The major figures of the Reformation honored Mary. Martin Luther said Mary is "the highest woman", that "we can never honour her enough", that "the veneration of Mary is inscribed in the very depths of the human heart", and that Christians should "wish that everyone know and respect her". John Calvin said, "It cannot be denied that God in choosing and destining Mary to be the Mother of his Son, granted her the highest honor." Zwingli said, "I esteem immensely the Mother of God", and, "The more the honor and love of Christ increases among men, so much the esteem and honor given to Mary should grow". Thus the idea of respect and high honour was not rejected by the first Protestants; but they criticized the Catholics for blurring the line, between high admiration of the grace of God wherever it is seen in a human being, and religious service given to another creature. The medieval Catholic practices of celebrating saints' days, making intercessory requests addressed to Mary and other departed saints, petitioning Mary for grace and protection, and various cultic elements such as the bearing of scapulars they have always considered to be
idolatry. Protestantism usually follows the reformers in rejecting the practice of directly addressing Mary and other saints in prayers of admiration or petition, as part of their religious worship of God. Protestants do not call the respect or honor that they may have for Mary
veneration because of the special religious significance that this term has in the Catholic practice.
Following the
Magnificat in the
Gospel of Luke, Protestants have always acknowledged that Mary is "blessed among women,"
[Lk 1:42] but they do not agree that Mary is to be given cultic veneration. She is considered to be an outstanding example of a life dedicated to God. Indeed the word that she uses to describe herself in
Luke 1:38 (usually translated as "bond-servant" or "slave")
[43] refers to someone whose will is consumed by the will of another–in this case Mary's will is consumed by God's. Rather than granting Mary any kind of "dulia", Protestants note that her role in scripture seems to diminish – after the birth of Jesus she is hardly mentioned. From this it may be said that her attitude paralleled that of John the Baptist who said "He must become greater; I must become less."
[John 3:30]
[edit] Roman Catholic view
See also:
Marian doctrines of the Catholic Church
[edit] Joint Anglican-Roman Catholic document
On May 16, 2005, the Roman Catholic and
Anglican churches issued a joint 43-page statement, "
Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ" (also known as the Seattle Statement) on the role of the Virgin Mary in Christianity as a way to uphold ecumenical cooperation despite differences over other matters. The document was released in
Seattle, Washington, by Alexander Brunett, the local Catholic
Archbishop, and
Peter Carnley, Anglican Archbishop of
Perth, Western Australia, co-chairmen of the
Anglican—Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC).
The joint document is said to seek a common understanding to help both churches agree on the theological reasoning behind the Catholic dogmas, despite Anglicans not accepting the papal authority that underpins them. Carnley has reportedly said that Anglican concerns that dogmas about Mary are not provable by scripture would "disappear", with the document discussing that Anglicans would stop opposition to Roman Catholic teachings of the Immaculate Conception (defined in 1854) and the
Assumption of Mary (defined in 1950) as being "consonant" with the biblical teachings.
Statue of Santa Maria Assunta, in
Attard,
Malta
by
Carlo Dolci, 1670
The "
Blessed Virgin Mary", sometimes shortened to "The Blessed Virgin" or "The Virgin Mary" is a traditional title specifically used by
Roman Catholics,
Anglicans,
Eastern Orthodox and
Eastern Catholics, and some others to describe Mary, the mother of
Jesus Christ.
The belief in the corporeal assumption of Mary was formally declared to be dogma by
Pope Pius XII in 1950. Pope Pius XII states in
Munificentissimus Deus: "We pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory. Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith." This is an example of an invocation of
papal infallibility.
The dogma does not state if Mary's
assumption occurred before or after any physical death. As stated by
Ludwig Ott (Bk. III, Pt. 3, Ch. 2, §6) "the fact of her death is almost generally accepted by the Fathers and Theologians, and is expressly affirmed in the Liturgy of the Church", to which he adduces a number of helpful citations, and concludes that "for Mary, death, in consequence of her freedom from original sin and from personal sin, was not a consequence of punishment of sin. However, it seems fitting that Mary's body, which was by nature mortal, should be, in conformity with that of her Divine Son, subject to the general law of death." In keeping with the historical consensus of the Church, Pius XII himself almost certainly rejected the notion of Mary's "immortality" (the idea that she never suffered death), preferring the more widely accepted understanding that her assumption took place
after her physical death. The Feast of the Assumption is celebrated on August 15.
In a less dogmatic context, the Roman Catholic tradition also has a more pronounced emphasis on
Acts of Reparation and the
Sorrows of Mary and a number of prayers for this purpose appear in the official
Raccolta Catholic