Interesting piece about the renewed interest in Mary. Even more interesting because it's from the LA Times:
Last month, the renewed interest in Mary became the subject an "agreed statement" by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission – a panel of bishops and theologians who try to bridge Anglican-Catholic theological differences. The so-called Seattle Statement concluded that it's acceptable for Christians to ask Mary (and other saints) to pray for them. It also tried to put "in a new ecumenical context" two Catholic doctrines that Anglicans, and Protestants generally, have balked at as unscriptural: that Mary was conceived without sin and that she was assumed, bodily, into Heaven. It said, for example, that "God has taken the Blessed Virgin Mary in the fullness of her person into his glory."
The Seattle Statement has met with mixed reviews from other Protestants. David L. Jeffrey, a Baylor University professor, says that evangelicals in particular, wary of doctrines not supported by Scripture, are unlikely to be convinced by the statement's attempt to gloss over differences on the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption. But he says evangelicals probably would find less problematic the notion that Mary and other saints could intercede for the faithful.
Even going that far implies that Mary's revival – and the Seattle Statement – could have historic consequences. As Spretnak says, it carves out a middle ground between the "biblical-plus" view of Mary and the view that she is just a "sister" to us humans, not really a unique figure in the story of salvation. It's a "new space entirely," that takes us "much closer to a pre-Reformation, and (for Catholics) a pre-Vatican II position."
Link.
