The Marian Doctrines (White vs Fastigi)

Welcome, my name is Mark Gunning and I'm the moderator for today's debate. I think you will find this debate to be very interesting and very important.

The thesis for today's debate is, the Catholic teachings on Mary do not compromise the biblical teaching of the all -sufficiency of Christ.

Allow me to briefly introduce our speakers. James White is the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

James holds a bachelor's degree in Bible and a master's degree in theology. He is the author of seven books including works on Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, the translation and text of the

Bible, and Christian theology. He has had the privilege of serving as a professor of church history and an instructor in biblical

Greek. He is an ordained Baptist minister, he is married to Kelly and has two children, Joshua and Summer Marie.

Dr. Robert Festigi holds a PhD in theology from Fordham University in New York. He is an associate professor of religious studies at St.

Edward's University in Austin, Texas, where he has taught since 1985. Dr. Festigi and his wife,

Kathy, have two children and are expecting their third. Our debate today will be strictly timed and organized so as to ensure fairness.

Both speakers will give 15 -minute opening statements followed by four -minute rebuttals. Then there will be a period of question and answer, which will be followed by five -minute closing statements.

With that, let us begin. Dr. Festigi, your opening statement, please. Well, it's my pleasure to be here, and since this is

February 12th, the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, I could say that I'm especially honored to be able to defend the

Catholic teaching about Mary. Now we must pay attention to the resolution for today's debate.

The resolution is this, resolve that Catholic teachings on Mary's immaculate conception, mediation, and intercession do not compromise the all -sufficiency of Christ.

That's the resolution. So we're looking at the Marian teachings as they are presently taught and to see whether or not they do an injustice to the all -sufficiency of Christ.

I'd like to begin with just a few verses from the wonderful canticle of Mary from the

Gospel of Luke. In Luke, Mary says, My soul proclaims the greatness of the

Lord. My spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked upon his handmaid's lowliness.

Behold from now on will all ages call me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.

I think it's very important for people to understand that the Catholic teachings about Mary are always connected to Christ.

This is very, very important. In other words, we don't just honor Mary because she's a beautiful person, but we honor

Mary because of her unique privilege of being the mother of the incarnate

Word of God and that she knew Jesus more intimately, more deeply, more privately than any other human being who has ever lived to the point that she actually gave flesh to the eternal

Word of God. Now, this notion that Catholic teachings about Mary are related to Christ is not something

I'm making up. I'll read to you from the New Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 487.

What the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based upon what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illumines, in turn, its faith in Christ.

And then in paragraph 964, we find a similar statement.

Mary's role in the church is inseparable from her union with Christ and flows directly from it.

The union of the mother with the son in the work of salvation is made manifest from the time of Christ's virginal conception up to his death.

So, in other words, we're not just trying to separate Mary from Christ.

That's really a false understanding of Catholic devotion to Mary. Rather, we are understanding that devotion to Mary should lead one closer to Christ.

In fact, St. Louis de Montfort, one of the greatest of Marian theologians, makes it very clear that true devotion to Mary always must culminate in a deeper love and devotion and worship of her son.

St. Louis writes, If then we are establishing sound devotion to our

Blessed Lady, it is only in order to establish devotion to our Lord more perfectly.

By providing a smooth but certain way of reaching Jesus Christ. If devotion to our

Lady distracted us from our Lord, we would have to reject it as an illusion of the devil.

That's a very strong warning. But he's saying here that the whole point of Catholic devotion to Mary is to lead one closer to Christ.

Now, I'd also like to invoke what I think is a biblical principle. That sound teachings are often confirmed by miracles.

We see this in the Old Testament as well. A sign of God's presence with his people is often that miraculous events occur, like the manna from heaven and the crossing of the

Red Sea and so forth. And in regard to Marian devotion, Marian piety has been confirmed by numerous miracles.

Take, for example, Our Lady of Lourdes. There is a medical bureau there at Lourdes, France. I've been there twice, where they have documented dozens upon dozens of miracles, miraculous healings.

Also, in regard to the apparition of Mary in Mexico, what is today

Mexico in 1531, she left behind the miraculous image. And now scientists have examined this and they have concluded that it is definitely not a painting.

As one physicist responds, his name is Dr. Callahan. He says,

I would consider it impossible that any human painter could select a tilma with imperfections of weave positioned as to accentuate the shadows and highlights to impart such realism.

So this is another sign that there have been these miracles associated with Marian piety. But more than that is the miracle of conversion to her son, because that's what

Mary wants. She wants people to come to her son.

Like she says in the Gospel of John, do whatever he tells you, whatever he tells you.

And so I think that it is inaccurate to say that great devotion to Mary somehow leads to a lessening of devotion and reliance upon her son.

That is not corroborated by the great historical examples. For example, we know of St.

Francis of Assisi wrote some beautiful hymns to Mary. He had a great devotion to Mary, but he had such a love of Christ crucified that he received even in his own body the stigmata, the marks of Christ's wounds.

Or another example would be St. Alphonsus Liguori, the great 18th century theologian who wrote a book that is often taken out of context called

The Glories of Mary. But what people forget is that St. Alphonsus Liguori also wrote a book, several books about the life of Christ, and especially about the passion of Christ.

And he is the founder of a community called the Community of the Redeemer, the Redemptorists.

Or take the example of Pope John Paul II. He ends almost all of his encyclicals and apostolic letters with the invocation of Mary in protection.

But his first encyclical was The Redeemer of Man. The Pope is deeply in love with Jesus Christ.

And this is the principle, that true Catholic devotion to Mary leads one more closely to her son.

Now, in terms of this, I'd like to specifically mention the doctrines we want to consider.

For example, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Now, I'm not going to go into all of the parallels in the scriptures that church fathers have pointed to, the

New Eve symbolism and so on, with St. Irenaeus, St. Justin Martyr. I could do this later on.

But in terms of the Immaculate Conception, it's very important to realize that the reason why

Mary was understood and finally proclaimed as immaculately conceived is because she gave the human nature to the sinless eternal word of God.

As the letter to the Hebrews tells us, that Christ was like us in all things but sin.

Now, would it have seemed appropriate for the sinless word of God to have taken flesh from a woman who at one point in her existence been sinful or been under the contamination of the curse of Adam and Eve?

So, St. Alphonsus Liguori, for example, points out that it was becoming that the father preserved

Mary from the stain of original sin because she was his daughter and the mother of his son and he would want the very best for his son.

And then regarding Christ, St. Alphonsus Liguori points out it was becoming that God the son should preserve his mother from all stain of sin.

And he says, how could Jesus be separated from sin if his mother was a sinner even for an instant in her mother's womb,

St. Anne's womb? He said the devil would have taunted Jesus saying, you see, you took your flesh from one who was under my dominion.

And then the third point of St. Alphonsus was that it was becoming that the Holy Spirit preserved

Mary as his spouse because the Holy Spirit, then uniting with Mary, wanted a spotless spouse, a spotless bride.

Now, whether we raise the question, was this impossible for God to do? I would point you to the

Westminster Confession of Faith where in chapter 11, section 6, it says that regarding the believers of the

Old Testament, their salvation, their justification was the same as those in the

New Testament. So in chapter 11, it points out section 6, the justification of believers under the

Old Testament was in all these respects one in the same with the justification of believers under the

New Testament. So this Presbyterian creed is acknowledging that God can justify a person even before the coming of Christ if the justification is one in the same.

