Mediatrix of all graces

Mediatrix of All Graces is a special Marian title that some Roman Catholics give to the Blessed Virgin Mary as the mother of Jesus Christ, encompassing the belief that all the graces and blessings that her son gives come through her.

This attributes to her a role more extensive than the role of mediation or intercession attributed to her in Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy and for which the title "Mediatrix" is used.

The Second Vatican Council referred in its document Lumen gentium to Mary as "Advocate, Auxiliatrix, Adjutrix and Mediatrix". It did not use the phrase "Mediatrix of all graces".

The establishment of Mediatrix of all graces as a dogma is still being debated among Catholic theologians, given that it goes further than the use of the title Mediatrix and the doctrine of Mary having a higher level of saintly intercession (due to her special relationship with her son Jesus). On 12 September 2015, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments through the Archdiocese of Lipa in the Philippines formally declared the 1948 Marian apparition under the title Our Lady Mediatrix of All Graces to be authentic and worthy of pious belief.

Proposal for dogmatic definition

In 1896, French Jesuit priest René-Marie de la Broise interpreted Pope Leo XIII's papal encyclical Octobri mense as teaching that all graces from Jesus Christ are imparted through Mary. Broise proposed that the pontiff should make a dogmatic definition about the role of Mary in the distribution of all graces, but did not require that it be in the form of declaring her to be the mediatrix of all graces.

Celebration in Belgium

In Belgium, 8 years later, Redemptorist priest François Xavier Godts wrote a book, De definibilitate mediationis universalis Deiparae (On the definability of the universal mediation of the Mother of God), proposing precisely that it be defined that Mary is the mediatrix of all graces. Désiré-Joseph Mercier, Cardinal Archbishop of Mechelen, Belgium championed this cause.

In response to petitions from Belgium, including one signed by all its bishops, the Holy See approved in 1921 an annual celebration in that country of a feast day of Mary Mediatrix of All Graces. In printings of the Roman Missal from that date until 1961, the Mass of Mary Mediatrix of All Graces was found in the appendix Missae pro aliquibus locis (Masses for Some Places), but not in the general calendar for use wherever the Roman Rite is celebrated. Other Masses authorized for celebration in different places on the same day 31 May were those of the Blessed Virgin Mary Queen of All Saints and Mother of Fair Love and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Belgian celebration has now been replaced by an optional memorial on 31 August of the Virgin Mary Mediatrix.

Scholarly opposition to dogmatic definition

Despite requests for a new Marian dogma, the Fathers of Vatican II and the Popes who presided at the Council, John XXIII and Paul VI decided not to proceed with new dogmatic definitions. Lumen gentium, which does not contain a dogmatic definition of mediation, was approved by 2,151 votes out of 2,156.

In August 1996, a Mariological Congress was held in Czestochowa, Poland, where a commission was established in response to a request of the Holy See. The congress sought the opinion of scholars present there regarding the possibility of proposing a fifth Marian dogma on Mary as Coredemptrix, Mediatrix and Advocate. The commission unanimously declared that it was not opportune to define a fifth Marian dogma on those titles. The Declaration of Czestochowa observed that while these titles can be given a content in conformity with the deposit of the faith, nevertheless such "titles, as proposed, are ambiguous, as they can be understood in very different ways".

Devotion in the Philippines

The Our Lady Mediatrix of All Graces statue from 1948, Lipa, Philippines. The apparitions were approved by the local Catholic Church in September 2015.

Among Filipino Catholics, the term "Mediatrix" is associated with an alleged 1948 apparition of the Virgin Mary to Teresita Castillo, with title Mary Mediatrix of All Grace in the Carmelite monastery of Lipa, Batangas, Philippines. Ramón Argüelles, the current Archbishop of Lipa, declared his personal belief in the veracity of the 1948 apparitions, and his encouragement for devotees of Mary under that title. The apparition is well-known in the Philippines and among the Filipino diaspora, most notably the preserved rose petals which fell from the sky and are claimed to be miraculous. Philippine Ambassador to the Holy See Mercedes Arrastia Tuason is a known devotee of the apparitions, and displays a large statue in her consulate office in Rome.

Stigmatist Emma de Guzman, foundress of the La Pieta association, which has received ecclesiastical approval, said that Mary had declared herself to be "the Mediatrix standing in front of the Mediator".

Continued campaigning

Groups of laity and clergy, what has been called "a small but growing movement", continue to press for definition of a dogma of the universal mediation of Mary. One such group calls itself Vox Populi Mariae Mediatrici. On 8 February 2008, five cardinals published a petition asking Pope Benedict XVI to declare the Blessed Virgin Mary both Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix, and over 500 bishops later added their signatures. The magazine Inside the Vatican and Saint Thomas More College organized a one-day panel discussion on the question in Rome on 25 March 2010.