Two parents have generated us for death; two parents have generated us for life.”
This is a statement St. Augustine proclaimed in Sermon 22. The parents of death are, of course, Adam and Eve—as they ushered in original sin and the Fall of man. And who are the parents of life? Namely, according to Augustine—none other than God and the Virgin Mary. It could be argued that Augustine is saying, at least on some level, that if Mary was called by God to partner with Him in the world’s salvation, Mary, properly understood, in union with God, is Co-redemptrix.
The Doctrinal Note
Of course, I am bringing this up in light of the new Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Doctrinal Note Mater Populi Fidelis, issued November 4 by the DDF’s prefect Cardinal Victor Fernández, with the approval of Pope Leo XIV, that rejects the Co-redemptrix title for Mary.
Articles 16-21 provide a detailed overview of the historical origin and use of the term starting with St. Bernard in the 12th century up to Pope Francis who “On at least three occasions…expressed his clear opposition to using the title ‘Co-redemptrix,’ arguing that Mary ‘never wished to appropriate anything of her Son for herself. She never presented herself as a co-Savior. No, a disciple’” (Article 21). This is followed by the following statement in Article 22:
Given the necessity of explaining Mary’s subordinate role to Christ in the work of Redemption, it would not be appropriate to use the title “Co-redemptrix” to define Mary’s cooperation. This title risks obscuring Christ’s unique salvific mediation and can therefore create confusion and an imbalance in the harmony of the truths of the Christian faith, for “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). 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 this case, the expression “Co-redemptrix” does not help extol Mary as the first and foremost collaborator in the work of Redemption and grace, for it carries the risk of eclipsing the exclusive role of Jesus Christ—the Son of God made man for our salvation, who was the only one capable of offering the Father a sacrifice of infinite value—which would not be a true honor to his Mother. Indeed, as the “handmaid of the Lord” (Lk. 1:38), Mary directs us to Christ and asks us to “do whatever he tells you” (Jn. 2:5).
The Note doesn’t say that the Co-redemptrix title for Mary is heretical but, rather, “inappropriate” and is discouraging its use for the reasons indicated. It is important to note that the document certainly acknowledges that Mary is “the first and foremost collaborator in the work of Redemption and grace.”
While, as the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine has pointed out, there are many other issues that the DDF should clarify and indeed this DDF has itself been the cause of confusion, this author would agree that the Marian Co-redemptrix title can be misunderstood—making Mary’s role in redemption equal to Christ’s. Moreover, any Vatican declaration that formally titles Mary as Co-redemptrix surely would further alienate Protestants who are already very wrongly repulsed by Catholic Marian devotion.
Church Fathers and Mary
Nonetheless, some of the greatest theologians going back to the earliest centuries of the Church spoke of Mary as God’s true assistant and partner in the economy of Redemption. It’s interesting and even pleasurable to see exactly what the Church Fathers had to say on this very point. Consider these examples:
We know that [Christ] before all creatures, proceeded from the Father by His will and power…and by means of the Virgin became man, that by what way the disobedience arising from the serpent had its beginning, by that way also it might have an undoing. (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 100)
Because Christ came “by means of the Virgin,” the disobedience of the first woman is undone.
The second-century Latin Father Tertullian similarly states:
God recovered His image and likeness, which the devil had seized, by a rival operation. For into Eve, as yet a virgin, had crept the word which was the framer of death. Equally into a virgin was to be introduced the Word of God which was the builder up of that life; that what by one sex had gone into perdition, by the same sex might be brought back to salvation. Eve had believed the serpent; Mary believed Gabriel; the fault which the one committed by believing, the other by believing blotted out. (On the Flesh of Christ, 17)
Tertullian seems to be saying that Mary’s “yes”—reversing the fault of Eve—at least was the start of the world’s salvation.
St. Irenaeus, the second-century bishop of Lyons, provides one of the most famous passages on the salvific role of Mary.
But Eve was disobedient…As she, having indeed Adam for a husband but as yet being a virgin…becoming disobedient became the cause of death both for herself and for the whole human race, so also Mary, having the predestined man, yet being a Virgin, being obedient, became both to herself and to the whole human race the cause of salvation…For, whereas the Lord, when born, was the first-begotten of the dead, and received into His bosom the primitive fathers, He regenerated them unto the Life of God. He Himself becoming the beginning of the living, since Adam became the beginning of the dying…And so the knot of Eve’s disobedience received its unloosing through the obedience of Mary; for what Eve, a virgin, bound by incredulity, that Mary, a virgin, unloosed by faith. (AgainstHeresies, 3,22,4)
And, though the one had disobeyed God, yet the other was drawn to obey God; that of the virgin Eve the Virgin Mary might become the advocate. And, as by a virgin the human race had been bound by death, by a virgin it is saved, the balance being preserved, a virgin’s disobedience by a virgin’s obedience. (Against Heresies, 5,19,1)
Both Christ and Mary are origins of life. Irenaeus states that Christ is “the beginning of the living,” but this is only possible through the Virgin’s obedience. The saint even goes so far as to say that the human race is saved by this Virgin’s obedience.
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