Well, that's what happened to Mary in anticipation of her unique role as the mother of the incarnate word of God.

God preserved her from all stain of sin in view of the merits of Christ.

So she's redeemed by Christ, but she's redeemed in anticipation of her unique role.

So this is what was taught in 1854 by the solemn definition of faith of the Immaculate Conception.

And Mary's holiness and her purity goes all the way back to early church fathers like St.

Ephraim of Syria and others. They point to her sinlessness, her sinlessness, but then there was the trouble, but Christ is the redeemer of all human beings.

So it was finally in the Middle Ages that people like William of Ware and blessed John Dunscotus came up with the idea of anticipatory redemption.

So Mary is redeemed by Christ. I don't see how this takes away from the all -sufficiency of Christ than she was redeemed by Christ, but from the first moment of her existence.

In fact, Martin Luther in a sermon in 1527 asserted the belief in the

Immaculate Conception, the equivalent of it. And this was already after his separation from Rome.

I could read that to you if you'd like later on, but he clearly affirmed in that sermon that Mary was purified.

When the infusion of her soul took place, that was freed from all stain of sin.

And certainly I think as Mr. White would agree that Martin Luther emphasized the all -sufficiency of Christ, but he did not see that the

Immaculate Conception in any way challenged that. Now, also we need to point out that Mary is a mediatrix and an intercessor for us on earth.

But this has to be qualified because her role as a mediatrix does not in any way take a challenge, her dependence upon the unique mediation of Christ.

This is what is taught in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, at Vatican II. And the teaching is very, very clear.

In section 60, it points out that there is but one mediator as we know from the words of the

Apostle. This is what many Protestants like to bring up. So the Catholic Church is aware of this, quote, for there is one

God and one mediator between of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. This is from 1 Timothy, who gave himself a redemption for all.

Then the council goes on to say the maternal duty of Mary towards men in no wise obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows his power.

For all the salvific influence of the Blessed Virgin on men originates not from some inner necessity, but from the divine pleasure.

It flows forth from the superabundance of the merits of Christ, rests on his mediation, depends entirely on it, and draws all its power from it.

In no way does it impede, but rather does it foster the immediate union of the faithful with Christ.

And then in section 62, the council goes on to say that no creature could ever be counted as equal with the incarnate word of God.

And Catholics are very clear about this. But just as the priesthood of Christ is shared in various ways, both by the ministers and the faithful, and as the one goodness of God is really communicated in different ways to his creatures, so also the unique mediation of the

Redeemer does not exclude, but rather gives rise to a manifold cooperation which is but a sharing in this one source.

So this is what is taught by the great Marian teachers, including St. Louis de

Montfort and St. Alphonsus Liguori. For example, St. Alphonsus Liguori says, Mary receives all she obtains through Jesus Christ.

So the question is though whether or not Mary and the angels and the saints could share the work of mediation.

It's very interesting to point out that scripture gives us a hint about this, because the word mediator is applied to Moses in Numbers 5 .5.

And then in reference to Moses in Galatians 3 .24, the Greek word mestizos is used, which means mediator.

So now what do we say? If Christ is the one mediator, how can scripture also speak of other mediators?

Well, this is where the great theologian Thomas Aquinas understood how to handle this.

He said, well, we'd have to say in Christ is the perfection of mediation. Thank you. But others also can share in this.

Thank you. All right. Protestants are often accused of being anti -Mary, but that is not the case at all.

I am here today truly to present to you the truth about who Mary was over against the fabrications that have been laid over her life, over 2 ,000 years of history.

I have a prayer before me that is from a book called Devotions in Honor of Our Mother of Perpetual Help from the

Redemptress. It is also the same prayer as found in one of the books that Dr.

Vestigi has already shown to you by Liguori. I want to read it to you. Oh, mother of perpetual help, thou art the dispenser of all the goods which

God grants to us miserable sinners. And for this reason, he has made thee so powerful, so rich and so bountiful that thou mayest help us in our misery.

Thou art the advocate of the most wretched and abandoned sinners who have recourse to thee.

Come then to my help, dearest mother, for I recommend myself to thee. In thy hands,

I place my eternal salvation and to thee do I entrust my soul.

Count me among thy most devoted servants. Take me under thy protection and it is enough for me.

For if thou protect me, dear mother, I fear nothing, not from my sins, because thou wilt obtain for me the pardon of them, nor from the devils, because thou art more powerful than all hell together, nor even from Jesus, my judge himself, because by one prayer from thee, he will be appeased.

But one thing I fear, that in the hour of temptation, I may neglect to call on thee and thus perish miserably, obtain for me then the pardon of my sins, love for Jesus, final perseverance, and the grace always to have recourse to thee, oh mother of perpetual help, followed by three

Hail Marys. I would like to submit that that is the most anti -Marian thing that I know of.

The prayers found in one of the books that he showed you by Liguri are anti -Mary.

Why are they anti -Mary? Because the true Virgin Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ, would never ever seek anyone to utter such blasphemous words to her.

She did, as Dr. Festigi said, she always directed people only to Jesus Christ.

She never would want someone to entrust their eternal salvation to her. She would never want anyone to seek her mediation, her intercession, when there is one mediator between God and man, the man

Christ Jesus. It is this material that is truly anti -Mary because the true

Mary is not listening to prayers in heaven. I honestly feel that the true Mary has no idea that there are millions upon this planet who seek her mediation, who pray prayers like this in her name, for it would grieve her to the very depths of her being.

And I don't believe that that type of grief exists for those who have been united with Christ. Mary is in the presence of Christ, but she is absorbed in the worship and prayer of the triune

God, not in hearing prayers of people asking for her intercession and trusting their souls to her.

That is anti -Marian doctrine. Now, the Roman Catholic doctrine of Mary contradicts the

Bible and it contradicts the biblical teaching on the sufficiency of Christ. When one takes the time to look at the

Marian doctrines as a whole, one discovers that Rome has seemingly purposefully paralleled in Mary all the unique offices of Jesus Christ.

Think about it. We are told, for example, that Jesus Christ is virgin born. He is born sinless.

But then we're also told, even though it was a doctrine denied by many that Dr. Vestigi would respect greatly, such as Thomas Aquinas even, she was immaculately conceived and preserved from sin, from this anticipatory redemption on the part of her son.

So we have the sinlessness of Christ and the virgin birth and now the immaculate conception. We are told that Jesus Christ rose bodily from the dead.

And now we're told that Mary is bodily assumed into heaven. We are told that Jesus Christ is our redeemer.

And now we're told that Mary is our redemptrix, not co - in the sense of equal with, but along with Christ in a lesser sense.

Jesus is our mediator. Mary is our mediatrix. Jesus is our king in heaven. Mary is the queen in heaven.

There is a purposeful attempt to parallel Jesus Christ in his unique offices in Mary.

And I say to you that that is not only unbiblical, but it is unchristian. A person who knows

Jesus Christ, who knows what it is to have salvation in Jesus Christ, who knows what it is to approach the throne of grace, to have been redeemed in the blood of Jesus Christ, would never, ever utter these words.

I say that it is fundamentally impossible for a person who trusts Jesus Christ to be in fear of him and have to ask for the mediation of another to appease his wrath.

