(Second of two parts; click here to read Part 1)

In a similar spirit, in Mary Through the Centuries, Pelikan notes the seemingly paradoxical consequences of the encounter between institutional Catholicism and Mariology since the mid-nineteenth century. The modern age has yielded both an acceleration of papal pronouncements on Mary's status and a proliferation of her officially acknowledged appearances, hence both an upsurge of doctrinal initiative and of popular devotion. But, with the upsurge of feminism, it has also produced a full-scale assault on her as an appropriate, or even acceptable, model of womanhood. Pelikan does not discuss the feminist challenge directly. Rather, he focuses upon the challenge that the modern doctrines of Mary pose to the prospect for ecumenism. In Pelikan's view, both the immaculate conception and the bodily assumption offer arresting examples of the development of doctrine, the very notion of which offends most Protestants, so that "the doctrine of Mary proved to be one of the most important places to observe and test the processes by which great ideas have developed."

Pelikan regards Pius XII's promulgation of the dogma of the assumption in the bull Munificentissimus Deus in 1950 as "perhaps the most provocative illustration of the position of Mariology in its entirety as the most controversial case study of the problems represented by 'the development of doctrine' as a historical and ecumenical issue." Yet, precedents for official recognition of the assumption abounded. It had long been an object both of popular piety and of liturgical observance. Artists had often depicted Mary as Queen of Heaven with angels in attendance. It could, accordingly, be taken as eminently natural that the assumption evolved over many centuries from its popular and liturgical base into speculative theology and ultimately into an official dogma. But important complications clouded the issue, which Protestants saw as anything but natural.

When, in 1854, Pius IX had promulgated the dogma of the immaculate conception in the bull Ineffabilis Deus, he had become the first pope to decree dogma on the sole authority of the papacy. Only 15 years later did the first Vatican Council (1869-70) adopt the doctrine of papal infallibility, which then, retroactively as it were, confirmed Pius IX's action and opened the way to Pius XII's subsequent promulgation of the assumption. In this way, Mary's position within church doctrine became inextricably entwined with the power of the papacy. Thus the special place of the Mother of God within Catholicism and the infallibility of the papacy stood as the Magisterium's defiant response to the rising tide of modernity. For different reasons, neither the Protestant nor the Eastern churches accepted the doctrine of the immaculate conception, and Protestant clergy objected even more strongly to the promulgation of the assumption both for its doctrinal content and for its dogmatic authority.

Prior to the promulgation of the assumption, Protestants and Catholics had been making progress toward an ecumenical rapprochement with respect to both the authority of Scripture and the doctrine of justification by faith. Not surprisingly, they saw papal infallibility as an almost insurmountable impediment. But, many saw the very notion of the development of doctrine as no less daunting. Protestant theologians acknowledged that during the centuries many traditions and pious opinions about the death of the Virgin Mary had flourished, but insisted that, given the silence of Scripture on the matter, they lacked binding authority on the faithful. So, "to take these traditions and opinions and now to elevate them to the status of an official doctrine, binding on the entire church de fide and laying claim to the same authority as the doctrine of the Trinity, seemed to be completely presumptuous and utterly without biblical warrant." Even Protestant theologians who were more receptive to the idea of doctrinal development balked at the doctrine of the assumption. And some, Pelikan suggests, held a "basic aversion to the phenomenon of lay piety," which had played such an important role in the evolution of the Catholic church's positions on Mary.

In 1964, the second Vatican Council issued a summary, which Pelikan deems "balanced and evenhanded," of the main themes of the historical development of the doctrine of Mary. The council grouped its conclusions under five major headings: (1) The Role of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, in the Mystery of Christ and the Church; (2) The Role of the Blessed Virgin in the Economy of Salvation; (3) The Blessed Virgin and the Church; (4) Devotion to the Blessed Virgin in the Church; (5) Mary, a Sign of Sure Hope and Solace for God's People in Pilgrimage. The Theological Commission had initially contemplated a separate document on the Blessed Virgin, but the council ultimately decided that it would be dangerous to treat her in isolation, preferring to link her role more closely with their main theme, the church. They further sought to show themselves as equally avoiding, in their words, "the falsity of exaggeration on the one hand, and the excess of narrow-mindedness on the other."

