One Catholic theologian, commenting on Mary’s role as co-mediatrix and co-redemptrix, wrote the following which exemplifies how theologically and spiritually dangerous Roman Catholicism’s Mariology truly is:
[Mary not being a priestess does not mean] that the grace conferred by the sacraments is entirely outside Mary’s influence. The grace given to us, by the sacraments is always Christ’s grace, and Christ was and is, as we have seen, imbued with Mary’s maternal qualities. The Church, which, as the visible community, perpetuates the work of our redemption and distributes redemptive grace among us in an institutional manner, thus mediates the grace which was acquired by Christ and co-acquired maternally by Mary. We should not infer that there is something lacking in Mary because she forms no part of the sacramental Church as a structural principle. On the contrary, her not belonging to the sacramental Church as a structural principle results from the face that she already fulfilled an essential and maternal function at the very inception of the redemptive act. The sacramental Church fulfils the function of communicating this redemption to us. (Edward Schillebeeckx, Mary, Mother of the Redemption [3d ed.: London: Sheed and Ward, 1964], 125, comment in square bracket added for clarification)
