Does the Church Give Mary Too Much?

By Matthew Fumi

August 22, 2026 • View profile •

Photo by Sumeesh Nagisetty on Unsplash

Part 3 of She Magnifies the Lord: Why Catholic Devotion to Mary Leads Us to Christ

A Catholic response to common objections about Mary, Scripture, the Church, and the Communion of Saints

New to the series? Start here: Part 1: Before We Talk About Mary, We Need to Talk About Truth

Missed the previous article? Read it here: Part 2: Mary Is Not God: What the Catechism Actually Teaches About the Mother of God

In the previous article, we looked at what the Church does not teach about Mary, and then at why the Catechism’s Marian doctrine should not be treated as an invention from nothing. The Church does not teach that Mary is divine, that she is equal to Christ, that she is the source of grace, or that she saves by her own power. Every authentic Marian title must remain derivative from Christ, dependent upon Christ, and ordered back to Christ.

But even after that boundary is stated clearly, some phrases still sound alarming when they are pulled from context. What does it mean to say that Mary “continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation”? Why does the Catechism call her “the All-Holy One”? And how can the Church invoke her as Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix without taking anything away from Jesus Christ?

Those are the questions this article addresses.

I. Three Marian Phrases That Need Context

Before turning in later articles to Mother of the Church and Queen in greater detail, I want to address three phrases used in the Catechism that often sound alarming when isolated from the paragraphs in which the Church actually uses them. That isolation is the central problem. The Catechism does not present Marian titles as disconnected devotional exaggerations. It places them within a doctrinal framework governed by Christ’s unique mediation.

Mary "Brings Us the Gifts of Eternal Salvation"

The first phrase is that Mary “continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation” (CCC 969). Here, the Catechism is quoting Lumen Gentium §62. The full sentence holds the key: “Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation.” The phrase “by her manifold intercession” carries the whole meaning. Mary does not generate the gifts of eternal salvation. She does not own them. She does not possess them independently of Christ. She brings them by intercession, meaning she petitions God on behalf of those who need grace. James 1:17 is therefore not contradicted by this teaching. Every good gift does come from above, from the Father. Mary’s intercession is one of the ways God, who is the source of every good gift, permits His creatures to participate in His generosity.

This is already how Christian intercession works. When Paul begs the Romans to strive together with him in prayer to God on his behalf, no one imagines that Paul is treating them as the source of grace (Romans 15:30). When Christians ask one another for prayer, they are not denying that grace comes from God. They are participating in the communion of charity by which the members of Christ’s Body carry one another’s needs before the Lord. Mary’s intercession belongs to that same order, though uniquely and maternally, because of her singular relationship to Christ.

The Catechism itself immediately protects this point. CCC 970 says that Mary’s maternal role toward us “in no way obscures or diminishes” Christ’s unique mediation, but shows its power, and that her role “flows forth from the superabundance of the merits of Christ, rests on his mediation, depends entirely on it, and draws all its power from it.” So the Church does not allow us to isolate “brings us the gifts of eternal salvation” from Christ. The title only has Catholic meaning when read through Mary’s intercession and Christ’s one mediation.

Mary as "the All-Holy One"

The second phrase is “the All-Holy One,” which appears in CCC 2677 in the Catechism’s explanation of the Hail Mary: “By asking Mary to pray for us, we acknowledge ourselves to be poor sinners and we address ourselves to the ‘Mother of Mercy,’ the All-Holy One.” This title does not mean Mary is holy by nature as God is holy by nature. It means that Mary is holy by grace. Everything she is, she has received. Her holiness is not independent, self-originating, or divine. It is the work of God in her.

The scriptural root of this title is Gabriel’s greeting at the Annunciation: “Hail, full of grace” (Luke 1:28). The Greek word kecharitomene points to Mary as one who has been graced by God. The later title Panagia, “All-Holy,” names what God’s grace accomplished in her. It does not add divinity to Mary. It declares the depth of God’s sanctifying work in the woman prepared to bear the Incarnate Word.

The Catechism’s own explanation also keeps the title ordered toward Christ. CCC 2677 says that because Mary gives us Jesus, her Son, she is Mother of God and our mother, and that when we entrust ourselves to her prayer, we abandon ourselves to the will of God together with her. That is the opposite of being diverted from God. To pray with Mary is to be drawn into her own fiat: “Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). Her holiness is not a wall between us and God. It is a window into what God’s grace can accomplish in a creature who receives Him completely. The same principle applies when the Catechism speaks of Mary’s role: the title must be read not as something Mary possesses apart from Christ, but as something Christ’s grace makes possible in her.