There are many lessons to be drawn from Vatican II's formulations, which, as Pelikan reminds us, closely resemble the organizational principles of his book, but one outranks them all: The official position of Mary in Catholicism cannot be divorced from the general constitution and teaching of the church and is an integral part of them. Although Mary does not encompass Catholicism, Catholicism cannot be understood, believed, or practiced without her. As Pelikan insists, for the 20 centuries during which she has figured so prominently, "the person of the Virgin Mary is an indispensable interpretive key." Pelikan especially has in mind the importance of the Virgin in the arts and in popular piety, but he cautions against facile assumptions either that the common people necessarily believed what church councils legislated as dogma and liturgy or that what they believed necessarily differed from dogma and liturgy--"that the real meaning of popular religion is to be sought in the categories of race or class or gender or anywhere except in creed and liturgy." To which we may well reply "Amen," adding only that the same holds for the real meaning of all religion.

But as we have seen, in Mary Through the Centuries, as in Jesus Through the Centuries, Pelikan has chosen to write about the place of Mary and Jesus in history and culture rather than about their place in religion. The decision spares him from engaging the controversies that surround the place of Mary and Jesus in religion, but it nonetheless carries some troubling consequences. In emphasizing the place of Mary in history and culture, Pelikan is tacitly acceding to the postmodern insistence upon the imperative to "historicize" all aspects of culture and society. For true postmodernists, the point of "historicizing" is, above all, to expose the power relations that shape and inform culture, thereby exposing the works of culture as so many exercises in one or another group's defense of its interests and power. Under this leveling glare, the very notion of eternal truth melts away, leaving nothing more than a series of social "constructions." Indeed, Pelikan's emphasis in Jesus Through the Centuries upon the infinite varieties of Jesus in our own time precisely, if inadvertently, captures the postmodern claim that Jesus is never any more than individuals' or dominant groups' construction of him.

Many feminist theologians have enthusiastically turned the tools of postmodern cultural analysis against the Virgin Mary. Above all, they condemn what they view as the androcentrism and patriarchalism of Christianity. Emblematically, the fourth and most recent "Re-Imagining" conference began by inviting the participants to bite into one of the apples, piled in bowls on the tables at which they were sitting, in order to reclaim Eve and, with her, their right to the knowledge of good and evil. Catholic feminists share much of this general sensibility but, in Mary, have a specific focus for their complaints.

Insisting upon the social construction of all religion, Catholic feminists vent special rage against the image of Mary that, in their view, has been perpetrated upon women by a misogynist male hierarchy. They contend that Catholic moral theology has used Mary to guarantee "the perpetuation of compulsory heterosexuality, the valorization of virginity, and the denigration of female sexuality."12 Incensed by Pope John II's devotion to her, they insist that reverence for Mary as the virgin Mother of God imprisons women within the traditional feminine stereotypes of virginity or heterosexual marriage. The scope and intricacy of the attack exceeds my purposes here, although it should give Christians pause to see Jesus described as an "illegitimate child."13 Indeed, the prevailing feminist attitude toward Christian doctrine is well captured in Uta Ranke-Heinemann's title, Putting Away Childish Things: The Virgin Birth, the Empty Tomb, and Other Fairy-Tales You Don't Need to Believe to Have a Living Faith.

Mary's sexual purity ranks as an especially galling offense in the eyes of Catholic feminists, who believe in women's right to claim sexual freedom and pleasure for themselves. But her humility offends them even more deeply. Surely feminists have not struggled against the forces of patriarchy merely to see themselves once again assigned to the role of handmaid of the Lord. Obedience does not square with the ideal of liberation by which they measure the worthiness of religion. They reason that the contrast between the active nature of the male God and the passive nature of Mary condemns women to a hopelessly inferior position, since God and Mary create a pattern that shapes and is invoked to enforce relations between men and women.  To redress this injustice, they demand a share in the power structure of the Catholic church as well as a rethinking of the church's theology, ecclesiology, and pastorate.

And, increasingly, they are challenging the boundaries of membership in the church and, indeed, its very legitimacy. Maurice Hamington argues that just as "the Bishops of the United States could not write a Pastoral Letter on women with any moral force, neither will future definition of Mary by the Catholic hierarchy have much ethical muster." In his view, the "fate of Mary's power is now in the hands of women who will decide what role she should play, just as women are taking control of their own life choices."

