By Paul Krause, Crisis Magazine - The battle for Mary is a fight over the centrality of motherhood and family in the human experience. As such, the negation of Mary undermines a culture’s understanding and appreciation of motherhood and family. In working to strip Mary from European and American culture, Protestant crusaders set motherhood and family on a collision course with eventual irrelevance. By sabotaging the most graceful and fruitful image of motherhood—the Holy Mother herself—anti-Marian Protestants prepared the ground for the anti-feminine, anti-filial nihilists who control the cultural levers today.