A person who so prays to Mary does not know Jesus Christ. And that's vitally important today, my friends.

This is not just a scholastic debate. This is not just an opportunity for two scholars to get together and discuss historical issues.

I believe that the Roman Catholic doctrine of Mary demonstrates clearly what happens when a religious system is cut loose from the authority of the inspired

Word of God. For there are but maybe four or five passages in all of Scripture that Rome can turn to that can even begin to provide any semblance of a basis for any of these doctrines.

And if we have the opportunity of looking at them, Luke 1, 28, and in John chapter 20, we'll find entire edifices of theology built upon little teeny statements that in their context could not have had anything to do with what

Rome dogmatically demands that you believe under pain of anathema. This is a clear example of what happens when you add some other source of authority, in this case, tradition, to the ultimate authority of that which is theanustas,

God -breathed, the Scriptures. Now, I want to first address one of the last things that Dr.

Festigi got to, and that is this concept of Jesus as mediator. Everyone acknowledges that Rome over and over and over again states, we are not, we are not, we are not detracting from the glory of Christ by calling

Mary co -mediatrix or co -redemptrix or saying that we can call upon Mary and the saints as mediators.

We are not denying the glory of Christ all through their things.

And Dr. Festigi, this is one thing we're not going to have to argue about. Rome denies that doing this detracts from the glory of Christ.

It's a settled issue. No one's going to argue it. That doesn't make it true. It does detract from the sole mediatorship of Christ, his glory, and his saviorhood.

Rome says it doesn't, but it does. How does it? Well, let's look, for example, the concept of mediation.

In 1 Timothy 2, verse 5, we read, for there is one God, and there is one mediator, also between God and man, the man

Christ Jesus. Dr. Festigi read from this passage just a few moments ago and said, see, we do know this. Yes, that's true.

Well, here's the argument that is presented to us. Well, you see, there is one mediator, but his mediation is perfect.

And Mary partakes in his mediation. And that's why it's okay to call her mediator, and you have saints that are mediators, and so on and so forth, you see?

So the phrase one mediator can't be used to mean that there is only one and no one else enters into his mediation.

This is the argument that is made. Well, let's ask ourselves a question. Let's look at the verse.

For there is one God and one mediator, also between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

Well, let's follow the logic of the argument. If it is true that saying one mediator does not mean that you can't have sub -mediators, does it not logically follow then that when you say there is one

God, that it is not wrong to have lesser gods? Is that really what

Paul meant when he said there is one God, but there may be lesser gods that participate in his deity?

Well, no, obviously not. We recognize that the scriptures say there's only one true God, and we also need to recognize it says there's only one true mediator.

You see, Jesus is our mediator because he has a basis upon which to mediate.

He is our mediator, why? Because he has shed his blood in our behalf.

And when he mediates, when he is our intercessor, he has a basis upon which before the

Father, he intercedes for us, and that is what he did on the cross. What does Mary have? What do the saints have?

Even Roman Catholicism says, well, all they have, they have from Christ. Then they cannot be mediators in the sense that Christ is.

They cannot participate in his one mediation. Now, the question that really has to be kept in the forefront of all of our minds during this debate is this.

No matter what arguments are presented, is it the case that when we make

Mary a redemptrix, a mediatrix, the queen of heaven, sinlessly, immaculately conceived, when we talk about her bodily assumption, when you read phrases from Liguori about Christ being at the very throne and in heaven, and Mary being there as queen, when we hear all these things and see all these things, here is the one question that you must hold us to.

Does saying these things detract from our honor and glory of Jesus Christ and him alone?

Let me give you an example. Would it have been accepted by Moses or the people of Israel for a person to have come into the congregation and said, well,

I really like Baal, but I recognize that Baal is inferior to Yahweh.

And so I'm going to say that my dedication to Baal, Baal is a lesser deity.

He is dependent upon Yahweh, but I'm going to continue to pray to Baal. And in fact, Yahweh is going to be glorified by my praying to Baal.

Let us ask ourselves the question, do we really think the people of Israel would have accepted this type of thinking?

Or would they have said, no, Yahweh will share his glory with none else.

When Jesus in John 17 prays to the father and talks about the glory he had with the father before the world was, does he share this glory with anyone else?

You say, well, don't we receive glory or aren't we going to someday be glorified?

Hopefully everyone that reads the Bible can recognize that when we're talking about the very glory of God, this is something the creatures themselves can only gaze upon.

Not ever possess as their own possession. Oh, but Mary, all of Mary's merits and all of Mary's position, it's only based upon Christ.

My friends, the question will always be when you pray prayers like this, when you pray as the

Pope prayed at the end of Veritatis Splendor, oh Mary, mother of mercy, watch over all people that the cross of Christ may not be emptied of its power.

And you look back and you go, wait a minute, the New Testament talks about the cross of Christ not be emptied of its power, but it had nothing to do with Mary.

Mary, mother of mercy, watch over all people that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.

That is the role of the Holy Spirit of God, not of Mary. Mary would never seek this.

Mary would recognize this derogates from the proper form of worship that has been established in the pages of the

Bible. And hence involves us quite simply in idolatry.

And we hear the other words of people in regards to Mary. If God is angry with a sinner and Mary takes him under her protection, she withholds the avenging arm of her son and saves him.

Why did Paul say in Colossians chapter, 1 Corinthians chapter one, For it is by Christ Jesus that you are in him.

It is by him that you have your salvation. Why? So that your boasting may be only in the

Lord. My friends, I submit to you that the Roman Catholic doctrines of Mary are without basis in the

Bible. Our historical novelties in many cases were often denied by many down the history of the church.

They are enforced solely by the authority of Rome that Rome claims to have. Have no binding power upon any

Christian person whatsoever. But most importantly, they do what the true

Mary would never, ever, ever want done. They distract people from the purity of worship of Jesus Christ and of him alone.

All the objections aside, all saying, Oh no, it's just a demonstration of it. When you put someone between the redeemed soul and the redeemer, you are no longer talking.

About New Testament Christianity. You're talking about a perversion of it. And hence, the

Catholic, Roman Catholic doctrine of Mary detracts from the all sufficiency of Christ by giving us a different mediator, a different redeemer, a different king in heaven, one that does not exist.

Thank you very much. Your response? Well, thank you very much.

I'd like to just hold up for people a little booklet called Facing Up to Mary, written by Father Peter Gilquist, who had been an evangelical

Protestant and then converted to Eastern Orthodoxy. And so I just want to make it clear that the great devotion to Mary, that what

Mr. White called Roman Catholics, is shared by Eastern Christians and is deeply rooted in the piety of the

Eastern Church. And if someone would ever listen to the beautiful liturgy of St.

John Chrysostom, you know, what Mary is spoken of as more exalted than the cherubim and more sublime indeed than the seraphim, then we could understand that this is not just a

Roman Catholic preoccupation. But beyond that, I'd like to say that, first of all,

I don't see how we could look into people's hearts and say that those who are saying such prayers, as Alphonsus Liguori wrote, are being distracted from Jesus.

This notion of abandonment to Mary taught by St. Louis de Montfort in true devotion to Mary and taught in another sort of way by St.

Alphonsus Liguori has as its goal a deeper union with Christ. The motto in Latin was ad iesum per mariam to Jesus through Mary.

Now we might ask, why do we need to go through Mary? Well, Christ came into the world, the eternal word of God came into the world through Mary's unique cooperation.

