Newman's was not an "exaggerated mariology." It was the mariology of "Lumen Gentium" Chapter 8:
"[Jesus] indeed was really the 'Wisdom in whom the Father was eternally delighted', yet it would be but natural if, under the circumstances of Arian misbelief, theologians looked out for other than the Eternal Son to be the immediate object of such descriptions. And thus the controversy opened a question which it did not settle. It discovered a new sphere, if we may so speak, in the realm of light, to which the Church had not yet assigned its inhabitant...Thus there was a 'wonder in heaven': a throne was seen, far above all created powers, mediatorial, intercessory; a title archetypal; a crown bright as the morning star; a glory issuing from the eternal throne; robes pure as the heavens; and a scepter over all; and who was the predestined heir of that majesty? Who was that Wisdom, and what was her name, 'the Mother of fair love, and fear, and only hope' 'exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi, and a rose plant in Jericho,' 'created from the beginning before the world,' in God's counsels, and 'in Jerusalem was her power'? The vision is found in the Apocalypse, a Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. The votaries of Mary do not exceed the true faith, unless the blasphemers of her Son come up to it. The Church of Rome is not idolatrous, unless Arianism is orthodoxy" (Newman, "Essay..." 143-44, 1989).
Courtesty of Fr. C. John McCloskey and klemna@aol.com
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