Mary Helped Jesus Save the World, by Monica Miller

By Monica Miller, Crisis Magazine, Nov. 8, 2025

Monica Miller, Ph.D., is the Director of Citizens for a Pro-life Society. She holds a degree in Theatre Arts from Southern Illinois University and graduate degrees in Theology from Loyola University and Marquette University. She is the author of several books including The Theology of the Passion of the Christ (Alba House) and, most recently, The Authority of Women in the Catholic Church (Emmaus Road) and Abandoned: The Untold Story of the Abortion Wars (St. Benedict Press).

Some of the greatest theologians going to the earliest centuries of the Church spoke of Mary as God’s true assistant and partner in the economy of Redemption.

“Two parents have generated us for death; two parents have generated us for life.”

This is a statement St. Augustine proclaimed in Sermon 22. The parents of death are, of course, Adam and Eve—as they ushered in original sin and the Fall of man. And who are the parents of life? Namely, according to Augustine—none other than God and the Virgin Mary. It could be argued that Augustine is saying, at least on some level, that if Mary was called by God to partner with Him in the world’s salvation, Mary, properly understood, in union with God, is Co-redemptrix.

The Doctrinal Note

Of course, I am bringing this up in light of the new Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Doctrinal Note Mater Populi Fidelis, issued November 4 by the DDF’s prefect Cardinal Victor Fernández, with the approval of Pope Leo XIV, that rejects the Co-redemptrix title for Mary. ….