Actio Divina

Foreword 1

Martin Ifeanyi Onuoha’s two books on the Marian thought of Joseph Ratzinger – the one you hold in your hands, and its ‘prologue’, Mary, Daughter Zion: An Introduction to the Mariology of Joseph Ratzinger – are an extended commentary not only on the whole corpus of Ratzinger but also, in a different way, on the Catholic Church of the past sixty years. In these decades, in Western societies, many people have left the Church entirely or else have found themselves so interiorly alienated from the Church that there is little chance their children will remain in the Church. The result has been an accelerating apostasy. People today believe in the Gospel less, participate in the Eucharistic liturgy less, pray to God less, receive the other sacraments less and so on – the very opposite of Vatican II’s hopes.

Theologically, the marks of the crisis are twofold. First, within the Church, a significant group of laity and clergy, not only in Ratzinger’s native Germany but all over the world, seek to redefine Catholicism into something that would be unrecognizable to previous generations. There is a movement to rupture Catholicism from its past, getting rid of many of the Church’s moral teachings and many matters pertaining to the Church’s solemn understanding of the sacraments. This movement understands itself to be either an open dogmatic rupture, or an enlightened discovery that the dogmatic teachings of the second millennium were never really binding dogma. In either case, it is not hard to see that the proposed changes would strip the ground from every element of Catholic doctrine; there would no longer be a reason to be a Catholic rather than a Protestant, and no pope or Council could ever teach in an authoritative or binding manner again. In fact, the pope or Council that taught these ruptures would thereby be revealed as lacking in authority to teach. All too often, one hears that it is the ‘Spirit’ who justifies such changes, but the doctrine of the Spirit was itself solemnly formulated by a Council and was contested by many in the ←ix | x→fourth century. There is no logical reason that the dogmatic understanding of the Spirit should stand while other dogmatic teachings fall.

Second, unfortunately, another rupture-movement has emerged. This movement, like the above one, began already in the immediate aftermath (or, in certain ways, during) the Second Vatican Council. It finds the Council’s documents to be deeply problematic. In this regard, it is similar to the religiously liberal movement, which also has little use for the letter of the Council’s documents. For both movements, the Council functions at best as a pastoral Council, but one whose pastoral recommendations almost immediately became outdated. For this self-styled ‘traditionalist’ movement, Sacrosanctum Concilium and Gaudium et Spes are deeply troubling, and even central elements of Dei Verbum and Lumen Gentium come under suspicion. Documents such as Dignitatis Humanae and Nostra Aetate are more firmly rejected as mistaken and in need of being jettisoned. In various writings, Ratzinger responded both to the traditionalist movement and to the religiously liberal movement. He argued at length that both of them were dead ends, although he well understood the problems that have encouraged the rise of both movements.¹

In this context, Onuoha’s profound reading of Ratzinger’s Marian theology invites two thoughts, or, more precisely, two hopes. One is that it may well be the Second Vatican Council’s teachings on the Blessed Virgin Mary – teachings promoted by Ratzinger, Pope John Paul II, and others – that provide the impulse for the renewal sought by the Council, a renewal ←x | xi→that is now more urgently needed than ever. A second is that it may well be African pastors and theologians who ultimately enable the Church to overcome the extremes of religious liberalism and reactionary traditionalism.

Lumen Gentium teaches, ‘Having entered deeply into the history of salvation, Mary, in a way, unites in her person and re-echoes the most important doctrines of the faith: and when she is the subject of preaching and worship she prompts the faithful to come to her Son, to his sacrifice and to the love of the Father.’² This is the very lesson that Onuoha draws out of Ratzinger: the Church learns how to be the Church by meditation ←xi | xii→upon Mary. As Lumen Gentium further explains, ‘Devoutly meditating on her and contemplating her in the light of the Word made man, the Church reverently penetrates more deeply into the great mystery of the Incarnation and becomes more and more like her spouse.’³ A Church that neglects Mary will struggle to be configured to Christ, since it will lose touch with the Marian attributes that are crucial for being open to her Son by his Spirit. A Church that recalls Mary – not as a mere individual but as a person who shows the Church how to follow her Son – will be, to that degree, a healthy Church. In this regard Lumen Gentium reports, ‘As St. Ambrose taught, the Mother of God is a type of the Church in the order of faith, charity, and perfect union with Christ.’⁴

As Ratzinger and Onuoha remark, the current crisis in the Church and world has a variety of dimensions, including loss of faith in God the Creator, loss of liturgical symbolism and the sense of mystery, historical-critical doubts about whether the Gospels accurately teach about the person of Jesus, loss of a sense of sin and so on. Catholic scholars have proposed various solutions, such as improved catechesis, reinvigorated theology and a renewed liturgy. But I am struck by the thought that Onuoha – drawing upon Ratzinger and Lumen Gentium – has arrived at the heart of the matter. Namely, what we learn from Onuoha is that for Christian faith to be renewed, the Church’s Marian identity must first be recovered, so that the Church is able to be fully open, in self-surrendering love, to the incarnate Son of God.