The very flesh that was taken by the eternal word of God was taken from this beautiful Jewish girl.

That blood that was shed for our redemption on the cross of Calvary was given to the eternal word of God by Mary.

I remember once reading a little booklet by a Protestant, I won't mention his name since he's very well known, but he said, well,

Mary was a wonderful person but there's nothing in scripture to indicate she had any role in our redemption.

Well, I think being mother of the eternal word of God was at least something. It was a role, you see.

So that's why we are so devoted to Mary. And again, the warning is if you're going to be devoted to Mary in such a way that you're distracted from Christ, no, that's not true devotion to Mary.

That's what's taught in Lumen Gentium, that's what's taught by St. Louis de Montfort, that's what's taught by St. Alphonsus Liguori.

Why then do some people turn to Mary to go to Christ? Well, I think Francisco Suarez, the great

Jesuit theologian, explained it this way, and I'm just paraphrasing. He said, her purity and strength makes up for our deficiency.

In other words, when we ask Mary to pray with us and to intercede with us, then she strengthens our poverty and helps to bring us to Christ strengthened by her prayer.

Now, would Jesus object to this? No, I don't think so, because Jesus was a good

Jewish son, and he was following what is said in the Ten Commandments to honor your father and your mother.

You see, now his father was the heavenly father and his mother was Mary. And in fact, the word there could be translated glorify your mother and your father.

So Jesus wants to glorify his mother, and he wants to love her and give her these special privileges.

But we have to remember what makes Mary great is her humility. The great poet

Dante put it so beautifully, more humble and more exalted than any creature.

So in having Mary as an exemplar or as an example, we know how to approach

Christ in true humility and faith. Thank you. James, your response? I simply wish to read to you in evidence of how distracting the doctrine of Mary is from true and pure devotion to Christ.

A few words from Liguori. There is no doubt, St. Bernard adds, that Jesus Christ is the only mediator of justice between men and God, but because men acknowledge and fear the divine majesty, which is in him as God.

For this reason, it was necessary to assign us another advocate to whom we might have recourse with less fear and more confidence.

And this advocate is Mary, than whom we cannot find one more powerful with his divine majesty or one more merciful towards ourselves.

A mediator then was needed with the mediator himself. I hardly need to comment on that.

The error of it is plain. Be comforted then, O you who fear, I will say with St. Thomas of Villanova.

Breathe freely and take courage, O wretched sinners. This great virgin, who is the mother of your God and judge, is also the advocate of the whole human race.

Fit for this office, for she can do what she wills with God. Most wise, for she knows all the means of appeasing him.

Universal, for she welcomes all and refuses to defend no one. St. Ann Salmon, to increase our confidence, adds that when we have recourse to this divine mother, not only we may be sure for protection, but that often we shall be heard more quickly and be thus preserved.

If we have recourse to Mary and call on her holy name, then we should be if we called on the name of Jesus our savior.

And the reason he gives for it is this, that to Jesus as a judge, it belongs also to punish.

But mercy alone belongs to the blessed virgin as a patroness. My friends, the words stand by themselves.

This Liguori was raised the position of a doctor of the church, not just a saint, he is a doctor of the church.

If these words are false, 20 times the congregation of sacred rites looked at this, at his works, at his writings before he was canonized as a saint and then raised to doctor of the church.

If Rome does not come out, I submit to you, if Rome does not come out and say, this is blasphemy unheeded, this is blasphemy of the highest rank we deny this.

If they simply say, well, we can't tell you whether you have to believe that or not believe that. Rome is by that very action demonstrating she has no knowledge of the truth of Jesus Christ.

No person could possibly hear these words and not say, wait, wait, Jesus is the media, fearing

Jesus. Why would you fear Jesus? He's borne your sins and your stead. He sent his spirit to dwell within.

How can you possibly think such blasphemous thoughts about him? How can it be?

Remember, it is not my purpose today, though it would be something we could do in the future, to look at every one of these doctrines and demonstrate that every single one of these doctrines is biblically inaccurate.

Every single one of these doctrines is historically countermanded by numerous references. I have all that material before me.

Remember what the thesis is. The Catholic doctrine of Mary detracts from the all sufficiency of Christ.

I am in the enviable position of simply reading what is said. The words stand on their own.

Any person with hearing has to go, wait, wait. All arguments aside, when you tell me that my prayers will be heard more quickly through Mary than coming to Jesus because he's a judge, you know nothing of the one who is our hope.

You know nothing of the one who is the fountain of all mercy, Jesus Christ and him alone.

And that detracts from the all sufficiency of Christ. That is plain.

That is obvious. And hence, the thesis is demonstrated to be untrue because that position does detract from Christ.

Thank you. We're now entering the question and answer session. Dr. Vestigi, your first question, please.

Well, yes. I wanted to bring up the notion of sharing in the unique mediation of Christ.

I mentioned that, at least in the Vulgate edition of the

Old Testament, Numbers 5 .5 speaks about Moses as a mediator. And then I made a slight mistake.

It's Galatians 3 .19 that uses the word mestices in reference now to speaking of Moses that the old law was brought by a mediator through a mediator.

And so clearly, Scripture uses the word not just exclusively for Christ, and yet it's saying we have but one mediator between God and man.

I would just like to know how you would reconcile that and reconcile the fact that prayers of petition are requested.

And isn't that a form of mediation? Or when Paul in 2 Corinthians says that we are ambassadors for Christ.

Well, what is a mediator? Thank you. There are numerous things, Dr. Festigi.

First, I would have to point out that as I look at the New American Standard Bible, I see no reference to that in Numbers 5 .5.

So possibly it's just a strange thing with the Vulgate at that point. But in regards to the issue of mediators, we again have to deal with what is actually being said.

How is Mary said to be a mediator? What is the specific term that is used? Mediatrix of what?

All graces. We are talking here about her and over and over again, every one of these prayers that I've read, what is said, you will appease

God. You will turn away his wrath. What is the context of all of this alleged mediation? Is it not in regards to sin and punishment and grace and mercy?

You see, to be an intercessor, to be a mediator in the sense in which

Christ is, and Rome itself says, hey, her mediation, her intercession is derived from Christ.

So it must be the same kind, not the same level, but the same kind. It has to be based upon what Jesus Christ has done.

Well, wait a minute. What has Mary done? Well, Mary does not have any merit of her own. Even Rome says all her merit comes from Christ.

Then why do we not find the Bible ever describing her as a mediatrix or a redemptrix?

In fact, it seems that for hundreds of years, the New Testament Christians, certainly everyone involved in the

New Testament, had no concept of these beliefs. Mary disappears after the gospel.

She's seen once in the book of Acts, gone after that. Never once mentioned again, unless you try to use

Revelation chapter 12, which of course the early church identified as the church and not as Mary. Why?

How can this be? Because there is a fundamental discontinuity between the concept that Rome is attempting to preach of Mary as a mediatrix and the understanding of the

New Testament of Jesus as our mediator. In the context in which I am speaking, when

I say this derogates from the all sufficiency of Christ, I am saying Jesus Christ is our only mediator because he and he alone has made restitution for our sins.

He died as our perfect substitute. He bore my sins in his body upon the tree. Mary was a wonderful servant of God.

She said yes to God. She was used by God to bring Jesus into this world, but she did not bear my sins in her body.