Pelikan's notes confirm his familiarity with feminist scholarship on Mary, and he surely understands where the postmodern and social constructionist interpretations of Christianity lead. In the introduction to this book, he briefly reviews some of the feminist conclusions, noting "a widely held historical consensus that 'the theology of the Virgin Mary has not altered women's inferior status within the Church.'" And he quotes the verdict of the radical Catholic feminist Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza that the "Mary myth" has "its roots and development in a male, clerical, and ascetic culture and theology. . . . The myth is a theology of woman, preached by men to women, and one that serves to deter women from becoming fully independent and whole human persons." But having acknowledged the existence of Catholic feminists' hostility, Pelikan drops the subject for good.

We may readily sympathize with Pelikan's caution about intruding into the most heated and portentous debates of contemporary Catholicism, especially since they do not assume the same guise among Protestants. Most of the Protestant churches have already agreed to the ordination of women and the Episcopalians (in practice, at least) to the ordination of gays and lesbians; most do not take an official stand against abortion; and most have come to regard divorce as a fact of life. Protestants who accept neither the immaculate conception nor the assumption, who do not pray the Rosary, and who have no tradition of Mariology, may well congratulate themselves that, since they are acknowledging the equal dignity of women and men, Mary is not their problem.

This sensibility may help to explain Pelikan's decision to discuss Mary in historical rather than religious terms, as may his deep interest in ecumenism. But he seems curiously reluctant to acknowledge that his decision itself carries inescapable religious consequences. It strains credulity that the humility and obedience Mary embodies do not carry decisive implications for the nature of Protestant Christianity as well as for Catholicism. Pelikan notes that, at least until the Reformation, the life of Mary occupied a unique position in Christian education.

Each of the special Christian virtues--or, as they were often designated, "theological virtues"--defined in the New Testament, "faith, hope, and charity, these three," but also each of the four classical virtues--or, as they were often designated, "cardinal virtues"--defined by Plato and then incorporated into the deuterocanonical Wisdom of Solomon, "temperance and prudence, justice and fortitude," found a special embodiment in her.

And with respect to her humility and obedience, which so incense feminists, Pelikan quotes Saint Augustine, "All strength is in humility, because all pride is fragile. The humble are like a rock: the rock seems to lie downwards, but nevertheless it is firm."

How insistence upon one's right to wrest the knowledge of good and evil from God or to refashion the Logos to improve one's worldly standing can be described as anything but pride defies my imagination, not to mention centuries of Christian teaching. The feminists, to be sure, insist that they rebel not against God but against the men who have distorted Him (or Her) to suit their own purposes. But that argument carries within it the desacralization of Christianity since it reduces divine truth to a spoil in human struggles for power. It also throws a newly disquieting light on the germ of truth in Chesterton's aphorism about Mary's centrality to Christianity that Pelikan is loath to acknowledge. Significantly, Pelikan moves directly from his brief review of Catholic feminists' discontent with Mary to a discussion of the prospects for ecumenism, subtly suggesting that since Protestants are unencumbered with these problems, Catholic willingness to diminish Mary's doctrinal significance might facilitate ecumenical progress.

No, it is not becoming for Catholics to tell Protestants that ecumenical reunion will be on Catholic terms or on no terms at all. Nor is it becoming for any of us to pretend that human interests have played no role in the ecclesiological and doctrinal development of Christianity. They have--and not always in a spirit of Christian love and respect for all human beings. Women have reason to protest attitudes and treatment that have too frequently suggested their denigration. But no amount of legitimate complaints justifies the reversal of the essence of that faith, the substitution of the individual--man or woman--for God. For the essence of the faith does lie in humility and, yes, obedience, both of which are anathema to the spirit of our times. And, as Jesus taught, the practice of Christian faith does not come from compliance with the spirit of the times. In the words of Balthasar: "Faith is the surrender of the entire person: because Mary from the start surrendered everything, her memory was the unsullied tablet on which the Father, through the Spirit, could write his entire Word."

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese teaches history, literature, and women's studies at Emory University. Her most recent book is Feminism Is Not the Story of My Life: How Today's Feminist Elite Has Lost Touch With the Real Concerns of Women (Doubleday/Nan Talese).

Copyright(c) 1997 by Christianity Today, Inc/Books and Culture magazine.

May/June, Vol. 3, No. 3, Page 3

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