During the homily for the celebration of the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in St. Peter's Basilica, on December 12, 2019, Pope Francis uttered contemptuous words towards a title given to Mary by the Tradition of the Church.

Even if it is not a solemn or even ordinary teaching, the thing is properly scandalous: with an astonishing casualness, the vicar of Christ with the back of his hand swept away the title of Mary Co-Redemptrix. This rejection is impious since it is a settled tradition that has been taken up and developed by several popes, his predecessors, at least before Vatican II.

A Papal Homily

Francis, speaking without notes but according to a well-defined plan, explained several titles awarded to Marie. He gives three: woman - or lady -, mother, and disciple. He will add at the end that of “mestiza,” with reference to the fact that the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe appears, according to the usual interpretation, with the features of a young mestiza.

For the Pope, only these titles get to the essentials, while many others, such as those given in the Litany of Our Lady of Loreto, are more a reflection of popular piety. On the other hand, he resolutely rejects the title of co-redemptrix: “Being faithful to her Master, who is her Son, the only Redeemer, she never wanted to take anything for herself from her Son. She never presented herself as a co-redemptrix.”

At the end of this homily, pronounced on the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of his priestly ordination, Francis adds: “When they come to us with the story according to which we should declare this, or that other dogma, let us not get lost in nonsense.” Such is the translation by Zenit, a press agency close to the Holy See. Another English-language site with the same trend translates: “let's not get lost in foolishness.” The original, in Spanish - ne nos perdamos en tonteras - translates exactly: let us not get lost in foolishness.

Thus, it is clear that for the Pope, wanting to declare the Most Holy Virgin co-redemptrix, would fall under “foolishness,” a term which adequately translates his thought.

The Co-Redemption of the Virgin Mary

It is enough to consult any pre-conciliar treaty on Mariology, to realize the importance that the concept of co-redemption, applied to the Virgin Mary, has held sway in theological thought for five centuries. The popes themselves encouraged theologians, as well as the faithful, to better understand this title of our Heavenly Mother. It is enough to be convinced of it in recalling the words of the popes, from Pius IX, the Pope of the Immaculate Conception, to Pius XII, the Pope of the Glorious Assumption of Our Lady.

Pius IX

In the bull Ineffabilis Deus, which proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, Pope Pius IX writes: “Hence, just as Christ, the Mediator between God and man, assumed human nature, blotted the handwriting of the decree that stood against us, and fastened it triumphantly to the cross, so the most holy Virgin, united with him by a most intimate and indissoluble bond, was, with him and through him, eternally at enmity with the evil serpent, and most completely triumphed over him, and thus crushed his head with her immaculate foot.” If the word co-redeemer does not appear, the idea and its reality are well expressed.

Leo XIII

Several texts by Pope Leo XIII express this doctrine as well. Thus in the encyclical Supremi apostolatus officio (1883): “And truly the Immaculate Virgin, chosen to be the Mother of God and thereby associated with Him in the work of man’s salvation, has a favor and power with her Son greater than any human or angelic creature has ever obtained, or ever can gain.”

In an encyclical on the rosary, Jucunda semper (1894), the same pope teaches: “there stood by the Cross of Jesus His Mother, who, in a miracle of charity, so that she might receive us as her sons, offered generously to Divine Justice her own Son, and died in her heart with Him, stabbed with the sword of sorrow.”

In the apostolic constitution Ubi primum (1898), on the Confraternity of the Rosary: “When first, by the secret designs of Divine Providence, we were promoted to the Chair of Peter…Our mind at once turned to the great Mother of God, who was a partner in the work of man’s Redemption.”

Finally, in the encyclical Adjutricem populi (1895), Leo XIII gives the most complete expression of this co-redemption, by associating it with the Universal Mediation of Mary: “From her heavenly abode she began, by God’s decree, to watch over the Church, to assist and befriend us as our Mother; so that she who was so intimately associated with the mystery of human salvation is just as closely associated with the distribution of the graces which for all time will flow from the Redemption.”

Saint Pius X

This holy pope also evoked the doctrine of co-redemption in his famous encyclical Ad diem illum (1904), for the fiftieth anniversary of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception: “And from this community of will and suffering between Christ and Mary she merited to become most worthily the Reparatrix of the lost world (Eadmeri Mon. De Excellentia Virg. Mariae, c. 9) and Dispensatrix of all the gifts that Our Savior purchased for us by His Death and by His Blood.” The Holy Pope in turn highlighted the link between co-redemption and universal mediation.

During the pontificacy of this glorious pope, a decree from the Holy Office on June 26, 1913 praised “the custom of adding after the name of Jesus that of His Mother, our Co-Redemptrix, the Blessed Virgin Mary.” The same congregation granted an indulgence for the recitation of the prayer in which Mary is called “co-redemptrix of the human race” on January 22, 1914.