One question that just about everybody who becomes Catholic asks is, who is Mary for Catholics, according to the Church? Do you pray to Mary? Do you worship Mary? Another question is about the pope being infallible. Do you believe that everything the pope says or writes is infallible, that is, absolutely and irreformably accurate? I want address all of this questions in short order. So the answers, respectively, are: Mary is the Mother of God; Yes; No; No.
More seriously, it is important to note that since the dogma of papal infallibility was formally promulgated by Pope Pius IX at the behest of the fathers of the First Vatican Council, many would argue the papally coerced fathers of the council, there has only been one infallible teaching: Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven, which was promulgated by Pope Pius XII in 1950.
The role of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the
oikumene (i.e., economy) of salvation is inarguably important because being chosen as the woman through whom the divine and eternally begotten Son became human is important, to say the least. Another Marian dogma, her Immaculate Conception, was promulgated by Pope Pius IX (Pio Nono) in 1854, some years prior to his summoning of the Vatican Council I, which was never completed. With all that it is useful to define terms. As regards God, Mary, and the Saints the terms involved are all Greek:
latria= worship
dulia= venerate
hyper-dulia= super venerate
Latria is due to God and God alone.
Dulia is how we approach the Saints. Praying to the Saints is not exactly the same as asking someone else to pray for you, it is significantly more than that, but certainly stops well short of
latria.
Hyper-dulia is due only to Mary. It falls somewhere between
latria and
dulia. This status fully recognizes the unique role of our Blessed Mother in God's
oikumene (=economy of salvation).
By calling Mary our Mother as well as Mater Ecclesiae (Mother of the Church),
hyper-dulia takes on something of the status of the fourth commandment about honoring one's parents, falling as it does between loving God and loving neighbor. Because of her unique status, which is further set forth in the twin dogmas of her Immaculate Conception and her bodily Assumption, she is a unique mediator of God's grace.
Indeed, there's something about Mary. Of course, this can be tested by praying the rosary, by entrusting our intentions to her and seeing what happens, just as with the intercession of the saints.
Photograph of Michelangelo’s “Pietà” by Aurelio Amendola
Photograph of Michelangelo’s “Pietà” by Aurelio Amendola
