Earlier this month, the pro-abortion group “Catholics for Choice” (Catholics for the Right to Decide, in Spanish-speaking countries) generated controversy when he wrote in a tweet: “This Christmas season, remember that Mary had a choice, and you should too.”
The explicit pro-abortion message seeks to equate Mary’s choice to be the mother of God with a mother’s “choice” to abort. “By explicitly seeking Mary’s definitive consent to conceive Christ, God empowered and elevated her bodily autonomy,” the group states. on your website. “It is clear that reproductive choice is the will of God.”
Receive the main news from ACI Prensa by WhatsApp and Telegram
It is increasingly difficult to see Catholic news on social media. Subscribe to our free channels today:
The Catholic Church, of course, from its origins has prohibited abortion on the grounds that it constitutes homicide.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Since the first century, the Church has affirmed the moral malice of all induced abortions. This teaching has not changed; remains unchanged. Direct abortion, that is, intended as an end or as a means, is seriously contrary to the moral law” (n. 2271).
Meanwhile, Catholics for Choice has been heavily criticized by Church leaders for its explicitly anti-Catholic activism: Cardinal Timothy Dolan said several years ago that the group “is not affiliated with the Catholic Church in any way,” “does not speak for the faithful” and is “financed by powerful private foundations to promote abortion as a method of population control.”
However, the group’s deceptive activism inadvertently underscored a key aspect of Catholic doctrine, which has been part of the Catholic faith since it began 2,000 years ago: that Mary did indeed have the option to assent to God’s will and become the “Theotokos”, the Mother of God.
“Absolutely free”
Mark Miravalle, who holds the St. John Paul II Chair of Mariology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, told EWTN News’ CNA that Mary was “absolutely free” in exercising the decision to become the Mother of God in the Earth.
“He was free by exercising God’s greatest gift, free will,” he said. To suggest otherwise, he said, would be to imply that “it was somehow coerced or that it was some form of predestination, one that does not allow the expression of what makes us human, which is our freedom.”
The theologian noted that it was “a malicious misunderstanding” on the part of Catholics for Choice “to imply that Mary’s ‘yes’ choice to bring our Redeemer into the world has any similarity or moral equivalence to the tragic ‘no’ choice of a woman that leads to the direct murder of an innocent human being.”
“The election of Mary brings life and salvation,” he stated. “The choice of abortion brings death and destruction. Morally, these two options could not be more diametrically opposed and therefore can never honestly be considered as justification for the devastating evil of abortion.”
Marian theologian Fr. Edward Looney, who serves in the Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin (United States), said the question of Mary’s freedom to choose could arise from the nature of the Immaculate Conception.
“Since she was chosen by God and God had already acted in her life with prevenient grace, sparing her the original election, one might rightly ask: did Mary have free choice?” said.
However, the Blessed Mother did indeed have free will to choose, Father Looney said.
“Her life was aligned with God to the extent that she wanted what God wanted for her,” he noted. “Aligning oneself with the will of God does not imply that one lacks free choice; rather it shows that one desires to cooperate with God and carry out His plan and His will.”
“God’s ways are better than ours,” he added. “Mary wanted to remain a virgin. “I was willing to remain a virgin and yet be a mother.”
Catholic theologians have long cited Mary’s freely chosen assent as a model for all Catholics. The then Pope Benedict XVI he said in a 2006 homily that “by being loved, by receiving the gift of God, Mary is fully active, because she welcomes with personal availability the wave of God’s love that is poured out on her.”
“In this too she is a perfect disciple of her Son, who fully realizes his freedom in obedience to the Father,” the Pope noted.
That theme can be seen through the centuries: St. Augustine of Hippo, for example, wrote that Mary effectively served as Mother of the Church, “because she cooperated with her charity so that faithful Christians…could be born into the Church.”
For his part, Looney quoted the homily “In Praise of the Virgin Mother” by Saint Bernard. In it, the 10th century priest summarized the Virgin Mother’s response to the angel imploring her: “Give your answer quickly. Respond quickly to the Angel, or, rather, to the Lord through the Angel.”
“Answer a word and receive him who is the Word,” wrote Saint Bernard. “Speak your word and conceive the divine; emit a fleeting word and welcome the eternal Word into your womb.”
Translated and adapted by the ACI Prensa team. Originally published in CNA.
Daniel Payne
Daniel Payne is senior editor at Catholic News Agency. He previously worked at College Fix and Just the News. He lives in Virginia with his family.