After a solemn concelebrated Mass for the Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Nov. 21, 1964, Pope St. Paul VI promulgated the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, along with the Council’s Decrees on Eastern Catholics and on Ecumenism.  

The approval of these important documents on the Church occurred in a strongly Marian spirit. In addition to the Mass for Our Lady’s feast day, complete with the singing of the Salve Regina, the 24 Council Fathers who concelebrated were from dioceses with prominent Marian shrines. Above all, there was Lumen Gentium’s final chapter dedicated to “The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God in the Mystery of Christ and the Church.”  

In his speech on this momentous occasion, Pope Paul described the text as a kind of “culmination and head” of the entire Constitution on the Church, and an “incomparable hymn of praise of the Virgin Mother of God.” He further noted — being “deeply moved,” as he confessed — that this was the first time that an ecumenical council had articulated such a wide body of Catholic teaching regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary’s role in the mystery of Christ and the Church.  

During the period leading up to the Council, around 600 Council Fathers had specifically desired that the Council might deal with the topic of the Blessed Virgin Mary. At the same time, some also expressed their concern about certain excesses in Marian devotion and also desired to present Marian teaching in a way that would be more acceptable to non-Catholic Christians.  

The differences of opinion on how to present the Church’s teaching on Our Lady were made evident in one particular question, which the Council Fathers had to decide on as they discussed the draft text on the Church in October 1963: Should the Council’s teaching on the Blessed Virgin Mary be presented within a separate document, or as a chapter within the future Constitution on the Church? In light of the divergent opinions, the Council’s moderators decided to put the question to a vote, after two Council Fathers had the opportunity to present their arguments for each position. 

Cardinal Rufino Jiao Santos, the Archbishop of Manila and first-ever Filipino cardinal, was appointed by the doctrinal commission to speak in favor of a separate document on Our Lady. Santos argued forcefully that a specific document was necessary, so as to more clearly manifest the Blessed Virgin’s pre-eminence and dignity. Doing otherwise, he noted, might lend an occasion for those who do not possess correct doctrine on the subject.  

After Santos’ speech, Cardinal Franz König of Vienna expounded the alternative position. While expressing his appreciation for his fellow cardinal’s view, he desired to give expression to the majority of Fathers within the Council’s doctrinal commission who felt that the Council’s teaching on Mary should go within the document on the Church.  

The Church, as the Austrian cardinal noted, was the central theme of the Council. Therefore, he continued, it would be fitting that Mary not be absent from this key topic, and in this way, the Council might show the intimate connection between the doctrine of the Church and her. The Archbishop claimed that his proposed arrangement, far from obscuring the Church’s teaching on Our Lady, would serve to give the greatest dignity to Our Lady, by highlighting the way she cooperates — from the grace of Christ — in the work of salvation.  

After these two compelling discourses, the Fathers were asked whether they approved of the text on the Blessed Virgin Mary being included in the Constitution of the Church, or whether they were not pleased with this arrangement and wanted a separate document. The former proposition won by a narrow margin. The vote revealed a Council that was strongly divided, not on questions of doctrine, but rather on how exactly to articulate the Church’s teaching on Mary in the contemporary context.  

The initial draft presented at the Council, like the final text of Lumen Gentium, would put a particular accent on Mary’s identity as the Mother of Christ, her cooperation in Christ’s work of redemption, and her motherly role toward the Church and all humanity.  In light of these truths, a great many Council Fathers adamantly called on the Council to recognize this role of Mary by honoring her with the title “Mother of the Church.” The title had been present in one of the early drafts of Lumen Gentium but was later removed.    

Nobody was more vocal on this point than the Polish Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, now Blessed, speaking in the name of all 70 bishops of his country. In advocating for the title, he stated that Mary’s universal maternity is a vital point of all Catholic teaching, confirmed by the teaching of the popes as well as Scripture and Tradition. He further called on the Council to renew the consecration of the human race to the Immaculate Heart of Mary that had been made by Pope Pius XII in 1942. Such profound devotion to Our Lady, he continued, would be the Church’s only means to defend its unity and salvation in the current times. 

However, some Council Fathers, particularly those from countries with a larger Protestant identity, were concerned that “Mother of the Church” and certain other titles might be misunderstood by non-Catholic brethren and thus impede the cause of Christian unity. The Council’s leading authority on ecumenism, the German Jesuit Cardinal Agustin Bea, noted that in light of the great importance of seeking Christian unity, the Council needed to avoid any words or deeds that might lead separated brethren into a false idea of the Church.  

With such deeply held and competing views at play, the Council’s doctrinal commission worked diligently to elaborate a text that could affirm the Church’s traditional devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, but also do so in a way that would respond to the sensibilities of Protestant and Orthodox communities.  

The Doctrinal Commission would ultimately decide not to use the term “Mother of the Church” in the Constitution on the Church, for ecumenical reasons and because it was not a traditional invocation. Nonetheless, Chapter 8 of Lumen Gentium is permeated with a sense of Mary’s motherhood over the Mystical Body of Christ, as in the citation of St. Augustine that Mary is “the mother of the members of Christ ... having cooperated by charity that faithful might be born in the Church, who are members of that Head." 

Still, Pope Paul VI felt that, in response to the heartfelt desires of so many Council Fathers and in faithfulness to his own teaching office, the solemn ceremony of Lumen Gentium’s promulgation was the propitious occasion for him to declare Blessed Virgin Mary to be “Mother of the Church, that is of all the Christian people, both the faithful as well as Pastors…” Recalling Pope Pius XII’s gesture, the reigning Pontiff went on to entrust the needs of the Church and all humanity to the Blessed Virgin, and he announced his intention to send a Golden Rose — a traditional sign of Marian devotion — to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima. 

Hence, at the solemn act of approval of Lumen Gentium, with its closing chapter on Our Lady, and with this papal gesture of homage to the Mother of the Church, the long and arduous journey to formulate the Council’s teaching on the Church came to a close. Chapter 8 of the Constitution is an apt compendium of the wealth of teaching contained in Lumen Gentium as a whole. The Blessed Virgin manifests to us the “perfection” of holiness, “without spot or wrinkle,” which the pilgrim members of the Church possess, in a limited way, and to which they are called to fully attain.