Mary as "Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix"

The third set of titles is also from CCC 969: “Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix.” These titles are often misunderstood because they are treated as though any word used for Christ or God can never be used of a creature in a subordinate and participatory sense. But Scripture itself does not reason this way. Christ is the one Advocate with the Father in the absolute and saving sense (1 John 2:1). Yet Christians can still advocate, plead, intercede, and help one another without becoming rivals to Christ. The question is not whether the same word can ever be used analogically. The question is whether the creaturely use competes with the divine source or depends upon it.

Mary is not Advocate as Christ is Advocate. Christ advocates by His own merits, His own sacrifice, His own priesthood, and His own divine Sonship. Mary advocates by prayer. Her advocacy is maternal, derivative, and entirely dependent upon the one mediation of her Son. Put another way, Christ alone redeems humanity and restores creation through His sacrifice; Mary’s mediation belongs to the order of intercession, the same subordinate order in which every Christian prayer for another person participates. The same is true of the title Helper. Scripture can call the Lord our helper without forbidding every subordinate use of the word. The Holy Spirit is Paraclete, Helper, in a divine and unique sense. Mary is not helper in that same divine manner, but by grace and participation, as one whose maternal intercession serves the one saving work of Christ.

The objection often works by isolating a Catholic title, finding a verse where a similar word is used for God or Christ, and then concluding that the Catholic title must be blasphemous. But that is not exegesis. It is word-matching. The better question is not simply, “Is this word ever used of God?” but “Does the Church’s use of this word compete with Christ, or does it depend entirely upon Him?” If applied consistently, it would make ordinary Christian language impossible. We could not call one another helpers. We could not ask one another to advocate, plead, pray, or intercede. We could not speak of ministers as instruments of grace. But Scripture itself gives us those categories.

The Church does not call Mary these things in competition with Christ. She calls Mary these things because Christ’s grace is powerful enough to make His members true participants in His love, prayer, and care for the Church. Every Marian title must be read according to the Church’s own rule: Mary’s role “in no way obscures or diminishes” the unique mediation of Christ, but shows its power. That is the rule I would ask every reader to carry forward: do not judge Mary’s titles by how they sound when isolated, but by what the Church means when she places them wholly inside the mystery of Christ.

In the next article, we will turn to one of the most beautiful and misunderstood Marian titles: Mother of the Church. It is easy to dismiss that title if we imagine the Church as merely an institution. But what if the title begins somewhere deeper, in the mystery of Christ Himself?

Until we meet again, go forth in the peace of Christ. Seek truth over victory, speak with charity, and magnify the Lord. Read on:

Part 4 of She Magnifies the Lord: Is Mary Our Mother?

About the Author

Catholic365 Contributor

Matthew Fumi

I am a Catholic, husband, father, systems engineer, and writer. My writing grows out of my own return to the Catholic faith after years of living largely apart from it, and from an ongoing interest in how the truths of the faith are actually lived in ordinary human life: in families, friendships, work, suffering, failure, repentance, vocation, and the slow work of conversion. My nonfiction writing focuses primarily on Catholic theology, catechesis, apologetics, and the spiritual life. I have written a theological work, God is Love. Love is not God., which is under ecclisial review, exploring charity as the organizing principle of the Christian life and examining ordered love, sin, grace, repentance, Confession, the sacramental life, Christian witness, and the human heart’s capacity both to receive and resist God’s love. I also regularly write and engage with questions of Scripture, Church authority, Catholic moral theology, conversion, ecumenism, and the relationship between doctrine and lived discipleship. Alongside that work, I am developing The Long Way Home, a Catholic middle-grade fiction series centered on ordinary family, school, and friendship life. Rather than using fiction primarily as a vehicle for explicit instruction, I want the characters’ choices and consequences to dramatize realities such as sin, grace, conscience, temptation, repentance, mercy, friendship, family, and ultimately vocation. The faith is therefore woven into the characters’ lives rather than placed alongside the story as a lesson. The larger project follows its characters as they grow, allowing questions of marriage, parenthood, priesthood, religious life, suffering, and death to emerge naturally over the course of their lives. Professionally, I work as a senior systems engineer in aerospace, where much of my work involves systems thinking, architecture, requirements, safety, and tracing complex relationships across a larger whole. That same habit of thought inevitably influences my writing. I tend to approach theology and fiction alike by asking how individual truths, choices, relationships, and consequences fit within the larger structure of a human life.

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