Part 2 of Mark Shea's Zenit Interview on Mariology
Mark Shea: Mariology From A-Z (Part 2)
Former Protestant Comments on Mary and Ecumenism
By Annamarie Adkins
SEATTLE, Washington, JULY 17, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Even though the early Protestant Reformers praised the Virgin Mary -- some even had a great devotion to her -- Catholic Marian doctrine has become a stumbling block for many Protestants and divided Christians for over four centuries.
Now, however, some Protestants are rediscovering the Blessed Mother, reinvigorating conversations between Catholics and Protestants about her role in the life and faith of the Church.
Mark Shea decided to provide a comprehensive resource for this dialogue, and the result is "Mary, Mother of the Son," a three-volume work of apologetics published by Catholic Answers.
Shea is senior content editor at Catholic Exchange. In addition to his role as a popular Catholic blogger, speaker, and writer, Shea is the star of an upcoming motion picture -- an adaptation of G.K. Chesterton's novel "Manalive."
He spoke with ZENIT about why attacks on the Mother of God are really attacks on Christ and His Church.
Part 1 of this interview appeared Thursday.
ZENIT: Why is Mary such a stumbling block to Christian unity? Shouldn't all Christians at least be able to unite around their Mother?
Shea: They should, but they haven't for roughly four centuries. There's hope in that number however, because it means that hostility to and fear of Mary is, historically speaking, a very recent phenomenon and one that really only took off well after the Reformation began.
Many of the Reformers had a profound devotion to Mary and, in fact, accepted much of Catholic teaching about her. However, as Protestantism became more remote from Catholic teaching (and as, in English-speaking countries, Elizabeth I found it very convenient to supplant the cult of the Virgin with a political cult of the Virgin Queen), that connection failed and was eventually broken.
Along with that went the loss of a sense of the sacramental, of the senses of Scripture, and of an appreciation for the feminine in the life of the Church. Mary came to be seen almost exclusively as a sort of pagan goddess and an actual threat to genuine Christian devotion: a perception that would have been absolutely foreign to the mind of any Christian in the first 16 centuries of the Church.





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