Frank R. Zindler

And just what is it that John Paul II is expected to declare? Why, the dogma that Mary is “co-redemptrix” with Jesus, and is thus an associate in his work of salvation. It seems clear to me, at least, that only a goddess would be able to fill that job description. Without doubt, Protestant Christians will agree with me on this point – and the Vatican knows this. While the Vatican is denying plans to elevate Mary to co-redemptrix, it has been unable to hide the fact that this has been under consideration by the Mary-worshipping pope. In fact, this so rattled church officials that an international Mariological Congress was held in Czestochowa, Poland, for the purpose of looking into the matter. Unanimously, the representatives from theological faculties and Mariological societies agreed to tell the pope that he should not promote Mary to co-redemptrix; a major reason was the backlash feared from other Christian denominations.

We can only hope the pope bucks the nay-sayers and converts the Trinity into a Quadrinity.  A four-person godhead would harmonize nicely with the four corners of the earth, the four winds, and the four cardinal humors that course within the bodies of all medieval theologians alive today. (I long ago gave up hope that some pope would infallibly declare the godhead to be composed of pi persons – thus constituting a pi-ety. Since pi is an irrational number, this has always seemed to me more appropriate than three.) Such an action could give the death-blow to Romanism, by being patently absurd even to Catholics – at least, to a majority of them.

Meanwhile, as plaque slowly builds up on the pontifical cortex, Catholics around the world are interacting more and more with the “Mother of God.” Her relics have never been more valuable, and “apparitions of the Blessed Virgin” are becoming almost commonplace. (There have been over four hundred sightings since the turn of the century.) As the Millennium approaches, the Virgin Mary even has channelers now – although they prefer to be called visionaries.

Not all sightings of the Blessed Virgin are given automatic approval by the church. Those of the Mother of God cavorting with Elvis and Liberace are automatically denied “authenticity.” Most of the “authenticated” visitations of Mary, unsurprisingly, are those she made with children. Thus, Maximin Giraud was eleven, and Melanie Calvat was fourteen when, at LaSalette in 1846, Mary interrupted their sheep herding in the French Alps. At Fatima (Portugal) in 1917, Lucia de Santos was ten, and her two cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto were nine and seven, respectively, when (on six occasions!) the Virgin identified herself as “Our Lady of the Rosary.”

Leaving aside the fact that children are always witnesses of high reliability – never confusing the products of their imaginations with the hard facts of reality – we may note what good fortune it was that the Virgin identified herself, instead of leaving it up to the children to figure out to whom they had been speaking. Being poor, the children probably didn’t have any old photographs – not even cheap Polaroids – of the Blessed Virgin to consult for purposes of identification. Still, one wonders exactly how the revelation played itself out.

Did she say, “Hi there, I am Our Lady of the Rosary”? Even in Portuguese, that would be a perplexing statement. Wouldn’t it have been more likely that she would have said, “Hi there, I am Your Lady of the Rosary”? Shouldn’t grammatical oddities like this have made church officials rule out Fatima as an authentic sighting?

According to Columbus Dispatch reporter Nancy J. Smeltzer (Nov. 28, 1997), “The church evaluates private revelations according to guidelines. Among them is that the person receiving the message is psychologically balanced, honest, moral, sincere and respectful of church authority. Money making must not be a motive. Theological and spiritual doctrines presented are free of error…”

Now one might suppose that anyone claiming to be a regular channel for the Mother of God would automatically be ruled out – for flunking the “psychologically balanced” criterion. But such seems not to be the case. In Elyria, Ohio, there is a woman who entertains apparitions of the Virgin Mary on the twelfth of each month – just like clockwork. The church has not showed any signs of disqualifying her on psychological grounds, although a priest of the Marianist order from Dayton regularly reviews her messages to make sure they don’t run counter to church dogma. The Diocese of Cleveland warns, moreover, that money given to the “Holy Love Ministry” of the visionary does not go to the Catholic Church. So there may yet be reasons for the church to disapprove of the Ohio seeress, but insanity most likely will not be one of them. Still, there is something piquant about a priest checking the Virgin Mary’s utterances to make sure they are in harmony with the Baltimore Catechism. What if some day she says, “Hi there! I’m Our Co-redemptrix of the Rosary”?