What did the popes say about Mary as Co-redemptrix?

The teaching of the Church on this topic has been clear and positive, especially since the late 1800's.

(PerMariam) — Despite the argument of Mater Populi Fidelis last week that the title of Mary Co-redemptrix is “always inappropriate,” the Church’s own teaching defends that title most clearly.

As is now most well known, Mater Populi Fidelis weighed into the Mariological debate and came down against the use of the term Co-redemptrix, despite the theology behind the title being consistently expounded and taught by the Church over many centuries.

Fernández: ‘Co-redemptrix’ title is not ‘appropriate’

Two prominent Mariologists have already critiqued the text, and to lend further weight to their arguments is the Church’s teaching on this topic from the last 200 years.

Below is an extract from the latter half of my book on Mary as Co-redemptrix, presenting the magisterial teaching from recent popes regarding the title. {Readers wishing to read the book in full may find the book online, published with an imprimatur, and a recommendation from Bishop Athanasius Schneider.}

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Teaching from the 1800’s

In defining the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, Pius IX issued the Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus (1854), containing a synthesis of Marian teaching regarding the Mother of God, of which some naturally pertained to her as Co-redemptrix. He refers back to the Fathers and their exegesis of Genesis 3:15, stating that: “They also declared that the most glorious Virgin was Reparatrix of the first parents, the giver of life to posterity.”

Here the pope uses the word which was employed by many medievals and equated with Co-redemptrix. His teaching was furthered by his successor, Pope Leo XIII, renowned for his multitudinous encyclicals and also styled as the ‘Rosary Pope’. In Jucunda Semper (1894), the pope refers to the rosary as being a thorough meditation upon Mary as the Co-redemptrix throughout her life: “In it [the rosary], all the part which the Virgin played in acquiring the salvation of men returns, as set forth and as having its effect now.”

In his brief meditation upon the Crucifixion, Leo XIII notes the proximity of Mary to the Cross and the meaning of such nearness:

“there stood by the Cross of Jesus His Mother, who, in a miracle of charity, so that she might receive us as her sons, offered generously to Divine Justice her own Son, and died in her heart with Him, stabbed with the sword of sorrow.”

Further he continues, in remarking how she is the mediator of man’s salvation: “To thee we lift our prayers, for thou art the Mediatrix, powerful at once and pitiful, of our salvation.”

In 1901, the pope taught that, “Every time we, with the angel, greet Mary as full of grace…we remember all the most singular merits by which She has become a partaker with her Son Jesus in the Redemption of humanity.”

Pius X and the start of the 20th century

Pope St. Pius X continued the use of such language in his encyclical, Ad Diem Illum (1904), which was released to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Ineffabilis Deus. The pontiff mentions that she has the office of, “presenting [Christ] for the sacrifice” and that “from this community of will and suffering between Christ and Mary she merited to become most worthily the Reparatrix of the lost world.”