New Booklet: Mary, Mother of the Faithful People?

Lighthouse Trails is pleased to release our latest topical booklet, Mary, Mother of the Faithful People? by Rob Yardley. Mr. Yardley is the president and executive director of The Berean Call ministry. The booklet is 12 pages long and sells for $1.95 for single copies. Quantity discounts are available. Our booklets are designed to give away to others or for your own personal use. Below is the content of this new booklet. To order copies of Mary, Mother of the Faithful People?, click here. 

Mary, Mother of the Faithful People?

By Rob Yardley

[O]ur Lord Jesus Christ . . . is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen. (1 Timothy 6:14-16)

On November 4, 2025, the Roman Catholic Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a document titled “Mater Populi Fidelis” (MPF, Latin for “Mother of the Faithful People”).¹ Signed by Pope Leo XIV, its primary purpose is indicated in Paragraph 22: Roman Catholics are no longer to refer to Mary as the Co-Redemptrix.²

While this is one step in the right direction, the title “Mother of the Faithful” alone indicates that this document is not biblical. The Bible only knows one mother of all believers: “. . . Jerusalem which is above . . . is the mother of us all” (Galatians 4:26). Additionally, MPF favorably cites dozens of documents from the Magisterium that allege dozens of unbiblical doctrines regarding Mary. The meaning of MPF is also still a matter of debate within the Catholic Church. On December 28, 2025, The Catholic News Agency reported:

Monsignor Maurizio Gronchi, an expert consultant for the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, clarified that the measure established last month regarding the use of the titles “Co-Redemptrix” and “Mediatrix” for the Virgin Mary is “not an absolute prohibition” and that these titles can still be used in popular piety, provided their meaning is understood.

“It’s not an absolute prohibition, but it will no longer be used in official documents or in the liturgy. But if used in popular devotion, understanding its meaning, no one will be reprimanded for it.”³

The opening paragraphs of Mater Populi Fidelis highlight the Church’s expressed concern:

[T]here are some Marian reflection groups, publications, new devotions, and even requests for Marian dogmas that do not share the same characteristics as popular devotion. Rather, they ultimately propose a particular dogmatic development and express themselves intensely through social media, often sowing confusion among ordinary members of the faithful.⁴

The stated issue is that some are “sowing confusion among ordinary members of the faithful.” There may be “confusion,” but the sowers come from the highest authorities in the Roman Catholic Church:

• Pope John Paul II (now Saint John Paul II) referred to Mary as “Co-Redemptrix” on at least seven occasions while serving as Pope.⁵
• MPF says that the confusion is often sown by those on social media. One example not cited in MPF is a widely read Tweet posted in 2021 that said, “Mary is not only the bridge joining us to God; she is more. She is the road that God travelled to reach us, and the road that we must travel in order to reach him.”⁶ (emphasis added).

If Mary is the road that we must travel to reach God, then those of us who do not come to God via Mary are without hope, and she is necessary for salvation. This Tweet wasn’t from a fanatical shrine devotee: it was posted by Pope Francis.

Even if the Roman Catholic Church could backstep Mary’s redeeming role, their “Mary” is not the Mary found in the Bible. MPF says, “The cooperation of the Mother with her Son in the work of Salvation has been taught by the Magisterium of the Church.”⁷ The first Magisterial teaching cited is Ineffabilis Deus (ID). Prior to convening the First Vatican Council (a council which damns with an anathema anyone who denies that the Pope is infallible when he “defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church”⁸), Pope Pius IX issued the aforementioned ID, which confirms as official Catholic doctrine the Immaculate Conception of Mary—a title often misunderstood as referring to Jesus while it actually refers to a proposed sinless condition of Mary.

Let . . . [all the children of the Catholic Church] continue to venerate, invoke and pray to the most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, conceived without original sin. Let them fly with utter confidence to this most sweet Mother of mercy and grace in all dangers, difficulties, needs, doubts and fears. Under her guidance, under her patronage, under her kindness and protection, nothing is to be feared; nothing is hopeless. Because, while bearing toward us a truly motherly affection and having in her care the work of our salvation, she is solicitous about the whole human race. And since she has been appointed by God to be the Queen of heaven and earth, and . . . even stands at the right hand of her only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, she presents our petitions in a most efficacious manner. What she asks, she obtains. Her pleas can never be unheard.”⁹ (emphasis added)

Eight Attributes Ascribed to the Catholic Mary

In ID, “Mary” is ascribed at least eight attributes that would horrify the real Mary of the Bible. Most of these attributes are still official Catholic doctrine, as cited in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (updated under Pope Francis in 2018). The eight are as follows:

1. Roman Catholics are told to “invoke and pray” to Mary. (Invocation is the act of calling upon a deity, spirit, or supernatural force to seek guidance, assistance, or presence.) The Catechism similarly says, “[T]he Blessed Virgin is invoked in the church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix.”¹⁰ The Bible says that Mary was a most blessed woman, but the blessing was being the mother of Jesus. The details surrounding Mary’s passing, like most deaths in the Bible, are not recorded. Any attempt to contact her is strictly forbidden by Deuteronomy 18:10-12: “There shall not be found among you . . . a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord.” Even if Mary could be contacted, why would a Christian invoke Mary instead of the “one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5)? There are millions of prayers offered by Catholics to Mary daily around the world: Mary would have to be God to hear and answer them all.