Rome wants to go as far as to say she entered into his suffering at the cross. My friends, the word of God knows nothing about that.

Nothing about that. There is nothing there that even begins to hint at that. And see,

Rome doesn't care because this isn't all that Rome draws from. Rome claims to have this tradition that only she knows what's there and so she defines these dogmas and doctrines.

No, these, as we have seen, again, plainly, in the words that I have read to you, detract from the all -sufficiency of Christ by placing someone between us and our ever -merciful

Savior. Well, I'd first like to make a slight correction.

I meant to say Deuteronomy 5 .5. I'm sorry. And that was my mistake. But in Deuteronomy 5 .5,

it's referring here to Moses. Since you were afraid of the fire and would not go up to the mountain,

I, Moses, stood between the Lord and you at that time to announce to you these words of the

Lord. Well, to stand between is to be a mediator. So Moses was standing between the

Lord and the people. And then, as I said, in Galatians 3 .19,

the same word is used. So clearly, there's something quite unique about the mediation of Christ, but does that preclude other people from sharing in the work of redemption in the sense of being channels of grace?

Now, you know, you mentioned God doesn't share his glory with anyone, but you need to turn to that passage in John 17.

Chapter 17, I'm sorry. John 17, where he does say,

I call upon the Father to give them the glory that I had with you from the beginning of the world.

I'm looking right now for the, yes, verse 24. Father, they are your gift to me.

I wish that where I am, they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

And then he also says in that same chapter, I'll have to find it, but I know it's there, that he gives them 22.

Thank you. And I have given them the glory you gave me so that they may be one as we are one.

So Jesus was not shy about sharing his glory with his disciples.

And who would be the first? As a good son, he should give the glory first to his mother, but it's a participated glory, just as the mediation of Mary is a participated mediation.

Thanks. Your response? I thank you for correcting that passage in Deuteronomy.

You cited Galatians 3 .9, where again, it's talking about Moses by the hand of a mezzotaste, the mediator.

Again, what's being discussed there though is not the mediation of grace and it's not the mediation of salvation.

This is the mediation of the old covenant, specifically in Galatians 3 .19. And the mediation that Mary is said to participate in in regards to Christ, again, is the mediation that the

Bible says is Christ and Christ alone. You haven't shown us any passages, Dr. Vestigi, where Mary is described as this.

And it would almost seem unfair for me to ask it because Roman Catholics acknowledge there is no scriptural citation that teaches that Mary is in any way, shape or form a mediator.

So here, the inspired apostles had no idea of this doctrine, which now allegedly carries the anathema of God if you don't believe it.

Well, all these Marian doctrines are, again, just detract from the glory of Christ in that way.

Could I respond? No, it's his question. All right. Well, yes, go ahead. Your question.

Thank you. Dr. Vestigi, how can

Rome, the infallible guide, allow people to utter the prayers that we find in Marian documents such as the one that I have read from this little booklet here from Liguori, etc.?

Would you not agree that saying the prayer, I fear nothing, not from my sins, because thou would obtain pardon for them, nor from the devils, because thou art more powerful than all hell together, nor even from Jesus, my judge himself, paralleling

Jesus with the devil and his sins, would you not agree with me that this detracts horrifically from the all -sufficiency and the glory of Christ?

No, I do not. I think those are beautiful prayers if understood correctly. I have studied

St. Louis de Montfort and St. Alphonsus Liguori, and it is an expression of a kind of Baroque spirituality that some contemporary

Catholics don't like very much these days. But I think when understood correctly with those caveats that all of this abandonment to Mary is so that we have such a pure and beautiful and prayerful friend who will then help us to draw closer to her son.

And yes, Jesus is described in the book of Revelation in a rather frightening way. Now, I suppose people reading that down through the centuries could have been frightened, especially if you're a sinful person like me.

But now we turn to the gentle Mary, and then since she knows Jesus so well, all right, we abandon ourselves to her so she could let us know the mercy of Christ.

But in terms of you saying there's no evidence in Scripture for Mary's intercession, we'll turn to chapter 2 in the

Gospel of John. I don't know what you'd call this except intercession. Jesus did not want to do any miracle there.

And then his mother intercedes, John 2, 5. This time I have the Scripture right. His mother said to the servers, do whatever he tells you.

Did she not intercede? I don't see how else you could interpret that. And then I think in the sense of splenny or the full sense of Scripture, the book of Revelation is talking about Mary, chapter 12.

Yes, it has multiple levels of meaning, but the affirmative sense is not the exclusive sense.

So this woman is ready to give birth to a child, a son destined to rule with an iron rod.

Who could that be but Christ? And so I think this is why some early church fathers did understand this to be

Mary. And so that's a sign, I think, that she's the woman clothed with the Son in heaven who's interceding for us, but as a good mother, always to bring us to the

Savior that she knows. And when in her magnificent prayer, her magnificat,

I give glory to God, my Savior. I give thanks to God, my Savior. So that's what Mary wants.

And she's a good mother. Now, Cardinal Newman once said, certain forms of piety might be more suitable for Italy than England.

Well, maybe that's so, but I don't find these forms of piety of Alphonsus Liguori offensive in the least.

Maybe it's because my name is Fastigi. I don't know. Well, Dr. Fastigi, it's hard for me to understand how you cannot find these words offensive, because when a prayer parallels sins and the devils and Jesus, the person praying the prayer, no matter what their piety might be, is lost.

Undone and without hope. And so I find them extremely offensive, because my

Lord Jesus Christ is all glorious, and he will judge someday. But Dr. Fastigi, if a person's a

Christian, they know Jesus Christ as judge in the sense that they've been judged in his death.

If a person's a Christian, they know that Jesus Christ is the source of all their mercy, that he is their life.

The idea that we need some softer, more compassionate person to come to, in the words that I've read, an advocate with our advocate, a mediator with our mediator, is to demonstrate this whole system has no knowledge of the mediator in the first place.

Jesus Christ is not a fearsome judge for the person who has given his heart and his soul and his mind to him.

You see, Dr. Fastigi, it does withdraw from the glory of Christ. And he said, you look at John chapter two.

This passage has been used by Rome to attempt to build on it. Here, Mary intercedes in regards to what?

The marriage at the wedding of Cana. You get from this, Mediatrix of all graces, that no grace accrues to man unless it goes through Mary, as the

Pope has said? I don't believe that I could provide any better example of the fact that Rome does not care what the

Bible says as long as it says something that can be used to present Rome's doctrine.

Obviously, this passage has nothing whatsoever to do with the concept of being a

Mediatrix of all graces. Your response? Well, the doctrine of the

Mediatrix of all graces is not a solemn dogma of the Catholic church, a very bright

Catholic layman has written a book called Mary, Co -Redemptrix, Mediatrix and Advocate.

His name is Dr. Mark Mirvale. You have it. It's a very beautifully written book, and he'd like to see it defined as a dogma, but he's very careful.

He points out that the title, he first points out that the prefix co - does not mean equal, but comes from the

Latin word cum, which means with. The title of co -redemptrix applied to the mother of Jesus never places

Mary on a level of equality with Jesus Christ, the divine Lord of all in the saving process of humanity's redemption.

Rather, it denotes Mary's singular and unique sharing with her son in the saving work of redemption for the human family.

