Papal preacher criticizes Catholic ‘polemic,’ Protestant ‘rationalism’ regarding Virgin Mary
December 18, 2015
Father Raniero Cantalamessa, the Capuchin Franciscan friar who has served as preacher to the papal household since 1980, devoted his final Advent sermon to “Mary in the Mystery of Christ and of the Church.”
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On Fridays during Advent and Lent, the preacher to the papal household customarily preaches a sermon to the Pope and the members of the Roman Curia. The theme of Father Cantalamessa’s 2015 three Advent sermons is “Christ, the Light to the Nations: A Christological Reading of Lumen Gentium,” the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.
The three sections of Father Cantalamessa’s December 18 sermon, preached in the Redemptoris Mater Chapel of the Apostolic Palace, are entitled “Mariology in Lumen Gentium,” “An Ecumenical Perspective on Mary as the Mother of Believers,” and “Mary, Mother and Daughter of God’s Mercy.”
During his sermon, Father Cantalamessa preached:
[E]specially in the recent centuries, we Catholics have contributed to making Mary unacceptable to Protestants by honoring her in ways that are often exaggerated and ill-advised and above all by not keeping devotion to her clearly within a biblical framework that demonstrates her subordinate role with respect to the Word of God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus himself. Mariology in recent centuries has become a non-stop factory of new titles, new devotions, often in polemic against Protestants, sometimes using Mary-- our common Mother!-- as a weapon against them …
On the Protestants’ side, there is, I believe, room to acknowledge the negative influence that not only anti-Catholic polemic but also rationalism has had in their attitude toward Mary. Mary is not an idea but a concrete person, a woman, and as such she does not easily lend herself to be theorized about or reduced to an abstract principle. She is the very icon of God’s simplicity. For this reason, in an atmosphere dominated by extreme rationalism, she had to be eliminated from the theological scene.
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Further information:
- Fr. Cantalamessa 3rd Advent Sermon: Mary in the Mystery of Christ (Vatican Radio)
- Papal preacher devotes 2nd Advent sermon to call to holiness (CWN, 12/14)
- Papal preacher devotes 1st Advent sermon to Christ and the Church (CWN, 12/4)
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Posted by: skall391825 -
Dec. 18, 2015 6:56 PM ET USA
I really hope Francis will comment on this. If not, that will be a statement in itself.
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Posted by: ILM -
Dec. 18, 2015 5:26 PM ET USA
Pope John Paul II would never have tolerated this sermon. Father Cantalamessa needs to read “True Devotion to Mary” by St. Louis De Montfort more than 300 years ago. There he will read that the surest sign of heresy is indifference or antagonism for Mary. Martin Luther and other leaders in the Reformation had devotion to Mary that slowly disappeared as the new sects moved further and further from Rome.
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Posted by: feedback -
Dec. 18, 2015 9:40 AM ET USA
The Litany of Loreto was approved in 1587, and Father Cantalamessa could be a few centuries too late in his polemic about the Blessed Mother's titles being potential obstacle in our dialogue with the Protestants. All those titles actually reveal who Christ is and they have never been a problem in our relation with the Orthodox Churches. Today the biggest problem in ecumenical dialogue is understanding and application of Christian morality, which differs vastly between Catholics and Protestants.