Several days after the Vatican released a doctrinal note advising against the use of Marian titles “Co-redemptrix” and “Mediatrix of All Graces,” Bishop Athanasius Schneider recounted how numerous saints, Doctors of the Church, and popes used these titles for several centuries — an explanation he relates through a statement titled “They Could Not Have Been Mistaken.”  

In remarks published Nov. 10 by Vatican journalist Diane Montagna, Bishop Schneider, auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, wrote, “It cannot be maintained that the Ordinary Magisterium, along with Saints and Doctors of the Church over so many centuries, could have led the faithful astray through a consistently inappropriate use of these Marian titles.”

The Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) issued a doctrinal note Nov. 4 stating that the term “Co-redemptrix” is not appropriate because it “risks obscuring Christ’s unique salvific mediation and can therefore create confusion,” as CatholicVote previously reported. 

The DDF added, “When an expression requires many, repeated explanations to prevent it from straying from a correct meaning, it does not serve the faith of the People of God and becomes unhelpful.”

In his statement, Bishop Schneider wrote that “Co-Redemptrix” does not pose a particular difficulty. 

“The term Co-Redemptrix, which by itself denotes a simple cooperation in the Redemption of Jesus Christ, has, for several centuries, in theological language and in the teaching of the Ordinary Magisterium, carried the specific meaning of a secondary and dependent cooperation,” he wrote. “Consequently, its use poses no serious difficulty, provided it is accompanied by clarifying expressions that emphasize Mary’s role as secondary and dependent in this cooperation.

The theological groundwork for the Marian doctrines of Coredemption and Mediation have roots in the writing of St. Irenaeus, a second-century Doctor of the Church, according to Bishop Schneider. 

St. John Henry Newman, proclaimed a Doctor of the Church Nov. 1, “defended the title Co-Redemptrix before an Anglican prelate who had refused to acknowledge it,” the bishop wrote. In the 1904 encyclical Ad Diem Illu, Pope St. Pius X wrote “a succinct theological exposition of redemption,” according to Bishop Schneider, who noted that Pope Benedict XV taught likewise in his 1918 apostolic letter Inter Sodalicia. 

Bishop Schneider noted that in a 1933 address to pilgrims, Pope Pius XI stated, “By necessity, the Redeemer could not but associate his Mother in his work. For this reason, we invoke her under the title of Co-Redemptrix. She gave us the Savior, she accompanied him in the work of Redemption as far as the Cross itself, sharing with him the sorrows of the agony and of the death in which Jesus consummated the Redemption of mankind.” He also cited several instances where Pope St. John Paul II used the titles mediatrix and Co-Redemptrix in referring to Mary’s role in redemption. Additionally, he noted, in a 2007 homily, Pope Benedict XVI said, “There is no fruit of grace in the history of salvation that does not have as its necessary instrument the mediation of Our Lady.”

Bishop Schneider wrote that the Marian doctrine of Coredemption and Mediation and the use of the two Marian titles have expressed the sensus fidei, the sense of faith of the faithful. The Catechism’s glossary defines sensus fidei as “a supernatural appreciation of the faith shown by the universal consent in matters of faith and morals manifested by the whole body of the faithful under the guidance of the Magisterium.”

Bishop Schneider wrote that the faithful, by following the traditional teaching of the Ordinary Magisterium — the teaching ministry of the pope and bishops in union with him — on these titles, “do not depart from the right path of faith nor from a sound and well-informed piety toward Christ and His Mother.”

Keeping in mind the teaching on the meaning and the proper use of these titles consistently offered by the Ordinary Magisterium “and upheld by numerous Saints and Doctors of the Church over a considerable span of time, there is no serious risk in employing these titles appropriately,” he later wrote. “Indeed, they emphasize the role of the Mother of the Redeemer, who, by reason of the merits of her Son, is ‘united to Him by a close and indissoluble tie,’ and is thus also the Mother of all the redeemed.”