Our Lady of Good Success (Quito – Ecuador)
On October 16, 1793, perhaps the most disgusting crime of the French Revolution occurred: the execution of Queen Marie Antoinette of France, after a show trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal. Plinio Correa de Oliveira wrote of Marie Antoinette: “ Certain souls are great only when the winds of misfortune blow upon them. Marie Antoinette, who was futile as a princess and unpardonably frivolous in her life as queen, was surprisingly transformed by the whirlwind of blood and misery that engulfed France; and as one historian observes, filled with respect, that from the queen was born a martyr and from the doll a heroine.”
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On January 21, King Louis XVI of France was guillotined. Pope Pius VI, in his address Quare lacrymae of June 17, 1793, recognized the sovereign’s sacrifice as “a death dedicated to hatred of the Catholic religion,” attributing to him “ the glory of martyrdom .” The same glory, we might say, fell to Marie Antoinette, guilty only of having represented—by her very presence—the principle of Christian royalty in the face of the hatred of the Revolution.
The British writer Edmund Burke (1729-1797), in what is perhaps one of the most beautiful passages of his Reflections on the French Revolution (1791), writes:
“It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like the morning star, full of life and splendor and joy.”
“Oh, what a revolution! And what a heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! […] Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor, and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever” (Excerpts from Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France).
Today, two centuries later, the British writer’s words come to mind in the face of a far more serious event. On November 4, 2025, at the Jesuit Generalate, Mater Populi Fidelis, a “doctrinal note” from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, of which Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández is prefect, was presented.
The document contains eighty paragraphs, dedicated to the “ correct understanding of Marian titles,” which aim to clarify “ in what sense certain titles and expressions referring to Mary are acceptable or not,” placing her “ in the correct “relationship with believers in light of the Mystery of Christ as the sole Mediator and Redeemer.”
It is with profound sorrow that we have read this text, which, behind its mellifluous tone, hides a poisonous content. In a historic hour of confusion, when all the hopes of fervent souls are turned to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Dicastery for Faith seeks to strip her of the titles of Co-redemptrix and universal Mediatrix of all graces, reducing her to a woman like any other: “mother of the faithful people,” “mother of believers,” “mother of Jesus,” and “companion of the Church.” It is as if the Mother of God could be confined to a human category, stripping her of her supernatural mystery. It is difficult not to read in these pages the fulfillment of the post-conciliar Mariological drift, which, in the name of the “golden mean,” has chosen to follow a minimalism that demeans the figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Marie Antoinette represented earthly royalty, a reflection of the divine, but fragile like all that is human. Her throne crumbled under the fury of the Revolution. Mary Most Holy, however, is the universal Queen—not by human right, but by divine grace. Her throne is not in a palace, but in the heart of God. “The Most High,” says Saint Louis Grignon de Montfort, “ descended perfectly and divinely through the humble Mary to us, without losing any of His divinity and holiness. And it is through Mary that the littlest ones must ascend perfectly and divinely to the Most High, without fearing anything” (True Devotion to Mary, n.157).
Men may try to “behead” her, reducing her to a simple woman, but Mary remains Mother of God, Immaculate, ever Virgin, Assumed into Heaven, Queen of Heaven and Earth, Co-Redemptrix and universal Mediatrix of all graces, because, as Saint Bernardine of Siena explains: “Every grace granted to man has three degrees in order; for by God it is communicated to Christ, from Christ it passes to the Virgin, and from the Virgin it descends to us” (Serm. VI in festis BMV, a. 1, c. 2).
For this reason, according to Saint Augustine, quoted by Saint Alphonsus Liguori, everything we say in praise of Mary is always little compared to what she deserves for her sublime dignity as Mother of God (The Glories of Mary).
Edmund Burke lamented that there were not ten thousand swords ready to defend Queen Marie Antoinette, “to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.” We are convinced that today there exists in the world a handful of priests and laymen, of noble and courageous spirit, ready to take up the two-edged sword of Truth to proclaim all the privileges of Mary and cry, at the foot of her throne: “Quis ut Virgo?” (Who is like unto the Virgin?).
Upon them will descend the graces necessary for their struggle in these stormy times. And perhaps, as always happens in history when attempts are made to obscure the light, the document from the Dicastery of Faith, which seeks to minimize the Blessed Virgin Mary, will unwittingly confirm her immense greatness.
First Published: RORATE CÆLI