Word: marian
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Unlike some other Catholic revisionists, however, Cunneen identifies strands of Marian character and history with which she feels completely comfortable. The medieval idea of the Mater Dolorosa solaced her when she lost her own son. She associates the mysterious black Madonnas that popped up all over Europe in the Middle Ages and Mexico's "Little Dark One," the Virgin of Guadalupe, with Mary's affinity for the humble. She can muster historical support for the Mary described by spiritual adventurer China Galland--"a protectress who doesn't allow her children to be hunted, tortured, murdered and devoured"--and neo-Jungian...
Pelikan lovingly tracks successive Marian personae, such as Second Eve, Paragon of Chastity, Queen of Heaven and Blessed Mother, through to the present. He is fascinated with what the Victorian-era Cardinal and theologian John Henry Newman called the "development of doctrine"--the process, infuriating to traditional Protestants, whereby Catholic Popes and bishops continued promulgating articles of Christian faith long after the last biblical word was written. Mary is a prime example: her scant treatment in the Gospels left a vacuum that the church, often preceded and probably influenced by popular belief, has been gradually filling over the centuries...
...story of Marian devotion as we might recognize it begins in A.D. 431 in the Greek city of Ephesus. As Pelikan points out, the scenes featuring Mary in the New Testament "could all be printed out on a few pages," and the early church's emphasis on her seems correspondingly small: the first recorded prayer to Mary dates only to the 3rd century. At Ephesus, however, a council of church fathers confronting the charge that Jesus was a man who attained divinity rather than having always possessed it responded by stressing Jesus' eternal godliness and pointedly awarding Mary the appellation...
Pelikan has just completed 50 years' teaching history primarily at Yale, and commands the respect of both Catholic and Protestant scholars. As a Lutheran, however, he enjoys a certain emotional distance from his material. Cunneen, a retired English professor and a religious journalist, delves into Marian history with less authority but with the once-burned affection of a woman who, rummaging recently through a drawer, was moved to discover her old rosary. Cunneen qualifies as a Catholic feminist: she is painfully aware of the line that runs between Saint Athanasius' 4th century contention that Mary "remained continually at home, living...
BORN: Oct. 21, 1959, Winchester EDUCATION: U of the South, B.A., 1981; Samford U, J.D., 1984 FAMILY: Wife, Marian; two children RELIGION: Methodist MILITARY: None OCCUPATION: Lawyer POLITICAL CAREER: None ADDRESS: P.O. Box 830, Winchester...