in 54, and really admit it's the only place this happens in the council, is we do not intend to give a complete doctrine on Mary.
What's being held in Catholic schools can be continued to be held. So, that tells us that be careful to see everything that happened at the council as if it's the final word or the definitive direction. That would argue against what the Fathers themselves said. And so, even the fact of a lack of awareness of Balic, it was nowhere near a cardinal, it was really fighting the fight for what Pope Benedict would call the hermeneutics of continuity, right? That there's got to be a continuity from the 2,000 years before the council. And, you know, as one author said, you know, the Church did not start in 62. Thank God for the council. Thank God for the council. But we have to be very important, very clued to keep the continuity. And again, some of these elements in the text, and some of the principles that I want to bring up and ask for your comment, do not reflect that continuity. They seem to take one side of what happens and to some degree even potentially reconstruct some of the historical Mariological texts to kind of fit into this. And again, certainly not intentionally done, but it's not the way we want to do Mariology, but it also doesn't bring the proper conclusions if we do respect the hermeneutics of continuity, which John Paul masterfully embodies. I mean, St. John Paul II is the ultimate authoritative interpreter of the council, and he comes out very clearly with the Christotypical first, then the Ecclesiotypical. And I found even in Father Nepil's summary, very little was given to St. John Paul II, who's the greatest Mariologist of the 20th century, let alone arguably greatest papal Mariologist of history.
Yes, I would certainly agree with that. And you know, some of the books written about Vatican II, they have an unfortunate description of Mariology prior to the council. I mean, by including Mary in the Church, it brought her in touch with the faithful, whereas before there was privilege-based Mariology, and she was just ornaments. This is a quote from a postscript written to a short treatise on the Virgin Mary by Father René Laurentin, who was there at the council, but that he was reflecting back, and he said, the reaction to the excesses and polarizations of the Marian movement continued along the same trajectory. Theologians, not only Congar, were shocked by narrow-minded Mariology. They perceived a crypto-Mariolatry.
Now that's an unfortunate description, and also Mariology was reaching a kind of peak prior to the council, the developments. And if you think of like the movement of Cardinal Mercier, to have Mary defined as Mediatrix of all graces, if she's the Mediatrix of all graces, the graces come to the faithful in the Church. It shows her intimacy with the Church. And the Mariology before Vatican II stressing her co-redemptive role is precisely stressing her indissoluble bond with Christ, and also as Mediatrix of all graces, her role as mother. And a mother is intimate with her children. It's not somehow putting her outside of the Church.
We deal with these cliches, unfortunately, all the time, saying that before Vatican II, Mary was outside, away from the Church. Have you ever heard this?
Yeah, I certainly heard them, and I want to make reference to a few of them in written form and get your comment, too. But as you were saying, and you went back to Semmelroth, many contemporary authors, including Father Nepil, seem to take at full take, if you will, they accept fully the German school of the 1950s. Well, Semmelroth's concept of Mary's passive role in the redemption, as you say, was completely corrected by the council.
And John Paul II has beautiful references about Mary's unique contribution with and under Christ at Calvary, and that it was active. And I think you have reference of one of St. John Paul's statements that we talked about earlier, but in September of 96, I think it was, or 97.
But there's many of John Paul's references that talk about Mary's unique contribution to the redemption of us all. That's not receptive. That's active. And guess what? The New Eve wasn't receptive. I mean the first Eve wasn't receptive either. She was active in her role as Our Lady is active in her role. 
Exactly, exactly. I have the quote from St. John Paul II, and it was September 17, 1997. And he's showing the foundations for Mary as Mother of Christ and then Mother of the Church. But this is what he says. On Calvary, Mary united herself to the sacrifice of her son and made her own maternal contribution to the work of salvation, which took the form of labor pains, the birth of the new humanity.
You see, that she didn't have labor pains when she gave birth to Christ. This is the tradition based upon Isaiah 66:7. But she had her greatest labor pains under the cross and giving birth now to the new humanity. He goes on to say, this is John Paul II, that in addressing the words, woman, behold your son to Mary, the crucified one proclaims her motherhood, not only in relation to the Apostle John, but also to every disciple.
So in other words, she becomes the mother of the Church through her co-redemptive role at Calvary.
That's where she has the labor pains of giving birth. But then she's taken up to heaven as Lumen Gentium 62 says, she doesn't lay aside her maternal munus or duty or office, but she continually brings us what? The gifts of salvation. So her motherhood of the Church is not just typological, it's active. 
