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Oren
Guest
Tougher to follow the faith? Was it tough in the first century for all the martyrs? Give me a break. I’m not saying these dogmas have to be defined, but to say that is just ridiculous. Sorry.
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jimmy
Guest
It would make it tougher for many people to follow the faith. There are many people who do not agree with the dogma of Mediatrix of all graces. It would be a stumbling block for them. There is no reason to test them, and frankly, it would be a big mistake to do so. You could easily destroy someones faith in the Church by defining a dogma that does not need to be defined.
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Oren
Guest
Wheat and Chaff my friend. If their faith is destroyed by a dogma of the Church, then their faith wasn’t there to begin with. Believe me, I know.
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jimmy
Guest
Someone can have faith, but not completely understand. It’s not that they would completely lose faith in God. It is that they could lose faith in His Church, thinking that maybe it is not His Church, maybe His Church could be something else. Even if they do have little faith, there is no reason to push them further away. There is no point to define a dogma unless it is to destroy heresy.
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Oren
Guest
What heresy was the immaculate conception defeating? I’m really asking here cuz I don’t know.
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jimmy
Guest
None, and it has been a problem for people coming into the Church. I completely agree with the doctrine, but what would be accomplished by defining Mary as coredemptrix? It is only a test to peoples faith.
If they define it, I will accept the doctrine because the Church was made by God, but I see no reason for it to be defined.
By the way, your signature is the best passage of the bible. I love John1.
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Oren
Guest
Thanks Jimmy. It’s my fave too. But you see my point. You can’t talk about dogmas in relation to individual people’s faith, they’re dogmas and have nothing to do with whether you’re a protestant or a convert who is weak in the faith or even a Cradle Catholic weak in the faith. They have only to do with truth. There may be other reasons for not defining the dogma, I dunno I’m not the Pope or the Holy Spirit, but testing people’s faith isn’t one of them. God tests people’s faith all the time.
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jimmy
Guest
I see your point, I guess I just don’t agree with the idea that things should be defined unless it is necisary for some reason.
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st_julie
Guest
I read somewhere that the Immaculate Conception Dogma was to counter Darwin theories on evolution and the Assumption to counter communism. They are Ecclesiological.
st julie
st julie
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sherilo
Guest
Hello all,
I have been studying Catholicism on my own and attending mass for about a year. I will be in RCIA in the fall, and I still have lots to learn, so please excuse my ignorance. But, I am wondering where the push to have Mary deemed co-redemptrix is coming from. She is not a supernatural being, she is human. Are the lines getting a little blurred? I thank you for your help in understanding this matter.
Sherilo
I have been studying Catholicism on my own and attending mass for about a year. I will be in RCIA in the fall, and I still have lots to learn, so please excuse my ignorance. But, I am wondering where the push to have Mary deemed co-redemptrix is coming from. She is not a supernatural being, she is human. Are the lines getting a little blurred? I thank you for your help in understanding this matter.
Sherilo
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Lazerlike42
Guest
Well, the push is coming because some people have way too strong a devotion to Mary. A devotion to her is good, of course. Also, if the dogma were defined for a good reason, that would be fine too. However, the people pushing for the dogma aren’t doing so out of a really good reason other than that they are really (I say overly) devoted to Mary and want to have the Church say more about her, and make her more important.
Of course, the term coredemptrix has nothing to do with making her supernatural. There’s nothing wrong with the term, it’s just confusing the way it’s worded. All it means is that she cooperated with Christ in our redemption by agreeing to bear Him. Similarly, we all cooperate with Christ in our redemption by agreeing to follow Him.
(Please note that I am not being against Mary or people devoted to Mary. However, as I have said in the brown Scapular thread, I think that there really are a lot of people who take it way too far [like the people that have 50 portraits of the Blessed Virgin in their homes and not a single one of Christ!]. I feel these people actually do a great disservice to themselves and to the Church.)
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Gottle_of_Geer
Guest
If you really want to be upset, read Father Fehlner’s essay on the topic 
- it horrified me when I first read it 
One could always say that we go through Mary without realising it, because she is the neck: the problem there is, that for St. Paul, we go to the Father through Christ - in the Spirit. There is, so to speak, no reason to bring Mary in to this, in any special sense: I can’t see that the NT picture of of our access to God makes Mary any more important than it makes our grandmothers - she is as important, and as unimportant, as anyone else, in the mediation of salvation.
If the defence of her mediation is to be, that we are all mediators - itself a questionable assertion, since it is verbally at least a contradiction of 1 Timothy 2.5 - then one womders when the 5,000th dogma, of your own mediation, will be defined Why bother with Mary’s dogmatising mediation, and not ours ? There is at least an explicit basis in the Bible for calling Moses a mediator, and the angels: but not for calling Mary a mediator. So why not define the mediation of Moses, or of the angels ? ##Why Christ is our Saviour, is a complicated matter: IMO, its drawback is that while it upholds the sovereign freedom of God, it could be taken to the conclusion that, had God so chosen, He could have saved us by commanding us to sin. You aren’t saying that - your emphasis on God’s freedom could be taken to that conclusion. I think the question depends on a false choice, between God’s sovereign liberty, and whatever might be regarded as a curb on it. IMO, the solution to it is that God always acts out of Love, because He is Love: which means that our need, His righteous activity, His election of sinners for salvation, and His omnipotence, are perfectly satisfied by what in fact He did.
I have always said that Catholics don’t worship Mary, but this really seems to be coming so close that it’s impossible to see the line. I understand this is not a dogma, but it seems as though it soon could be.
