Marian Devotions - Roman Catholicism

Roman Catholicism

Marian devotions are highly prominent within the Roman Catholic tradition, both at papal and popular levels. Pope Paul VI began his Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus with this sentence:

From the moment when we were called to the See of Peter, we have constantly striven to enhance devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In Rosarium Virginis Mariae, Pope John Paul II emphasized the importance of Marian devotions as follows:

Since Mary is of all creatures the one most conformed to Jesus Christ, it follows that among all devotions that which most consecrates and conforms a soul to our Lord is devotion to Mary.

At the popular level, for centuries books such as True Devotion to Mary (which influenced Pope John Paul II as a young seminarian) have built a ground swell of Marian devotions among Catholics, to the point that tens of millions of pilgrims visit Marian shrines every year. For instance, the statue of our Our Lady of Zapopan attracts over one million pilgrims on 12 October each year as the statue travels through the streets moving from one Cathedral to another.

Marian devotions can take a unifying national dimension, e.g. devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe is a national symbol in Mexico, and in 1979 Pope John Paul II placed Mexico under her protection. Similarly, national devotions to Our Lady of Šiluva resulted in Lithuania being formally consecrated to Mary by Cardinal Sladkevicius and the Chairman of the Lithuanian Parliament, in September 1991.

Marian devotions are also associated with a number of beliefs among Catholics which have not been dogmatically approved by the Church, but have been asserted by saints and theologians. An example is the belief that Marian devotions are a sign of predestination, namely that those who have strong Marian devotions are more likely to go to Heaven. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in the 12th century, Saint Bonaventure in the 13th century, and Saint Alphonsus Ligouri in the 19th century affirmed this belief, and 20th century theologian Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, who taught Pope John Paul II, supported it with modern theological arguments regarding the "signs of predestination".