AS PAUL HARVY, OF HAPPY MEMORY, WOULD SAY: “AND NOW FOR THE REST OF THE STORY”:
Crux has a commentary on Cardinal Fernandez’s condemnation of the use of the titles of the BVM as Co-Redemptrix and Co-Mediatrix.
What I learned is that this document was completed during Pope Francis’ reign and Pope Leo has simply “rubber stamped” it with a less than full-throated approval. That’s very important to know and to understand.
Although linked in the moneybyte I post below, Delia Gallagher’s excellent and historic commentary on the press conference is a must read and I mean a must read!
Tucho's Travails
Thoughts from a Vatican Press Conference
DELIA BUCKLEY GALLAGHER
NOV 06, 2025
You can read the full Crux commentary by pressing the title:
New document about ‘Co-redemptrix’ opens hornets’ nest in Church
But here’s the best money byte from that commentary:
Of course, many will question the timing of the document, which was actually completed while Pope Francis was still alive (although Pope Leo XIV was a member of the Dicastery – as Cardinal Robert Prevost – when it was approved).
As for the timing: Benedict became pope 20 years ago; in all honesty the “Co-redemptrix” debate has somewhat died down after two decades. Yes, there were still people calling for the title to be made the “Fifth Marian dogma” but this was not widely spoken about, and not on the radar of the vast majority of Catholics.
Fernandez also complained that the embargo for the document was broken – however, it was sent to everyone in the media 14 hours before it was officially released: There was no way he couldn’t have known the embargo wasn’t going to be broken.
The real question is why the hornets’ nest would be shaken so early in Leo’s tenure.
Journalist Delia Gallagher claimed it came due to internal Church fights that had become common during the pontificate of Pope Francis. (Delia Gallagher is not a far-right loony toon and is often a go-to-reporter on Catholic subjects at the Vatican for CNN.)
“In short, I think a large part of the reason for this document is that Cardinal Fernandez is inordinately bothered by traditional Catholics. That he readily and at length singled out ‘these people,’ in his talk and in the document, is testament to this likelihood,” she wrote on Substack.
“Pitting traditional faithful against the ‘ordinary’ faithful was also a lamentable mark of Pope Francis’ style, and it is clearly replicated here in Tucho’s categorization of Marian enthusiasts who are disturbing the faith of ordinary Catholics,” Gallagher added.
Several commenters have also noted – some of them rather archly – how the DDF document says an expression such as Co-redemptrix “requires many, repeated explanations to prevent it from straying from a correct meaning, it does not serve the faith of the People of God and becomes unhelpful,” but its authors somehow fail to see how that observation may fairly apply to the way the term “synodality” has been met in the Church.
Other observers have noticed lack of approval by Pope Leo in forma specifica, meaning it wasn’t officially coming from the pontiff. That observation may strike outsiders as being of the hair-splitting variety. In many ways it is a matter of Vatican minutia, but it’s not wrong. It does make the position of the pope himself unclear.
And “unclear” is how the new pontificate will continue, until the projects begun by his predecessor come to a conclusion. Only then, will we be able to start to truly understand Pope Leo XIV.
1 comment:
This is a document sought and asked for by no-one. It sort of hangs in the air like a plastic bag in a tree: nobody really knows how it got there and nobody can be bothered to reclaim it.
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