A major Marian conference in Rome next month aims to reaffirm the Blessed Virgin Mary’s unique role in salvation history and to help the faithful grow in their devotion to the Mother of God.
The conference, entitled De Maria numquam satis (“Of Mary, one can never say enough”), will take place Oct. 7-8 and will reflect on the mystery of the Blessed Virgin Mary in doctrine, worship and history.
Speakers will include Cardinal Raymond Burke, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, papal theologian Dominican Father Wojciech Giertych, and the German Mariologist professor Manfred Hauke.
The conference is intended to “shed new light by connecting doctrine with lived piety,” showing how Our Lady opens, in the words of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, “vast horizons onto the wisdom and mercy of God,” says one of the organizers, Virginia Coda Nunziante.
In this Sept. 3 interview with the Register, Coda Nunziante, president of the Italian pro-life group Associazione Famiglia Domani and founder of the Italian March for Life, shares more details of the conference and why it is not intended to fuel controversy following the Vatican’s much-contested diminution of two ancient Marian titles last year.
Rather, she says, the seminar aims to restore “theological clarity” around Mary, stressing that Marian devotion “is not an optional ornament of Catholic life, but an intrinsic dimension of it.” Coda Nunziante hopes that, at a time of much spiritual emptiness, each participant will leave knowing “how God willed to involve Mary in salvation, how the Church has always honored her, and how turning to her helps me follow Christ more closely today.”
Virginia, why is De Maria numquam satis a necessary conference now, and how did it come about?
The conference arose from the initiative of several Catholic associations and individuals eager to pay homage to the Blessed Virgin Mary. We live in a time when the figure of Our Lady risks being pushed to the margins of theological reflection and spiritual life, while her unique role in the history of salvation is sometimes downplayed or obscured. It therefore seemed necessary to reaffirm, with clarity and serenity, the singular cooperation of the Mother of God in the work of redemption and the place that belongs to her in the life of the Church.
The conference, which will take place in Rome on Oct. 7-8 at the Pontifical Patristic Institute Augustinianum, is not intended as the culmination of a reflection, but rather as a starting point. Our hope is that it will help give rise to a genuine Marian movement, capable of involving priests, religious and laypeople in the shared commitment to know, love and promote devotion to Mary.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux said that reflection on the Blessed Virgin Mary is “inexhaustible” and always timely. How does the conference possibly aim to rehabilitate this focus of the saint?
Indeed, the congress takes its title from the maxim traditionally attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux — “Of Mary one can never say enough” — to express the conviction that reflection on Mary is inexhaustible and always timely. St. Bernard’s phrase captures the traditional view that Mary’s mission in Christ and the Church continually opens new horizons for faith.
This is not about “rehabilitating” St. Bernard in the strict sense, since his teaching already belongs permanently to the Church’s spiritual heritage. Rather, it is a matter of restoring to him the visibility he seems to have lost today. St. Bernard’s Mariology is profoundly Christ-centered: Mary keeps nothing for herself but always leads us to Christ. It is precisely for this reason that the saint affirms that God willed that nothing should come to us without passing through the hands of Mary.
Certain Church authorities recently tried to diminish the ancient Marian titles of Co-Redemptrix and Co-Mediatrix — what do you hope the conference might achieve in terms of redressing this teaching?
The conference is not intended to fuel controversy, but to restore theological clarity. Words may be subject to careful distinctions and prudent discussion, but we cannot obscure the doctrinal reality they express. Christ alone is the one Redeemer and the one necessary Mediator between God and men, yet the Blessed Virgin Mary is associated with His redemptive work. Mary’s cooperation is entirely subordinate, dependent and derived from that of Christ; nonetheless, it is real, efficacious, singular and universal. We hope the conference will help bring this truth to light. Our aim is not to set Mary against Christ, but to show that Mary’s greatness manifests the power of Christ’s grace.
With regard to Mary Mediatrix, we cannot fail to recall that Pope Benedict XV instituted a proper Mass for this title as early as 1921 and designated May 31 as its feast day. This means that the theological, Mariological and popular tradition had already received this Marian privilege into the life of the Church.
You state that Mariology “remains one of the richest and most fruitful fields of Catholic theology, for each privilege and virtue of the Virgin opens vast horizons onto the wisdom and mercy of God.” How do you hope this conference will explore this and perhaps shed new light on this aspect?
The congress is structured to explore this richness on two complementary levels:
- “Dogma and Magisterium” (Day 1): foundational doctrines that reveal who Mary is in God’s plan.
- “Worship, Devotion, and History” (Day 2): how the Church has prayed to, honored, and understood Mary across centuries and cultures.
This dual approach is intended to shed new light by connecting doctrine with lived piety — for example, linking the Immaculate Conception to the Roman School’s theology, or the Assumption to eschatological hope, or Fatima to a theology of history. The result is a Mariology that is not abstract but illuminated by the Church’s concrete experience of Mary’s intercession and example.
By pairing dogmatic sessions (“Divine Motherhood,” Immaculate Conception, Assumption) with historical and devotional studies (French School of Spirituality, Fatima, Latin American devotion), the organizers intend to demonstrate that every privilege and virtue of the Virgin opens “vast horizons onto the wisdom and mercy of God,” exactly as Bernard’s intuition suggests.
How can Our Lady’s role in salvation be brought more to the fore and her unique example given to humanity, so in need in this time of spiritual darkness of finding the way to the transcendent love of God?
First and foremost, we need to speak of Mary again in preaching, catechesis and family life, restoring centrality to Marian feasts, shrines, the Holy Rosary and consecration to her Immaculate Heart. Devotion, however, must be nourished by sound doctrine, for only in this way can it avoid sentimentalism and become a force capable of transforming lives.
The conference aims to recover this unity between doctrine and devotion, between contemplation of Mary’s privileges and Christian life. There is no authentic Mariology that does not lead to a deeper knowledge of Christ; but neither can the mystery of Christ be fully understood without contemplating the mission of the Mother whom God has inseparably associated with Him.
In the darkest hours of history, Christians have turned to her as Stella Maris (“Star of the Sea”) and Auxilium Christianorum (“Help of Christians”). Even today, the message of Fatima calls us to prayer, penance and conversion, but it ends with a promise of victory: “Finally, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.”
When the conference ends, what would you most hope a participant can say they have newly understood about Our Lady, Christ and His Church?
St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, in his celebrated Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, echoing St. Bernard, writes: “Having said this, we must in truth add with the saints: of Mary one can never say enough. Mary is still not sufficiently praised, exalted, honoured, loved and served. She deserves even greater praise, reverence, love and devotion.” If, at the end of these two fully Marian days, participants and speakers return home with a deeper and more sincere love for Our Lady that shapes their daily lives, the conference will have achieved its intended results.
As our saints teach, one must not choose between Christ and Mary, for Mary exists entirely for Christ and infallibly leads to Him. And I would hope it becomes clear that Marian devotion is not an optional ornament of Catholic life, but an intrinsic dimension of it.
In short, the ideal outcome is a participant who can say: “I see more clearly how God willed to involve Mary in salvation, how the Church has always honoured her, and how turning to her helps me follow Christ more closely today.”