2. Mary in Roman Catholicism is called “The Blessed Virgin Mary.” Catholic doctrine teaches that Mary remained a virgin throughout her married life; the Catechism states, “[T]he liturgy of the Church celebrates Mary as . . . the ‘Ever-virgin.’”¹¹ The Bible prophesied that a virgin would give birth to the Messiah (Isaiah 7:14), and that “Joseph . . . knew her not till she had brought forth . . . Jesus” (Matthew 1:24-25, emphasis added), indicating that Jesus was virgin-born but that Joseph and Mary had a normal marital relationship after the birth of Jesus. The Bible also speaks of Mary’s other children (e.g., Matthew 13:55-56; Mark 3:31-35; Mark 6:3; 1 Corinthians 9:5; Galatians 1:19). Mary’s character is in no way besmirched by having additional children with Joseph; and the Lord Jesus Christ would not receive greater glory from the unbiblical doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity. Also, the church has been blessed by the epistles of two sons, James and Jude.

3. The Roman Catholic Mary is called the “Mother of God.” The Catechism says that the Church’s prayer is “a communion of intercession with the all-holy Mother of God.”¹² Mary was blessed to be the earthly mother of the baby Jesus, but Jesus Christ is our Creator and Redeemer: He has existed from eternity past and created the universe millennia before Mary was born (e.g., John 1:1-3; Ephesians 3:9; Colossians 1:16-17; Hebrews 1:8-10). God has no mother, and much of the confusion surrounding Mary in the Catholic Church is based on this title.

4. Mary of the Roman Catholic Church is said to be “conceived without original sin.” The Catechism confirms that the Catholic Mary is “preserved immune from all stain of original sin,”¹³ that “By the grace of God Mary remained free of every personal sin her whole life long,”¹⁴ and “Mary benefited first of all and uniquely from Christ’s victory over sin: she was preserved from all stain of original sin and by a special grace of God committed no sin of any kind during her whole earthly life.”¹⁵ If the concept is that she had to be sinless to give birth to the Holy Child Jesus, then Mary’s parents would need to be sinless to give birth to her, all the way back through a genealogy of sinless progenitors. And we know this cannot be so because the Bible says, “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23); Mary was a sinner who needed a Savior. She confessed as much, beginning her Magnificat, “My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour” (Luke 1:46-47, emphasis added): a sinless person does not need a Savior.

5. The Roman Catholic Mary is said to have “in her care the work of our salvation” and is “solicitous about [i.e., showing great concern for] the whole human race.” The Catechism says, “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.”¹⁶ Mary has no “gifts of eternal salvation”; Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” As in point one above, Mary would have to be God to steward the work of mankind’s salvation, as well as to show great attention to the whole human race. It is blasphemous to ascribe God’s unique attributes to a mere human being.

6. The Roman Catholic Mary has been “appointed by God to be the Queen of heaven and earth.” The “queen of heaven” is a biblical term, a demonic entity mentioned five times in the book of Jeremiah (7:18; 44:17-19, 25). The children of Israel invoked this queen of heaven to their shame: why would the Roman Catholic Church choose this of all names? Likewise, the Catechism says that Mary was “exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things.”¹⁷ When did this alleged coronation occur? Mary is never referred to as a queen in any sense in the Bible. The only queen cited in the last book of the Bible, “saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow. . . . Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her” (Revelation 18:7-8).

7. The Roman Catholic Mary is said to “[stand] at the right hand of her only begotten Son.” The allusion is clearly to Jesus, who is frequently noted as being seated at the right hand of God (e.g., Matthew 26:64; Mark 16:19; Luke 22:69; Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 10:12; 1 Peter 3:22), and standing when receiving the martyred deacon, Stephen (Acts 7:55). Mary is not mentioned in these verses or elsewhere in the Bible as having a special office or position in Heaven, and she is never said to stand at the right hand of Jesus. Likewise, as mentioned in point two above, Jesus is never said to be Mary’s only son in the Bible.