And it's founded in her motherhood of Christ. And ironically, the council says this all over the place. You got Lumen Gentium 56, you have Lumen Gentium 58, which is a whole paragraph about Mary and co-redemption. And that she consented to the immolation of the victim born of her, that she shared the intensity of his suffering.
And then in Lumen Gentium 61, that because of their unified effort for the salvation of souls, for that reason, she is mother to us in the order of grace. Well, that tells us clearly, because she actively collaborated with Jesus in the work of redemption, always with and under, for that reason, she becomes mother to us in the order of grace. So I think, and I do want to get back to some of these early Church references that sometimes we find in more ecclesiotypical Mariologies that I think really need to be examined. But go ahead, Robert, you may have a comment on that. Yes, well, I would just make a point about Father Nepil. And again, there's so much good in this book, I would recommend people buying it. And he looks at Scheeben and Bouillet and Journet. And so I think it's well worth reading. But he's focused on Mary and the Church, Mary is the type of the Church. And then he's critical of Francisco Suarez, and also St. Robert Bellarmine, their concept, because it has a limited view of ecclesiology. But you see, I don't think it's right, it's fair to characterize Francisco Suarez's Mariology as limited. Certainly, popes didn't think so. Because the same pope who had that great encyclical on the mystical body of Christ, also cites a few years later, Suarez in his encyclical on the queenship of Mary. So this is a Pius XII, in Ad Caeli Reginam 1954.
So he says, now in accomplishing the accomplishing of this work of redemption, the Blessed Virgin Mary was closely associated with Christ, for just as, and this is a direct quote from Suarez, for just as Christ, because he redeemed us as our Lord and King by a special title, so the Blessed Virgin also is our Queen, on account of the unique manner in which she assisted in our redemption, by giving of her own substance, by freely offering him for us, by her singular desire and petition for an active interest in our salvation. So in other words, now Suarez also understands Mary as the mediatrix of all grace. But if you, this is what I don't understand, is this just typological? It's maternal. If she's mediating grace, she cannot be just assumed in the Church that she's mediating grace to. 
And we'll bring up some of the pastoral elements, you know, at the end. Let me point out again a few of these areas. I find, you know, perhaps most concerning and most troublesome is the introduction in the first chapter of this particular text. But again, that's not my goal. My goal is to talk about these principles as they tend to appear in these works. But let's just go over a few of these, Robert. So for example, quote, for the first thousand years of Christianity, Mary and the Church were united in the typological vision of the New Eve. That's simply not true.
They were not united. Look at Saint Justin, look at Irenaeus, look at Jerome. So it's a bit of an insertion of a presupposition to say that every time we see New Eve, it's both Mary and the Church as intended by the authors. Irenaeus never doesn't say, you know, Mary and the Church are the New Eve. Neither does Jerome, neither does that later tradition. So, and I know there's always a danger in doing this, and it's a challenge, but you have to be very careful to not have a presupposition and then find and then put that presupposition into text rather than let the text speak for themselves. And it would be all the way through, quite frankly, to Bonaventure to say that it would be incorrect to say that they are, when they say New Eve, it always means Mary and the Church. That is a, that's an artificial insertion into the tradition.
Let me give you one other reference here, Robert. Quote, Mariology was initially conceived as an ecclesiology. The two were seen as intimately connected, understood only in relation with one another. That's simply too far. That's not, that's not true. Now, is there a later growing understanding of the relationship? Beautifully, like people like Isaac of Stella, certainly, but to say that Mariology started as ecclesiology is that's, that's simply a historic error. It started with the New Eve with the person of Mary. And I find kind of typical of this is even the conclusion that, you know, the greatest 12th century Mariologist was Isaac of Stella.
Nobody believes that. Nobody holds that because what about St. Bernard of Clairvaux? Or even if you want to, you know, bring in, you know, the last part of the 11th century, St. Anselm into the 12th century. So I think these are just indicative of, you know, well-intentioned effort to bring support for presupposition, but it's not in the texts themselves. And I, I would see that as problematic. Yes. I mean, again, Isaac of Stella makes his contribution and he also was a disciple of Bernard of Clairvaux. And there is this bridal element and so on. All of that is beautiful, but I don't think for the first thousand years there, there, there was a developed, as you say, understanding of Mary, Mariology as intimately connected with ecclesiology. It was there maybe in, in embryonic form, but they were mostly, it seems like with, with St. Irenaeus quoted in, in Lumen Gentium 56, as the New Eve, she is the cause of our salvation. She's the cause of salvation for herself and the whole human race. And then in the Akathist hymn of around the sixth century, she's the bridge between us and God. And then the, the refrain, O Holy Theotokos, save us, that she has this redemptive element in her, in her powerful intercession. So that, that this, we don't, again, it's a beautiful thing. Mary, Mary as a type of the Church.