The mother of Jesus participates in the redemptive work of her savior son, who alone could reconcile humanity with the father in his glorious divinity and humanity.

Your next question? Yes. Mr. White, I'm wondering how impoverished your

Mariology is. It's a biblical one. Okay. I'm wondering whether or not you would be willing to recognize titles given to her by people like Martin Luther, who didn't hesitate to call her the mother of God, who believed that she was perpetually virgin, and also did write, did give a sermon in 1527, where he said that, but the other conception, speaking of Mary, namely the infusion of the soul, it is piously and suitably believed was without any sin, so that while the soul was being infused, she would be at the same time cleansed from original sin and adorned with the gifts of God to receive the holy soul thus infused, and thus in the moment in which she began to live, she was without all sin.

Well, as I said, Dr. Vestigi, I believe my Mariology is a biblical one, that is, it is drawn from the scriptures itself.

In regards to the titles, obviously, as we both know, Dr. Vestigi, the term mother of God initially was completely

Christological in nature, and that is, it was meant to protect against the Nestorian heresy and the concepts that were related to that.

The idea that at that time carried what popular piety in Roman Catholicism teaches,

I think, is simply not the case. That came later down the road. She is the mother of the

Lord. The Bible says that all generations would call her blessed, not because of some concept of immaculate conception, but because she was chosen by God to be the instrument by which the

Son of God became flesh. What a great blessing that certainly was. Martin Luther did have a high

Mariology, and in fact, there were many Protestants who, because of their connection with Mary, their devotional feelings to Mary, as you brought out in your previous statement, continued to believe certain things about her.

John Calvin, for example, in commenting on that topic said, let us rest satisfied with this, that no just and well -grounded inference can be drawn from these words of the evangelist as to what took place after the birth of Christ.

He is called firstborn, but it is for the sole purpose of informing us that he was born of a virgin. It is said that Joseph knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son, but this is limited to that very time.

What took place afterwards, the historian does not inform us. Such is well known to have been the practice of the inspired writers.

Certainly no man will ever raise a question on the subject except from curiosity, and no man will obstinately keep up the argument except from an extreme fondness for disputation.

Unfortunately, as we know, Dr. Festigi, according to Roman Catholicism, you have to believe this, again, because it has been dogmatically defined.

But what titles would I utterly and completely reject? Mediatrix, Redemptrix, Mother of the

Church, the Immaculate Conception, Queen of Heaven, all these passages that we find over and over and over again in the dogmatic statements of the

Church. And I don't know that I have a whole lot of time to try to get to it, but I was going to read some of the statements.

Pius X said, Christ has taken his seat at the right hand of the majesty on high, and Mary as queen stands at his right hand.

Those types of concepts I find to be utterly absent from this. And the simple fact of the matter is

Rome now says, while these Christians who lived in the day of the New Testament could get along quite fine without these doctrines, now we have defined certain doctrines, like the bodily assumption and the

Immaculate Conception, as doctrines you can't get along with. You can't even think otherwise in what we've defined on this, or you receive the anathema.

And I would say, Dr. Vestigi, my Mariology is one that is limited to what the inspired scriptures teach about Mary.

I trust no other source. Okay. Well, I'm still not clear as to whether or not you would be willing to give

Mary the title of the Council of Ephesus, Theotokos, which could be translated

God -bearer, the womb of God, or Mater Dei, mother of God. But in any case, it should be understood that the

Second Vatican Council was quite clear that when Mary is invoked under these titles,

I'll just read to you this, therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked by the Church under the titles of Advocate, Exuliatrix, Adjutrix, and Mediatrix.

This, however, is to be so understood that it neither takes away from nor adds anything to the dignity and efficaciousness of Christ, the one

Mediator. So, we've been very careful in defining this and understanding that Mary has a subordinate role, but she has an indispensable role in the economy of salvation.

I follow what St. Thomas says. God could have redeemed the human race just by a sheer act of will, but he chose what he believed was the most fitting way, and he chose to enter into human history with the free consent of Mary.

And so she plays an indispensable role in the economy of salvation. And yes, she is the mother of the

Church because the Church is the body of Christ, and she's the mother of Christ. So, I don't see where any of this detracts from the sole mediation of Christ, the all -sufficiency of Christ.

In fact, I would say when you develop a devotion to Mary, you get to know Christ in a very intimate way, in a very loving way.

And maybe she helps to dispel false images of Christ as somehow ferocious and judgmental and makes us really know the

Christ she knows, the one who is gentle and meek of heart. Church historian

J. N. D. Kelley notes, Thus, reliable evidence of prayer is being addressed to Mary, or of her protection and help being sought is almost, though not entirely, non -existent in the first four centuries of the

Christian Church. It's certainly non -existent in the New Testament, and I again point out, if the New Testament Christians could do without it, why do we now have to have it today?

Dr. Vestigi tells us, well, maybe she's dispelling these false ideas about Jesus. The fact of the matter is, again, in answer to your question,

Dr. Vestigi, to try to stick with that, the term God -bearer, theotokos, that is used of her referred to the fact that what was born of her was truly

God. But most people today, when they hear mother of God, don't understand it that way. And I believe that the

Roman Catholic Church has very badly misused this. Your idea, well, Jesus was a good Jewish boy.

He'd honor his father and his mother. Turning honoring your father and your mother into making

Mary the queen of heaven is a very, very long leap. James?

Dr. Vestigi, how can Mary, who you confess herself needed grace, be the mediatrix of all graces?

Well, I first want to clarify again that the recognition of her as mediatrix of all graces is not a solemn dogma of the church, but it is held by many respectable theologians like St.

Bernard of Clairvaux and others. And some popes have also referred to her in this way.

But you see, it seems to be appropriate that she was the connection between God and the world, between the world and its savior.

So in other words, the world united with God through her cooperation.

And then she gave the world its savior by her cooperation. And so as St.

Bernard says, well, Christ is the head of the church. And Mary could be either the aqueduct of grace or she could be understood also as the neck of the mystical body with Christ as the head.

And we're all kind of linked. The church allows this to be piously believed, but doesn't mandate it as a dogma.

But it is, I think, understandable that if the word became flesh, et incarnatus est, you see, this is so powerful.

And where did that flesh come from? It came from Mary, you see. So that's the greatness of Mary, that she was the one who united matter, you know, who united this world to the redeemer.

So it was appropriate then. Not, it wasn't mandated by God's justice, but it was appropriate and fitting in the viewpoint of many of these great pious theologians that Jesus would want now his mother to share in the work of distribution of grace.

All right. Dr. Festigi, the phrase, kai halagas sarx egenita, and the word became flesh, the greatness and the subject of the passage there is the lagas, not

Mary. Mary is never once mentioned in this passage. The word became flesh, not through the instrumentality of Mary joining the divine and the human.

God made the word flesh. Mary was the passive instrument, and there is nothing in the scriptures that says otherwise.

Vatican II says, therefore the blessed virgin is invoked by the church under the titles of advocate, auxiliatrix, adjutrix, and mediatrix.

These, however, are to be so understood that they neither take away from nor add anything to the dignity and efficacy of Christ one mediator.

I said from the beginning, that's one thing you and I are not going to have to argue about. That's what Rome claims. The problem is these titles do derogate from Christ.

Now, the question I asked you, Dr. Festigi, if Mary is, and Rome says you can believe this, and I'd like to submit to you, sir, but if the infallible guide says, yes, you can believe this, it's hard to avoid taking that as meaning it's true.

