Abstracts Anthropology

The Use of Marian Imagery in Catholic Ecclesiology Since Vatican II

by Natalia Maria Imperatori-Lee

The Second Vatican Council linked mariology and ecclesiology in its promulgation of Lumen gentium, The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. While it was clear from the time of the council that mariology would be tied to ecclesiology, the reverse is less obvious and has not been examined systematically. This dissertation asserts that there is a mariological element to some contemporary Catholic ecclesiologies, an element that has been poorly understood. Through an analysis of the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Elizabeth Johnson, and U. S. Latino/a theologians, this study examines the mariological and ecclesiological contributions of these thinkers, whether these contributions dovetail with the goals of the Second Vatican Council, and what they say about the struggle for identification in the Catholic Church today. After examining the debate surrounding the mariological schema at Vatican II, this dissertation analyzes the aesthetic mariological ecclesiology of Hans Urs von Balthasar. By making Mary the cornerstone of his reflection on the Church, specifically the Church's "marian character," Balthasar ties his mariological ecclesiology to his theological anthropology. This is among the first significant attempts to link mariology and ecclesiology in the wake of Vatican II. However, Balthasar's problematic anthropological assumptions call for critique, and do not fully engage the ecclesiological vision of the Second Vatican Council. The next approach studied is the critical feminist approach of Elizabeth Johnson. Her desire to return Mary to her proper place within the communion of saints, a symbol Johnson uses to describe the Church, forges a new direction in the link between mariology and ecclesiology. Johnson's vision of a historical communion of equal disciples living out holiness in ordinary ways both broadens the idea of holiness in the Church and returns Mary to a human status ignored in the excesses of marian maximalism. The last approach is that of U. S. Latino/a theologians, in particular their reflections on Mexican-American devotion to Guadalupe. While this study does not confront the questions of historicity surrounding this apparition, it contends that the reflections on Guadalupan devotion constitute an incipient ecclesiology, one that holds promise for the self-identification of the American Church.