If the once princess of the people was able to say: “I would kill for my daughter”, won’t we, the favored sons of Mary, have what it takes to sing to the morning star, if necessary, that for our mother we are even willing to die? Could it be that we only have horchata in our veins now, and that those who have managed to get that infamous blessing approved will turn out to be the tougher ones?
Certainly, when speaking of making themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of the Heavens, Jesus was not referring to this bunch of amorphous and indolent bootlickers that the clergy has become, already incapable of standing up even for their Most Holy Heavenly Mother.
He who, throughout his most holy Passion, did not allow anyone to touch a hair on his blessed Mother’s head, is he going to stand impassively watching how now she is sidelined by the very ones who should promote and exalt her before the entire faithful people?
Are we going to have the audacity —which would already be having some— to explain to the parishioners, at the next solemnity of Spain’s patroness, that she is no longer co-redemptrix, nor mediatrix, nor intercessor, and that she will look very nice on the pedestal, but we will have to apply to her the saying that “you can see it, but you can’t touch it”? Because it’s already silly to address her even with this jocular prayer: “Holy Virgin, Pure Virgin, make them approve this subject”, to which she can respond more truly than ever: “Well, study, you cheeky one”, since, as now she cannot mediate or intercede, other than consoling —he who does not console himself is because he doesn’t want to— she won’t be able to do anything else.
I fear that, like the wise guy Tucho, who knows it all —even though he is the scapegoat that everyone picks on, because picking on him is free—, he has come out subtly, so as not to stitch without thread, but knowing that the key, to cook the frogs, is a slow fire, saying that, in private, those epithets can continue to be applied to Mary, just as Fiducia supplicans had unleashed the monumental scam of the difference between the doctrinal and the pastoral, when this is simply the disclosure of the former. Now more than one sacred orator will take advantage to, without having to show his face —but with more face than back—, switch, as if by chance, to the public sphere and continue with the inveterate custom of inflaming the faithful masses with the usual harangues and pious exhortations. But is it acceptable that someone who, to avoid problems —since life already gives enough problems—, accepts the conversion of Mary into a parliamentary queen of heaven, because she reigns but does not govern, no longer having faculty for anything, then deceives the sheep by taking them for sheep and making them believe that, in the end, nothing has happened and that, as always, everything remains the same?
What do you mean nothing has happened? Let’s be serious, please, we all have a minimum of experience, and if there’s something that doesn’t exactly fall in the lottery, it’s ordination. That’s why talking here about cognitive dissonance is an insult to intelligence, which must be presumed in everyone, even more than valor in the military.
We all know that the Marian titles are so intimately intertwined that they are like dominoes, in that if one falls, all the others follow. Therefore, if she is not co-redemptrix, Mary can no longer be mediatrix of any grace nor intercessor either, because the meaning of co-redemption and intercession is to bring the redeeming grace that Christ —who is thus the only Redeemer— won. That is precisely the difference between being Redeemer, and properly obtaining the redeeming grace, and being co-redeemer, and then limiting oneself to communicating it.
If asked why the same one who won the co-redeeming grace is not the one who communicates it directly, the answer is that for that reason salvation is not immediate, as Protestants think, but only heaven is immediate with the beatific vision; and in the meantime, God always uses a mediation as a prolongation of his own assumed human nature instrumentally, and that prolongation is fulfilled and expressed, in a visible way, through the Church, and in a mystical way, through the communion of saints, according to which we can influence others and even the entire body of the Church. But if that is applicable to all, who, as co-redeemers, mediators of grace and intercessors, can channel toward others the only redeeming grace won by Christ, does it turn out that now the same is vetoed for the one who precisely collaborated indispensably in the Incarnation of Christ —being the Mother of God— and very closely in the entire salvific work, as the New Testament manifests especially at the Cross and at Pentecost? Then, she who was the door opened wide, and through which came the one who is the source of grace, now is she going to be a dry channel through which no grace flows? Consequently, why ask Mary anymore, if she cannot intercede for anyone, when what is precisely expected from intercession is to obtain grace, which is always merciful after original sin? Evidently, the last part of the prayer that all generations of Christians have dedicated to Mary to fulfill her own prophecy in the Magnificat will have to be suppressed, because, barring new superior orders, praising her is still possible, but begging her has become as useless as preaching to priests or confessing nuns.
What a contradiction has been reached? And is no one going to deign to raise their voice, to safeguard the honor of the Mother, the firm faith of the Church, and the constant devotion of the faithful people? Will maintaining the comfort zone —because it’s very cold outside— be valued more than risking one’s neck for something in this life?
For the majority, everything is going to boil down, in my opinion, to this false dilemma: the cowardice of obeying without protest, and even self-censoring, to rise or at least not fall; and the hypocrisy of, adhering at each moment to what is most convenient, showing, that day, the face of the most intrepid Marianist before the people, and then the face of the most obsequious jellyfish before those above. Worse still, of course, is the second case, for what is hypocrisy but cowardice disguised as the most opportunistic prudence? That’s why hypocrisy is the exponential multiplication of a defect that is still pretended to be concealed as such, and even simulated as a virtue, and becomes all the more dangerous the more it strives to achieve its Machiavellian purpose.
The true alternative, however, is not there, but in being frank and consistent, for truth must always be non-negotiable for anyone who considers himself a disciple of the one who declared himself the Truth in person. And what is the truth now? To recognize, first of all and without mincing words, the obvious: that, according to the previous magisterium, Mary is, in a certain sense, co-redemptrix, and also mediatrix of all graces and intercessor (Dz 734, 1940a and 1978a), and that, according to Leo’s magisterium —Mater populi fidelis, n. 22 and 67—, she is none of the three things. Therefore, let’s be coherent and realize that the magisterium —which is the exercise of the teaching authority of the Pope, directed to the entire Church and assisted by the Holy Spirit— is not a simple matter of words, but of faith; and thus to relativize it is to undermine the very foundation of Catholic doctrine. That’s why one must believe in the reality that the magisterial words indicate. But, having recognized the obvious —what is in plain sight doesn’t need a lantern—, how can one be consistent with an inconsistent magisterium that is clearly contradictory?
Failing in due religious obedience to the ordinary magisterium (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 892) is a matter of mortal sin —for attacking the faith— and is only one degree below rejection of the extraordinary, which already implies excommunication, so I see no other logical way out, for one who does not want to delve into greater and arduous depths on Leo’s magisterium —for God forbid I advise anyone to go against their own conscience—, than to abstain, in the already imminent solemnity, from all verbal outburst as easy as it is sterile and to redirect all inner perplexity and unease toward its true intra-ecclesial channel: the formal complaint to the bishop. For it is the successors of the apostles who, taking to heart the primary obligation to watch over the deposit of faith, should request from Leo the pertinent doctrinal clarification.
Of course, the mysticoide and alienated mentality that appeals exclusively to prayer —which is always important, but not exclusive— will not be lacking, since it is already said that “to God praying and with the hammer striking”, and prayer that neither commits nor translates into behaviors dilutes into the pure fideism of inaction. Moreover, what prayer is possible now, precisely when the main recipient, after God, has been discarded? But, when it comes down to it, will there be enough battle-hardened guerrillas of absolutist Christ the King, who don’t let all the air out through their mouths like balloons, but are willing to stand up for their glorious Mother before the high spheres and to move, even at the risk of not appearing anymore in the photo of the official handsome ones? That is the timid doubt that will soon give way to the disconsolate certainty that, in the end, we are not even four cats, and on top of that none wants to be given a bell or a sanbenito, which, for the purpose, is the same. If we were not so gregarious nor so corporatist in our estates, another rooster would crow for us.