8. Roman Catholics are told, “What [Mary] asks, she obtains. Her pleas can never be unheard.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen said, “I cannot depend upon merits of my own . . . I hope that when I go there for judgment that I will hear from Him these words: ‘I heard my mother speak of you.’”¹⁸ The real Mary is not presenting the petitions of Catholics to Jesus with an irresistible plea: it maligns the character of our loving Savior to claim that she is our hope for salvation and forgiveness.

The Catholic Mary—Celebrated Over 350 Days a Year

Mary is celebrated in various parts¹⁹ of the Catholic Church over 350 days each year.²⁰ Eighteen of the Marian celebrations are included in the General Roman [Catholic] Calendar:²¹

• January 1: Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God (a holy day of obligation; requires attending Mass).
• February 11: Our Lady of Lourdes.
• March 25: The Annunciation of the Lord (a holy day of obligation).
• May 13: Our Lady of Fatima (celebrated by Pope Pius XII, Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis).
• May 31: The feast of The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
• Monday after Pentecost: Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church.
• Third Saturday after Pentecost (usually in June): The Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
• July 16: Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
• August 5: The Dedication of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major (which honors Mary as Mother of God).
• August 15: The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (a holy day of obligation).
• August 22: The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary.22
• September 8: The feast of The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
• September 12: The Most Holy Name of Mary.
• September 15: Our Lady of Sorrows.
• October 7: Our Lady of the Rosary.
• November 21: The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
• December 8: The Immaculate Conception of The Blessed Virgin Mary (a holy day of obligation).
• December 12: Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The Catechism says, “The liturgical feasts dedicated to the Mother of God and Marian Prayer, such as the rosary, an ‘epitome of the whole Gospel,’ express devotion to the Virgin Mary.”23 In the Rosary, a devotee recites the “Hail Mary” 53 times, each time referring to Mary as “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” and ends the Rosary with a “Hail Holy Queen,” which says:

Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this our exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.²⁴ (emphasis added)

Subsequent to the Gospels, twenty-three books of the Bible were written after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Acts 1:1 through Revelation 22:21), comprising 4,178 verses wherein Mary, the mother of Jesus, is mentioned in only one of these verses—when she joined the Jerusalem prayer meeting with the apostles and other brethren (Acts 1:14). The Bible never tells of anyone praying to her, never refers to her as a perpetual virgin, never speaks of her immaculate conception, never tells of her assumption, never calls her a mother of anyone except her own children and the apostle John (John 19:27), never calls her a queen, never calls her sinless, never assigns to her a unique intercessory role, never gives her a unique “Holy” title, and never says she has a special place in Heaven beyond what any other believer is promised.

The Roman Catholic Church has taken a wonderful woman, blessed by God with a unique role, and from her, created a false god who cannot save. The Bible is all about our wonderful Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and we can each say, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). We are “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13) and are able to “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

Rob Yardley is the president and executive director of The Berean Call. You may access an extensive collection of decades of research, books, films, lectures, articles, radio archives and more at www.thebereancall.org. Also, every year, The Berean Call presents a discernment conference in Bend, Oregon with outstanding and compelling speakers, addressing the issues that are affecting the church and the world today.

To order copies of Mary, Mother of the Faithful People?, click here. 

Endnotes:

1. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20251104_mater-populi-fidelis_en.html.
2. Ibid. #22.
3. www.bit.ly/4pFrE4n.
4. Mater Populi Fidelis, Presentation Section, November 4, 2025.
5. Mater, Paragraph 18.
6. Pope Francis (@Pontifex), Twitter (now X.com), March 25, 2021.
7. Mater, Paragraph 13.
8. First Vatican Council, Session 4, Chapter 4, Section 9, July 18, 1870.
9. Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus, last paragraph, December 8, 1854.
10. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1997), Paragraph 969. (Quoting Lumen Gentium [Paragraph 62], promulgated on November 21, 1964, by Pope Paul VI.)
11. Catechism, Paragraph 499. (Quoting Lumen Gentium, Paragraph 52.)
12. Catechism, Paragraph 2827.
13. Catechism, Paragraph 491.
14. Catechism, Paragraph 493.
15. Catechism, Paragraph 411.
16. Catechism, Paragraph 969.
17. Catechism, Paragraph 966.
18. www.bit.ly/3LfLJjz.
19. See the apostolic exhortation Marialis Cultus, Paragraph 9, February 2, 1974.
20. www.bit.ly/49AxayY.
21. Calendarium Romanum Generale, Missale Romanum [Roman Missal] (Edito typica tertia, reimpressio emendata ed.). Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2008, pp. 105-116.
22. Founded by Pope Pius XII in 1954.
23. Catechism, Paragraph 971.
24. https://www.usccb.org/prayers/hail-holy-queen-salve-regina.

Editor’s Note: If you are a Catholic reading this booklet and would like to know more about what the Bible says about salvation through believing on Jesus Christ, e-mail or write to us, and we will send you a free booklet.