Autor: Little, Joyce

Buch: The Church and the Culture War

Titel: The Church and the Culture War

Stichwort: Theologie, Feminismus, Maria, Mariologie; marginale Rolle Ms. in Zeitgeisttheologie; Entsprechung: Mariologie - Christologie: "Mutter" Gottes - Mutter "Gottes"; Maria - Kirche; M. - Bild d. Frau

Kurzinhalt: ... to say that Mary is the Mother of God affirms that he is genuinely human, whereas to say that she is Mother of God affirms that he is genuinely divine in the unity of the one divine Person, the Logos or Son of God.

Textausschnitt: Chapter Six -- Feminist Autonomy vs. Marian Motherhood

125a One of the unhappy hallmarks of our age is that a certain rift has opened up between Mariology and systematic theology. One finds in most of the systematic theology being done today less reference to the Marian doctrines of the Church than one might come across in an ordinary Sunday afternoon of football viewing, given the commentators' enthusiasm for such expressions as "Hail Mary passes" and "immaculate receptions". A friend of mine several years ago joined an adult religious education course in her parish. She told me after the first meeting of the class that both the priest and the class as a whole were able to agree that no time need be spent on Mary, given the fact that Mary is quite irrelevant to the concerns of modern Catholics. (Fs)

125b This is singularly unfortunate, for several reasons. First, Church teachings on Mary complement and safeguard what we teach about Christ. There is no single teaching about Mary for which a corresponding teaching on Christ cannot be found, and in every instance those teachings have the effect of affirming in one way or another what the Church believes about Christ. Thus, for example, the teaching that Mary is the Mother of God corresponds to the Church's faith that Christ is the Son of God incarnate. It safeguards that teaching, because to say that Mary is the Mother of God affirms that he is genuinely human, whereas to say that she is Mother of God affirms that he is genuinely divine in the unity of the one divine Person, the Logos or Son of God. Second, Church teachings on Mary shed light on the Church, for Mary is the forerunner and archetype of the Church. Therefore, what we say about Mary's role in salvation has significance for what the Church is called to do in bringing salvation to the world. Finally, or so at least the current Pope would insist, Church teachings about Mary have particular application to all women, because in Mary we have a revelation of the specifically female role in God's work of creation and Christ's work of redemption. (Fs)

126a As John Paul II has pointed out in Familiaris Consortio, "Love is ... the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being" (11). At the same time, however, he has declared, "In God's eternal plan, woman is the one in whom the order of love in the created world of persons takes first root."1 For this reason, women enjoy a certain priority in the "order of love". In order to understand what this means, we must understand what he has to say about motherhood in general and about Mary's motherhood in particular, inasmuch as he finds in her life, and especially in her relationship to Christ as mother to son, a revelation not only of her role in salvation, but also more generally of the role of women in the "order of love". Before considering what he has to say, however, about Mary in particular and women in general, it would do well to bear in mind the kinds of views in wide circulation today among the feminists regarding Mary and women which are at least one of the occasions for the Pope's reflections in this area. (Fs)