And it's true, but she's also the mother of the Church. And I don't see how the mother of the Church can be just simply a type of what she's the mother of. And why is she the mother of the Church? She's the mother of the Church because she's the mother of Christ. And the Church is the mystical body of Christ. A book that's not very well known is The Mystical Body of Christ by Venerable Fulton J. Sheen, written in 1935, which was eight years before Pius XII's encyclical on the mystical body of Christ. And where he has this chapter on the mother of the mystical body, he clearly roots it just like St. John Paul II in her, as the New Eve in her co-redemptive role, not in a typological role. So that he says here, a fitting parallel, you know, Mary and Eve, a fitting parallel indeed for a woman played such an important role in the fall of the human race. Then it was fitting that she be assigned no less eminence in its redemption.
Mary is the mother of the mystical body of Christ, the Church. So he clearly sees the foundation.
And then later on, he says, since she cooperated in the incarnation by her consent, she would also cooperate in the prolongation of the incarnation or the Church. So she, as mother, she cooperates in the redemption. She cooperates first in bringing the Redeemer into the world by her conception and birth of the Redeemer, uniting herself to him under the cross. So, and then he says, he is the Redeemer Christ. Mary is, and he actually had co-redemptrix.
But I checked this, what he was citing of Pius X, the actual word is reparatrix, but he sees it as equivalent. He is the Redeemer. Mary is the co-redemptrix. Christ is the head of the Church. Mary, the channel therein of Christ's graces. All benefits, all graces, all heavenly favors come from Christ as from a head, all descend into the body of the Church through Mary as through the neck of the human body, the head vivifies the members. Every grace given to the world comes by three steps in perfect order, from the Father to Christ, from Christ to the Virgin, from the Virgin to us. And, you know, we know where that is coming from. That's from the encyclical Magna Dei Matris, but it's part of the tradition. And so he clearly, here is this great theologian and venerable who links Mary's role as the mother of the mystical body, which we could, to her co-redemptive role. It's so clear. 

Right. No, absolutely. Robert, I'm just going to make reference to a couple more of these presuppositions that I think should be identified. And that's why I agree. There's some valuable things in the book and other books like this, but there also has to be a real awareness of the common and consistent theme of saying things like Mary and the Church are simply two aspects of the same mystery.
That, dangerous is a strong word, but I think there's a danger in that because it's taking the uniqueness of the mother in ways that don't benefit. As we've already said several times, ecclesiotypical mariology can be a real contribution, but not at the cost of Christotypical. That's not going to help the Church. So here's a couple examples in the text.
He's talking about the history. Mary became more and more elevated. He's talking about the history, you know, by the end of the medieval era, Mary became more and more elevated and thus more and more removed from the Church. That doesn't follow. I mean, if you mean elevated, that there was a greater love of Our Lady, and therefore the medieval basilicas and cathedrals had her images on the centerpieces, and they had a great love of Our Lady's mediation. But how was that removed from the Church? How are we defining that? I mean, to honor the mother does not take away her relationship with her children, and that's why here's the bottom line. Historically, personally, ontologically, biblically, there was one woman who said yes. She said yes before the Church, as we commonly refer to it, existed, except for her. And so she is mother of the Church because she preceded the Church, and that's why St. Peter Damian is right. Mary is mother, and the Church is child, and children have to keep their proper humility with that. It's not an equal role.
Just another reference. When understood in their unity as the New Eve, Mary and the Church, their paradoxical nature emerges, as does the importance of their shared maternity in the life of the Church.
And then he quotes Hugo Rahner, saying they can only be completely recognized only in and with the other. Well, thank God that wasn't historically the case, because a young virgin said yes, and that's how we got the Church. Just one more reference. You made reference to this earlier, referring to Our Lady's, quote, powerless fiat at Calvary. You simply can't say that.
It was an active, fruitful John Paul in, and again, I find that some of this, while it's immersed in resource theology, is not really mindful, let alone respectful, of the papal magisterium of the last three centuries. I'm not saying, Robert, that theologians aren't called to go forward, but they go forward also in respect for the foundations that are existing.