Believe me, I am NO believer in Sola Scriptura. It is the most absurd idea in all of religion, in my opinion. What I AM a believer in is that anything that goes so far to CONTRADICT Scripture is wrong and sin. This, to me, contradicts Scripture.
Prove me wrong. Please?
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Gottle_of_Geer
Guest
Todd Easton:
Mary is nothing without God in any case - she can’t of herself move a finger to help herself, let alone us. Anything we have from Mary, is had from God far more than from her. As the Muslims rightly say, “God is Great” - and God alone.
BTW - does she mediate salvation for herself ? The people who want the “5th dogma” are very cagey about this - they don’t seem to give a straight answer. ##
Whether this leaves much for the Holy Spirit to do, is good question.
If the Western Church had had a stronger tradition of devotion to the Holy Spirit, instead of regarding Him almost entirely as a switch for turning on sacramental grace, we might not have so one-sided an emphasis on Mary - who has more or less taken over from Him.Mary is nothing without God in any case - she can’t of herself move a finger to help herself, let alone us. Anything we have from Mary, is had from God far more than from her. As the Muslims rightly say, “God is Great” - and God alone.
BTW - does she mediate salvation for herself ? The people who want the “5th dogma” are very cagey about this - they don’t seem to give a straight answer. ##
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Church_Militant
Guest
This has not been declared a dogma of the faith. There is much misunderstanding of what is really meant by it. I think I understand it, and it doesn’t bother me, but until the church speaks…it’s all just discussion.
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Gottle_of_Geer
Guest
Roman_Army said:
Let’s see:
Christ is our Mediator with the FatherMary is our Mediator with the Mediator
What next ? St. Joseph as Mediator with the Mediator with the Mediator ?
St John Baptist as Mediator with the Mediator with the Mediator with the Mediator ?
This is to turn Christian faith into Valentinian Gnosticism. The idea of Valentinus was that there were 365 Aeons, each further removed from God than the one before it - the Supreme God was removed from having to get mixed up in matter by all these intervening heavenly beings.
De Montfort’s Christ is too pure to be approached by sinners - so they go to Mary, who, like the 365 Aeons, acts as a buffer between creaturely insufficiency and the Perfect God Who is removed from having to do with siuch unpleasant matters.
Does the Jesus of de Montfort, whom sinners must not presume to think they can approach with going through Mary, sound like the Jesus who forgave Peter his triple denial ? Where was she when he said “Depart from me, Oh Lord, for I am a sinful man” ? (Luke 5). Where was she when the dying brigand said, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom” ? (Luke 23). Where was she when He was with publicans, sinners, Samaritans, centurions, and other undesirables and scum of the earth ? When some Greeks wanted to see Jesus, they asked Philip for help in doing so - not Mary. She wasn’t even the first person to whom He appeared after His Resurrection. To make his case, de Montfort has to ignore the Gospels and to allegorise Genesis 27. What sort of basis for her being Mediatrix or Co-redemptrix is that ?
Christ does not work *through *Mary - but she is made able to work with Him; as are we. As Paul says, we are fellow-workers with Christ - not beings who are far too unhygienic for Him to come to us. Christians work with Him, and are in Him, and are His Body: so how can there be a mediator between Christ & us ? He gives us a share in His Spirit, and in His own Life - what place is there for anyone to be “between” Him and us, when He is nearer to us than our very souls ?
There is one Mediator between God and men - and we are all fellow-workers in and with Him. None of us is better than the others, but all have received diverse gifts from God, that all may co-operate, each in his or her vocation, to the Glory of God and the building up of all, in the Kingly Rule of God through His Christ. ##
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Sarah_Jane
Guest
“There is but one Mediator as we know from the words of the apostle, ‘for there is one God and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a redemption for all’. The maternal duty of Mary toward men in no wise obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows His power. For all the salvific influence of the Blessed Virgin on men originates, not from some inner necessity, but from the divine pleasure. It flows forth from the superabundance of the merits of Christ, rests on His mediation, depends entirely on it and draws all its power from it. In no way does it impede, but rather does it foster the immediate union of the faithful with Christ.” (Lumen Gentium, Vatican II)
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Asking
Guest
what could happen?
could this be declared dogma?
could this be declared wrong?
could this be open and not binding , like thomists and molinists?
Myself, I dont have a problem with co-redemptrix, it is the same as mary second eve
what bothers me is mediatrix of all graces
could this be declared dogma?
could this be declared wrong?
could this be open and not binding , like thomists and molinists?
Myself, I dont have a problem with co-redemptrix, it is the same as mary second eve
what bothers me is mediatrix of all graces
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Church_Militant
Guest
Which also has not been declared Dogma.
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Genesis315
Guest
Why? If I pray for you, I am a mediator of the graces that God gives you as a result of my prayer. Mary loves us so much (as a good mother does) she is always praying for all of us non-stop so in that way she mediates all graces:thumbsup:
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JKirkLVNV
Guest
But sometimes we have to be careful that we don’t make it sound as though you HAVE to go through Mary to get to Jesus. I think this would blurr that a bit. When I entered the Church, I had no trouble with any of the Marian dogmas, because I didn’t buy Sola Scriptura. This bothers me a bit, as it seems to go beyond what the Church has said before. As far as “Co-Redeemer” meaning “with the Redeemer,” that doesn’t work well in English, co-pilot notwithstanding. Consider “co-chair,” for example, two chair people exercise joint or equal authority.
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