They say, oh, but it hasn't been dogmatically defined. Well, if the infallible guide says you can go down that path there, let's say you hire a guide to take you through the mountains, and he says, oh, sure, you can go down that path and you fall off a cliff and die.

Was he an infallible guide? What good is an infallible guide who can only see behind him? That's not the type of infallible guide

I want. I don't see much use in an infallible guide like that. I asked you if Mary is the mediatrix of all graces, yet she herself needed grace for redemption.

Does that mean that she was the mediatrix of the grace that brings about her own redemption? Obviously, this makes no sense.

She cannot be the mediatrix of all graces. The very idea that she is, again, from whom do we have grace?

Who has become to us righteousness and redemption and sanctification? Mary? No, Jesus Christ.

And to put Mary as another mediator, another advocate between our true mediator and advocate is to detract from his glory.

I don't see how this follows at all, but I'd like to just respond to something you said at the beginning.

I'll quote the creed that I know in Latin. It incarnatus est spiritus sancto ex

Maria Vergine. In other words, you cannot recite the Nicene Creed or the word became flesh from the

Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary or from the Virgin Mary or took flesh by the power of the

Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary. In other words, she played an indispensable role. That ex Maria Vergine is very important in the creed and that helps to ensure that Christ had a real human nature, you know, in opposition to the monophysites.

And it seems like you just keep harboring back that somehow this takes away from Christ.

I don't see where it does. Yes, Mary receives all the grace she has from Christ.

This is what I said. Alphonsus Liguori says, this is what all all of them say. We're talking now about the economy of salvation where she's active as a member of Christ's mystical body.

Thank you. Your next question, please. Yes. You know, we talked about this in the in the earlier debate on indulgences and also a justification.

But scripture talks about us as God's workers, co -workers.

You know, St. Paul uses this. He says that he is a store to the mystery of God.

Second Corinthians, he uses the image of being an ambassador for Christ. Are these not expressions which communicate the idea of sharing in the work of Christ, the ongoing work of Christ?

If you are an ambassador, that sounds almost like a mediator being a mediator, the mediator, you are representing

Christ. Or even when Jesus says in Luke 10, 16, whoever hears you, hears me. So the apostolic church going out and preaching is mediating the word of God, mediating the presence of Christ.

You see, mediation is something beautiful to a Catholic or an Eastern Orthodox where we're sacramental.

Well, I'll stick with the question, not the preaching, Dr. Second Corinthians 5 .20 says, Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us.

We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. And Dr. Vestugi has over and over again cited this passage and the passage, we are fellow workers with God.

Doing what? Mediating grace? Finding appeasement from wrath from the wrathful

Jesus? Are we asking people to entrust their salvation to us as this prayer says we are to entrust our salvation to Mary?

No. You see, we have here a classic example, no offense intended, Dr. Vestugi, of using a term in two different ways.

See, as I said, the biblical definition of Jesus Christ mediation must be the definition that we stick to in regards to the thesis of this debate because the debate is the

Roman Catholic doctrine on Mary violates the all -sufficiency of Christ. What type of a mediator is he?

Is he merely an ambassador for the Father going out and preaching the gospel? No. The mediation that is his is a mediation based upon his perfect and completed work upon the cross of Calvary.

And hence, it differs completely in kind from any type of our being fellow workers with God because God has deigned to allow us to proclaim the gospel.

Does that mean that the work of Christ is dependent upon us adding something to the work of Christ in no way, shape, or form?

Obviously, our work then is of a completely different type than the work of Jesus Christ as mediator. But we are being told by Rome Mary mediates on the basis of having received grace from Christ and what can she accomplish?

She can turn away the very wrath of God. That is the mediation that is based upon the finished work of Christ.

Mary does not have a finished work upon which to mediate. And hence, if we use our terms clearly, if we use only one definition from them, again, we see the truthfulness of what

I've said. The Roman Catholic doctrine derogates from the all -sufficiency of Christ. Your response?

Well, I just am amazed that we cannot clarify the terms that there is the unique mediation of Christ, but the mediation of Mary and the saints and us here on earth is a sharing of participation.

In a sense, we have only one priest, one high priest, as the letter to the Hebrew says. But as a good

Protestant, Mr. White, I'm sure, would say that we're all priests. You know, as 1

Peter tells us, I'll read to you again what the great St. Thomas says. He says,

Properly speaking, the office of a mediator is to join together and unite those between whom he mediates.

For extremes are united in the mean. Now, to unite men to God perfectly belongs to Christ, through whom men are reconciled to God, according to 2

Corinthians 5 .19. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. And consequently,

Christ alone is the perfect mediator of God and men. And as much as by his death, he reconciled the human race.

But he goes on to say this doesn't include a sharing in that mediation. Thank you. Your question, James? Dr. Vestigi, Pius IX, to my knowledge, and you could correct me if you would like, did not write a single encyclical in which the name of the

Virgin Mary did not occupy a prominent place. And yet we have in the Bible 21 apostolic letters, and her name does not occur in a single one of them.

Could you explain to us, sir, for a person who believes the Bible to be the word of God, why we should adopt a view of Mary that is nowhere presented to us in the pages of scripture itself?

Well, I think it is presented there in scripture. And we have the witness of those who knew her best.

You see, it's Saint John and Saint Luke who knew her best.

I mean, the tradition is that Luke interviewed her and learned about the miraculous appearance of the angel from Mary.

How else could he have learned this? Now we have all of these apostolic letters written by Paul and Peter and so on.

But Paul didn't know Christ in his earthly life. He met him in his resurrected life.

You see, so Paul had his job to do, and it was a magnificent job to do. But the

Holy Spirit moved those authors who knew Mary the best to give us the deepest insights about him.

And that would have been Luke and John, because it's quite significant. And even this book, an ecumenical book,

I have it here somewhere, Mary in the New Testament, oh, here it is, points out that these passages that Catholics interpret, you know, as referring to Mary like woman, behold thy son, son, behold thy mother, behold thy son, son, behold thy mother, you know, or Jesus calling his mother woman, that this certainly admits of the interpretation given that this is the

Mary -Eve parallelism. Because don't forget what St. Clement of Alexandria said, John is the spiritual gospel.

So these very peculiar words, woman, you know, woman, what is this to me?

It's like Jesus saying, I am, you know, these words chosen under the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit by the gospel writer John have significance. So the woman there, his mother is the woman, it's a reference back to Genesis 3 .15.

And even these ecumenical scholars admit that this is not straining the word of God to see these parallelisms because they exist in other parts of scripture.

Thank you. Your response? I invite our readers to look at these passages for themselves, determine for themselves whether this is not an incredible stretch.

Dr. Vestigi just made a parallel between the clear, obvious, repeated, and exegetically sure use of the phrase ago

I am by the Lord Jesus that demonstrates his deity with an edifice of doctrine built upon a word, woman.

Oh, it's a spiritual doctrine. It's a spiritual gospel. My friends, any doctrine can be based upon this type of misuse of the word of God.

There is no parallel between the few Marian passages that one finds in the New Testament and the clear references to the deity of Christ that was just made by my opponent.

None whatsoever. This is a gross misuse of the word of God. And I just simply ask you to look at the

Bible and ask yourself the question, look at those statements that Rome has placed the anathema on. You must believe this and ask yourself the question, is that in here?

