What is the Queenship of Mary?

Question:  Mary is Queen of heaven and earth, but more importantly, mother of our King and Lord Jesus. That makes her Queen Mother, and this is one of her greatest titles. Yet, why does the Queenship of Mary not hold much value in the Church? Why don’t we celebrate it in a feast or a solemnity, not just as a memorial? Why isn’t the Queenship of Our Lady part of the Marian dogmas?

Answer: In 1954 Pius XII proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption of Mary into heaven in his encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam. The solemn feast day was to be celebrated yearly on August 15 in the Church’s universal calendar. Simultaneously, he declared that the feast day of Mary as Queen of Heaven was to be celebrated one week later, on August 22, as a memorial feast day. He wrote that the Mother of the Divine King Jesus Christ “reigns with a mother’s solicitude over the entire world, just as she is crowned in heavenly blessedness with the glory of a queen”.

This decision expressly signified that the Queenship of Mary was in future to be a liturgical celebration for the whole Church. Our Lady had already been honoured as Queen of Heaven for many centuries. Think of the ancient prayer “Hail Holy Queen” and the invocations of the Litany of Loreto as venerable examples. Pius XII’s decree now gave this title a liturgical home.

There are numerous works of art dating from around the 14th century providing magnificent portrayals of the coronation of Mary, such as those by Fra Angelico and Rubens. These images, naturally, arise from and are based on the splendour of medieval royal courts. But there is no doubt that, as you say, the Church loves and honours Mary as the mother of our King and Lord Jesus, which makes her our Queen Mother.

The feast of the Queenship of Mary is not a solemn feast day. The pope appointed it as a memorial, that is, a feast day of lesser rank than the great liturgical celebrations with their own proper prayers, readings and the rest.

This was possibly to avoid any confusion that Mary as Queen might be perceived as having the same saving power and lordship that belongs to Christ the King alone.

She is the first of the redeemed and a member of the Church, a human person whom the Church reverences as its greatest saint due to her intimate closeness to her divine Son and her cooperation in his saving mission.

Whether Mary’s Queenship of heaven will ever be proclaimed a dogma of the Church is, in my view, doubtful. Dogmas explicitly propound what the Church holds as revealed by God for our redemption. Queen of Heaven can hardly be considered to be in that category, but it is a superbly fitting title given to Mary by the Church.

However, Vatican II’s document Lumen Gentium said very plainly that it did not intend to give a complete doctrine on Mary, nor did it intend to decide those questions which the work of theologians has not yet clarified (54).

More research might be needed to discern whether the celebration of Mary as Queen of Heaven could yet receive a higher status in liturgical and doctrinal terms.

(Michael Shackleton)

Asked and answered in the March 2023 issue of The Southern Cross magazine