That's the hermeneutics of continuity. He also refers to Our Lady, Annunciation, Calvary, and Pentecost. Mary is present as the abiding and receptive helpmate. That's not the tradition. That's not the magisterium. That's not the council. So again, while I think, and even makes reference of, in Revelation, Mary appears as the Church. She appears not as mother, but as bride.
How can you say in Revelations 12, Mary doesn't appear as mother? You don't even have to say, even if you took the typological thing that the woman is the Church, she's still mother. She gives birth to the Son, and then she gives birth to the rest of her offspring. So again, well-intended, but you have to be very careful about not taking the text for what they say, but kind of inserting an ecclesiotypical premise to them. And that's why I'd say, yes, there's valuable things in here, but there's this ongoing concern with an ecclesiotypical element that doesn't give proper appreciation to the mother. And the reader should be aware of that as well.
Yes, exactly. I mean, as I say, these four theologians, Schaben, and Bouyer, and Journée, and Cardinal Leo, or Leo Scheffczyk, they're all very important. And they maybe made a good contribution to Mariology. Ecclesiotypical Mariology is very important, but it has to be rooted in Mary's role as the mother of the Redeemer, and her co-redemptive role. And if you don't have that, you're going to lose out. And as you pointed out, when there's a crisis like the pandemic, or the war in Ukraine, and now the war in Israel, do we appeal to the Church to intercede? We appeal to Mary, you know. And Mary is always united with Christ. This idea that she was somehow separate. You can't separate the Church from Christ because it's his body. The Church is his body. So we can't separate Mary. Like St. Louis de Montfort famously said, you are, O Lord, always with Mary, and Mary is always with you.
That's so important, Robert, because to elevate, to venerate, to appreciate the uniqueness of the mother does not separate her from the Church. In fact, in the order of grace, it only helps the Church be more like Our Lady. She's immaculate. We're not. And here's where we have to kind of get concrete, and avoid any type of kind of Humerian or even Platonic concepts of the wall. Here's the reality. The Church is in crisis. Mary's not in crisis right now, but the Church is in real crisis. The Church needs Our Lady. When Pope Francis consecrated Russia and the Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart, he didn't just say, we're going to consecrate Russia and the Ukraine to us. And that's why this is not just ivory tower Mariology.
It's not just to be critical of a well-intentioned and a scholarly work.
It can have major pastoral ramifications that we don't see the mother, uniquely Our Lady, the queen and mother of the Church, as the remedy in this time. But she is the remedy.
And that's just not things like Fatima. That's the reality of this moment. I found it challenging that when Pope Francis called us to pray and fast for Israel and Palestine, he couldn't even finish the paragraph with saying, let's let's pray a Hail Mary to Our Lady. And I think already people praying rosary and fasting and giving, bringing Our Lady into this situation, has already done major mitigation. But if we don't establish the clear uniqueness of Our Lady from us, then we're also not going to understand she alone is going to be the remedy. That's what she says at Fatima. God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart, not to all of our hearts, not just to the Church at large, to her uniquely, powerfully, immaculately. And so again, it's not just nitpicking Mariology. It's this can have major pastoral negative ramifications if we don't see the mother uniquely for who she is in ways that we could never be, although we long to be. In a mystical sense, the Church is spotless. In a real sense, we are not spotless at all. We need the mother. We need the grace. And that's why I also think the fifth Marian dogma is key to this. And if we can't acknowledge Our Lady as being our spiritual mother in ways that the Church is not, then we're not going to get the graces that will lead to peace. So I feel passionately that the theology has to be correct regarding the mother, and the acknowledgement of her uniqueness, even in the form of a solemn dogma, that that alone is going to allow her to uniquely intercede with her unique powers, to use it three times in one sentence, for the graces we need for peace in the world. 
Exactly. I agree. I agree. What we want is theological integration. So to take the insights of ecclesiotypical Mariology, but root them in the mystery of Mary's role in the work of redemption. And she was predestined for this role. That's what Pius IX taught in Ineffabilis Deus, 1854, what Lumen Gentium 61 teaches, that she was predestined by from eternity, by the same decree that determined the Incarnation of the Word. So we have to have the Incarnation of the Word before we have the Church. So in that sense, Mary causes the Church to come in. She's not subsumed in the Church. Now, to be fair, Fr. Nepil recognizes this, but it's more a case of emphasis. That's how I would see it.
And also some statements that certainly need qualification. Yeah. And I would say, even in that treatment of Journée,  Journéeclearly does respect Christotypical Mariology.