Is that all through here? You'll find that it's not. We will now hear closing statements.

Dr. Prestigi, your closing statement, please. Yes. Well, I think we've discussed a lot of these matters and it seems like we've kind of gone around in a big circle.

And I have to remind you that Mr. White and I do not share the same notion of authority.

He is a solo scripturist, scripture alone. And I mean, we could discuss this another time, but I find very little passages in scripture that say scripture alone is to be the only authority.

Yet his theology draws out a few little passages and creates this incredible norm of faith from just a few little passages, you see, like 2

Timothy 3 .16 and others. I mean, it's amazing that you could have such a dogma enunciated in the 16th century, which is not substantiated by the witness of the early church.

And then say that this is the truth and you're basing it upon a few little passages that I contend are taken out of context.

So in terms of what the Bible does say about Mary, it's quite significant. And I don't think that the fathers of the

Council of Ephesus were misled when they said that Mary is to be truly venerated as Theotokos, as the mother of God.

And that in the Eastern church, you know, they honor her with the title Panagia, all holy, you see.

And so there is a legitimate doctrinal development. I mean, after all, it wasn't until around the fourth century, early fifth century, that the beautiful dogma of the

Trinity was clarified. It wasn't until the fifth century that the true understanding of Christ as one person with two natures was clarified.

So certainly this understanding of Mary's role had to take development.

But what the Bible does say is quite significant. I'll just read to you what is said by Mary, this collaboration of Protestant scholars and Catholic scholars called

Mary in the New Testament. If Mr. White hasn't read it, I would encourage him to do so. And regarding the use of the word woman in John 2, 4, it says, there is no precedent in Hebrew or to the best of our knowledge in Greek for a son to address his mother thus.

And so most scholars have detected a special significance in the term. The use of these terms or why did

Jesus on the cross say, you know, mother behold thy son, son behold thy mother.

I think he knew that we needed a mother and he wanted to give us his mother, you see, that as he knew she nourished him and she was with him and he wants now to give us the gift of his mother to bring us closer to him.

Notice the thesis of the debate. Do the Catholic teachings on the Immaculate Conception and the mediation of Mary take away from the all -sufficiency of Christ?

I contend they do not. I have read you so many passages of great saints, St. Louis de

Montfort, St. Alphonsus Liguori. I've read so much from Lumen Gentium chapter 8 of Vatican II and they keep saying again and again,

Mary's greatness is linked to her son. But you see, we could only have her son because Mary said yes.

You see, she played an indispensable role and we as Catholics and the

Eastern Orthodox join with us in this, many Anglicans do too, are just honoring

Mary because she, as St. Thomas Aquinas said, spoke on our behalf and said yes on behalf of the human race and said yes, let it be done to me, you see, so that the

Savior could enter into human history. And would it seem that after playing this indispensable role,

Jesus would just say, okay, you have no other role to play. What we are saying is

Mary, who interceded for Jesus's first miracle, is interceding now, but interceding only as a faithful daughter of her son, as Dante called her.

She's the daughter of her son and she is the mother of grace in the sense that she received the fullness of grace and now she wishes to join with her son in bringing us to that fullness of grace.

How does this take away from the unique mediation of Christ?

Mary knows more than any other human being that she is the maidservant of the

Lord. So when we turn to Mary through prayers and asking her intercession,

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. I want her praying for me at the hour of my death.

James? Pope Leo XIII in an encyclical in 1891 said of Mary's mediation, nothing is bestowed on us except through Mary, as God himself wills.

Therefore, as no one can draw near to the Supreme Father except through the Son, so also one can scarcely draw near to the

Son except through his mother. My friends, what allows

Rome to teach such a doctrine that is so obviously, obviously removed from Scripture?

Dr. Vestigi just told us. Oh, Mr. White, he's a solo scripturist. Well, since everyone

I know in the Scripture was too, I appreciate the title. He said, well, we can talk about that sometime and I would be more than happy to do so.

But referring to one of the early fathers who encountered this problem about who's right and who's wrong,

I want to read to you what Basil of Caesarea said. If custom is to be taken in proof of what is right, then it is certainly competent for me to put forward on my side the custom which obtains here.

If they reject this, we are clearly not bound to follow them. Then listen closely. Therefore, let God -inspired

Scripture decide between us and whichever side be found doctrines in harmony with the word of God in favor of that side will be cast the vote of truth.

That's what you must do today. Upon what side do you find the word of God? Do you find in the word of God words like this from Benedict XV?

Thus she, Mary, suffered and all but died along with her son, suffering and dying.

Thus for the salvation of men, she abdicated the rights of a mother toward her son and insofar as was hers to do, she immolated the son to placate

God's justice so that she herself may justly be said to have redeemed together with Christ the human race.

Can you find, as Basil said, on whichever side be found God -inspired Scripture, on that side will be cast the vote of truth.

Can you find that in Scripture? No, my friend. You'll find it nowhere in Scripture. Utterly unknown to the early

Christian people that we find in Scripture. Pius XII said, He, the Son of God, reflects on his heavenly mother the glory, the majesty, and the dominion of his kingship for having been associated to the king of martyrs in the ineffable work of human redemption.

As mother and cooptrix, she remains forever associated with him with an almost unlimited power in the distribution of the graces which flow from redemption.

Jesus is king throughout all eternity by nature and by right of conquest, through him, with him, and subordinate to him. Mary is queen by grace, by divine relationship, by right of conquest, and by singular election.

And her kingdom is as vast as that of her son and God, since nothing is excluded from her dominion.

And this queenship of hers is essentially maternal, exclusively beneficent. My friends, as I said right at the beginning, this is a vitally important issue.

The thesis is that I am presenting to you the Roman Catholic doctrines of Mary, her bodily assumption, mediatrix, intercession, immaculate conception, all of these.

Dr. Vestigi says they don't detract from the all -sufficiency of Christ. My friends, they detract from the all -sufficiency of Christ just as much as polytheism detracts from monotheism.

You see, monotheism is a doctrine there's only one true God. Polytheism says there are many gods, and polytheism can have different kinds.

There can be, like henotheism, one main God and all sorts of little gods. My friends, when you say that you can entrust your soul to Mary, when you parallel in her all the offices of Jesus Christ, so that people are led without Rome saying, oh, no, don't do that.

Don't, no, no, don't do that. Stop that now. People are led to pray to Mary, to devote themselves to Mary, to give their souls to Mary, to trust that Mary can save them at their death.

My friends, with all the love in my heart, I have to tell you the only one who can save you at your death is

Jesus Christ and him alone. If you think that there is a mediator between you and the mediator, you have been deceived.

You have been misled. You have been led astray in error. Jesus Christ has no co -redeemers, either equal with him or of any other type, because the honor and glory for salvation belongs to Jesus Christ and to him alone.

I boast in the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior, because no one else can save me.

He and he alone receives the glory, because no one else is involved in bringing about my salvation.

Mary said yes to God. Mary was an important woman, but Mary never viewed herself and the

Bible never views her. As Rome says, we have to or we'll have the anathema of God upon us.

No, my friends, it's just not true. Thank you. We hope that you've enjoyed this fourth in a series of four debates between these gentlemen and we hope that you will investigate the information that they've brought up and come to a conclusion as to who is defending the truth.