Excavating ‘Mary, the Woman of Nazareth’ from the ‘Cult of Mary’: Post Vatican-II Marian Theology

inclusive feminism

Mary, as the Mother of Jesus - the axis around which the Christian religious traditions revolve, has always enjoyed deep reverence and respect amidst the people of all faiths especially Christians. Often she has been the point of criss-cross crawl across faiths. It is normal sight to find people of all faiths gathered in her shrines to obtain personal well-being. Traditional Catholic Mariology is responsible in building such this cult of Mary. With its titles ‘Mother of God’, ‘Queen of heaven and earth’, ‘Hail holy queen’, ‘Star of the Sea’, ‘Joy of Solace’, ‘Queen of angels and saints’ etc., the traditional catholic Mariology placed her juxtaposed to her son Jesus Christ. It made of her a mother goddess, gradually erected on the literal reading of scriptures and uncritical acceptance of the tradition.  This so developed that in the later years, nineteenth and twentieth centuries respectively, the Church proclaimed her as immaculate and free from any decay taken up into heaven body and soul. The devotion to her grew with new shrines and apparitions that confirmed this faith of the church. The opposition, from the Orthodox and the Protestant Churches to the exaggerated Marian piety, founded on the evidences in the scripture and history, during these years, were to no avail until Vatican II.

With the Second Vatican council the church gradually opened herself to the new insights in exegesis and the method in theology. These lead eventually to the fall of traditional Mariology. The foundations ones laid strong did not withstand the shift that occurred in Vatican II. The traditional Mariology which was typed on the triumphant Christology and Ecclesiology altered with the rise of the historic-critical exegesis, the developing hermeneutics and the existential method in theology.

Cecilia Heyen, in her article to show the spuriousness of the Scripture and Tradition on Mary - the foundations traditional Marian theology – writes,

Mary is mentioned in the scriptures but scantily. Paul doesn’t even mention her name, Luke and Matthew mention her in their infancy narratives. Biblical Scholars alert us to the fact that these narratives are by no means historical accounts but more along the lines of myths. In the Acts of the Apostles (1.14) Luke explicitly names Mary among the first believers assembled at Jerusalem, awaiting the coming of the Holy Spirit.  John gives prominence to her more as a theological reflection rather than a narrative account of Jesus’ life. The Didache (teachings of the twelve apostles in the early Christian community) makes no mention of her name. Views of Mary’s virginity (unbroken hymen and perpetual virginity) are first found in the Proto-evangelium of James (apocryphal infancy story dated AD 150). Her historical life remains a mystery that will probably never be solved; indeed a number of scholars have commented on the lack of information on which Mariology was built. Karl Rahner stated, “The Church does not know Mary’s life story.”

The earliest known artistic representation of Mary comes from a fresco of the virgin and child painted 150 AD […] first known prayer to Mary, Sub Tuum Praesidium, is dated from the late third to fourth century. The second century ‘Apostolic Fathers’ made no reference to Mary; however those who did write to Mary had Christological concerns. In 431 AD the Council of Ephesus gave Mary an ancient eastern title, Theotokos, or ‘the bearer of God’, to counter influences of Docetism (held that the human flesh is evil therefore Jesus passed through Mary’s body but not like a normal human being) and Gnosticism (Jesus’ birth did not pass the normal human process – emphasizing Jesus’ divinity). Maurice Hamington points out that the Theotokos title was commonly understood by Catholics to mean ‘The Mother of God’ and directly implied Mary’s divinity, thus giving more impetus to the growth of the Cult of Mary. [1]

Further in her article, she continues to show the allusion of virginity and then perpetual virginity to Mary in the Council of Chalcedon (451) and Fourth Lateran Council (649) following development of the doctrine of Original Sin by St. Augustine. Thereafter Mary is called as the New-Eve in contrast to the Eve who caused the fall of the human race. Heyen makes a note that the Augustine’s theory exerted major influence for the rise of later Marian dogmas, Immaculate Conception and Bodily Assumption.  The church has now began to see her as the first disciple and type of the church. Paul VI in his encyclical on Mary proposed an alternative Marian theology that views her from the perspective of the struggles of contemporary women. He called her ‘as the model disciple’. The journey in this direction gained momentum with the post-twentieth century theologies from the margins and the enthusiasm to extend collaboration with the other Churches.

Apart from these criticisms based on the factual/historical accuracy of the traditional conception of Mary, a major blow came from the feminist and liberation theologians. To name a few, Rosemary Radford Reuther, Elizabeth Johnson, Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Sallie McFague, Leonordo Boff, and Tissa Balasuriya. They critiqued traditional Mariology as patriarchal, feudal, capitalist, naive and andro-centric perpetuating slavery of the oppressed, domestication of women, injustice to the poor and inequality in society. Balasuriya for example, writes,

Mary has been made to fit into the tradition of the woman in feudalism and later on in capitalism. Throughout these ages the reflection on Mary has taken place mainly in the European countries and as far as the Catholics are concerned in South Western Europe. It has also been elaborated mainly by celibate clerics, monks and women religious. These have been largely cut off from the experiences and trails of the masses of the people. […] Throughout the centuries Mary has been presented as the ideal of Catholic womanhood that has had a position subordinate to that of the dominant male. Mary is seen as a the mother who stayed at home looking after the child and doing homely tasks. Even in her maternity there is no mention of a relationship to sex. She is the immaculate conception; born without any inclination of a carnal nature. She is said to have been a virgin before the birth of Jesus, in the birth of Jesus and after the birth of Jesus. Hence, Mary was presented as the ideal of womanhood that was not in any way tarnished by sexual relations.[2]

Feminist and liberation theologians pointed such portraits of Mary as a humble handmaiden, subservient further impoverished with dualistic understanding of God and the world, body-soul, matter-spirit, man-woman, rational-emotional etc., as wanting deconstruction. Besides, there is an extensive criticism of Eve-Mary parallelism that has demonized women as anything more than a seductive animal. Hence they envisaged a reconstruction of Mary that would present an authentic picture of Mary as the Jewish women of Nazareth, and relevant to the struggles of the women and poor of our times.  We find a sample in in Balasuriya’s Mary, A Mature Committed Woman. There are also extensive commentaries on the Magnificat attributed to her, in Luke from the perspective of the liberation of the suffering masses.This has been recognized as the new starting point of Marian theology which seeks the support of scriptures as interpreted by modern hermeneutics.  Thus there evolved new titles Mary, a Mature committed woman, Model for Women, a woman preoccupied with the Kingdom of God (liberative mission of Jesus). They project her as the critical symbol of compassionate love amid the struggles of history.  

Feminist theology further, has contributed to redeem the sexist/reductionist presentation of the divine. It aims to free Mary from the burden of being divine mother and goddess that we may know her as an exemplary human being,  a guide accompanying in our efforts to build the kingdom of God.

Final Note

A summary based on the course on Marian Theology by Sr. Margret Shanthi.

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[1] Cecile Heyen, “The Place of Mary in Catholic Spirituality” http://ww.acu.edu.au/ren/HEYEN1.HTM accessed on  19/12/2002.

[2] Tissa Balasuriya, Mary, A Mature Committed Woman (Mumbai: Seva Niketan) 1-2.