And I'm glad that it was referred to in one line in the summary of Journée, but I'm not even sure that is an accurate, full appreciation of Journée's Christotypical Mariology. I think many authors, Journée wrote a book on Our Lady as Co-Redemptrix, as it was translated into the Italian from the French. So beautiful, powerful, unique Marian participation in the redemption dimensions, and then a very rich Ecclesiotypical Mariology. You know, I'd say in closing too, Robert, if people say, well, that's just theologian versus theologian, I'd say you're going to default to something. Default to St. John Paul II. You want the ultimate Marian interpretation of what happens at the Council, go with St. John Paul II, A, because he's a saint, B, because he was there, and C, because he's the greatest Mariologist of the 20th century.
And you will see, even as we see it in Redemptoris Mater, his one encyclical on Mary, how does it, what's the structure? Chapter one, Mary in the Mystery of Christ. Chapter two, Mary in the Mystery of the Church. Chapter three, Maternal Mediation. So it's really a Christological sandwich with Ecclesiotypical Mariology beautifully done in the middle. But to say that, to uniquely attribute to the Mother elements that we cannot attribute to the Church, they are not two aspects of the same mystery. The Mother is her own new creation, which gives glory to God, and we've got to acknowledge that so we can be true, and we can try to be sanctified as a Church through her intercession as the co-redemptrix and the mediatrix of all graces. That's right. And John Paul II, as a bishop at Vatican II, said, well, if we're going to include the Marian text within the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, it should come at, like, chapter two very early, because she helps to bring the Church into being, which is actually why some of the Protestants were resisting the title, Mother of the Church. They said it would give, they said, well, it will give the idea that she, that somehow the Church comes from her. Well, that Christ comes from her, and the Incarnate Word, so you won't have the Church as the mystical body without the Mother of the mystical body. And to be accurate, just historically accurate here, the leading proponents of the Ecclesiotypical Mariology, Gerald Phillips, Laurentin, Congar, they were all furious when Paul VI stepped in and declared Mary Mother of the Church, because they did not accept the title. They wanted only that she be the first daughter of the Church. So again, just a little perspective so that we, again, we appreciate the beauty, and it is true beauty, what the Council said about Our Lady, but to take it as the final definitive word, that would not be the way to go.
And to see some of the leading figures, I mean, Congar literally said, if Mary causes any problem to Second Vatican Council, she should not be included at all. Well, that's not a balanced Mariology, is it? And that's certainly not a Mary and the Church, that's not a perichoresis type of comment between Mary and the Church. So again, just some realism, and then see the benefits of both, but always acknowledging what's unique about the Mother. Yes, and to the credit of Joseph Ratzinger, and later Pope Benedict XVI, he, looking back at the Council, saw how important that moment was when Paul VI declared Mary Mother of the Church. He was not opposed to that. He just was concerned. He wanted, he had these ecumenical concerns and so on, but I think he grew in his Mariology to close contact with that great Marian Saint, John Paul II. So to the point that Benedict XVI, towards the end of his pontificate, referred to Mary as Mediatrix of all graces. He hesitated on calling Mary co-redemptrix, but I don't know if he, with all due respect, I wonder if he fully understood the word.
And what I mean, especially since, you know, when he goes to Fatima and blesses the sick there as Holy Father, he says, I call you all to be redeemers in the Redeemer. Well, if you don't apply analogy to that, and that's not a biblical term, is it, in that sense of calling us all redeemers, and yet we're all co-workers with God. And so that's why it's ironic that he would say, well, it's not a biblical term, but in fact, neither is transubstantiation or infallibility, and all those take a lot of explanation. But I do, I mean, I so admire his humility in saying, look, tree and fruits, the fruit of Ecclesiotypical Mariology without a proper Christotypical Mariology as its foundation, cause the collapse of Mariology. We don't want that, you know, nobody really wants that. So anyway, Robert, thank you for your excellent analysis.
And again, we pray for a greater appreciation of the truth about the mother in relation to Jesus, and as it relates in the Church. And also, let's pray to Our Lady, especially for the situation that continues, the tragic situation in the land we call holy, that the Mediatrix of All Graces and the Advocate will in fact intercede for the world and for the Church, because we are children that need a mother, and thanks be to God, Jesus gave us that mother, and she can remedy the undoer of knots, can remedy things we simply can't as Church or as people of the world do on our own.
Again, Robert, thank you so much. God bless you, and thank you for our listeners and viewers for Mariology Without Apology. God bless you all.