Mary as Medium and Model, by Donald DeMarco

By Donald DeMarco, National Catholic Register, May 16, 2026

Donald DeMarco, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, Connecticut, and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review. …

COMMENTARY: The Blessed Mother introduces God to the world.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of America’s most outstanding novelists, had a deep respect for the Catholic Church, although he never became a Catholic. He did have a strong influence on his daughter Rose, who not only embraced the Church but also founded what has come to be known as the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne. In her religious life, she is presented as the Venerable Mother Mary Alphonsa. Her cause for canonization was opened in the year 2003.

Hawthorne’s Blithedale Romance was published in 1852. Its setting is a utopian socialist farming commune based on Brook Farm, of which Hawthorne was a founding member. The conversation among three people concerning the place of women could have been just as well written in 2026. …