This devotion dates back to the Council of Ephesus (5th century), when Mary received the title of “Mother of God.” Over the centuries, popular piety expanded her figure to the point of almost divinizing her. The truth is that many Catholics idolize her, giving her more attention than to Christ, even insisting on the different local advocations. Hence the clarifying note from Cardinal Tucho Fernández, endorsed by León XIV, on “some titles and expressions referring to Mary.”
When the Dicastery for Doctrine of the Faith has nuanced the foundations of Marian devotion, discouraging the title of “co-redemptor” and at the same time reinterpreting expressions such as “mediator of all graces,” it has received outright rejection from the most integralist Catholic sectors who place it “almost at the level of the Holy Trinity.” Some on social media have even gone so far as to qualify the Vatican clarification as an “attack on the Virgin.”
It is not a matter of annulling popular piety, but of showing Mary removed from a mediating power parallel to that of Christ, as it is lived in some deeply rooted pious customs that forget something essential: she was a woman whose fiat was a supreme act of faith throughout her life, an example of universal importance alongside Jesus. I mean that we cannot forget the role that this incomparable woman had from her vital attitude, something that hagiography about her figure does not usually highlight. Let’s see:
Pregnant before marriage in a village like Nazareth. The birth of that special son… in a cattle shed with shepherds as the protagonists; that is, the most impure profession for the Jews. The flight as immigrants to Egypt. The agonizing loss of Jesus in Jerusalem, the violent rejection of his neighbors when Jesus returns to Nazareth preceded by his fame. (What a subsequent atmosphere would be created in the village).
Early, unsettling appearances of Jesus in his preaching, to the point that Mary and other relatives went to find him to bring him back home: Jesus’ response we know: “Who are my mother and my brothers?” On the other hand, Jesus becomes increasingly uncomfortable for religious power; he ends up being arrested, tortured, and killed on a cross, calumniated and despised by some and abandoned by almost all of his own. Yet, she was there, full of faith, before that human wreckage, in the midst of a hostile environment.
A life between chiaroscuros that question the root of their faith. What seems essential to me in all Marian devotion is to focus on Mary’s unwavering faith, on her example, and on her advice to “Do whatever He tells you.” That is where devotion should be centered, in that attitude full of faith against all hope that always refers to Christ, the supreme good of our life, the Good News for all. It is well understood that the Vatican’s intention is not to “diminish” Mary.
In definitiva, intercession to Mary is not adoration as a “co-redemptress,” but a means -mediator- to strengthen our faith, hope, and love by bringing us closer to the example of Jesus through her. The loving boldness that Mary had at the wedding at Cana, taking the initiative -do whatever he tells you- is the direct invitation to each believer to live according to the teachings of Jesus, as the servants did at that wedding.
Beyond her role as intercessor, Mary is a model of disciple, humility, and charity. Understood and lived in this way, Marian devotion (hyperdulia, as they call it) enriches us without displacing the Christological center of faith.
**Gabriel Mª Otalora**
English version translated with AI