Mary, Mediatrix: Exemplar for the Contemporary World

In 2005 the London Zoo opened an exhibit called "Humans." Eight living humans, wearing fig leaves over their bathing suits, sat in a zoo's cage labeled "Warning: Humans in Their Habitat." This was not a college prank. Rather, writes Mary Beth Bonacci:

...[T]he point of this exhibit is to make a 'statement.' According to London Zoo spokeswoman Polly Wills, 'Seeing people in a different environment, among other animals ... teaches members of the public that the human is just another primate.' Tom Mahoney, one of the eight fig-leaf clad participants, agrees. 'A lot of people think humans are above other animals,' he told the Associated Press. 'When they see humans as animals, here, it kind of reminds us that we're not that special.' ¹

In February of this year, under the headline "Dispatch From a Sperm Bank: Multiple Moms, One Nameless Donor," there was a report about eleven single women who have given birth to children via one male sperm-donor called "401." Artificial insemination, practiced in the breeding of animals, is now practiced and zealously advertised for women who not only want to have a child, but want to specify, according to catalogue order, the characteristics they want a sperm-donor to have. The Post article reported:

On the Web site for Fairfax Cryobank [Virginia, USA]- one of the largest in the country-a sperm shopper can browse the catalogue for Mr. Right Donor. Free of charge, she can find a staff assessment of the man, as well as all sorts of preferred paternal criteria: eye and hair color, nationality, blood type, height and profession. (For PhD, MD and attorney sperm, there is a premium charge of $425 a sample). Donors make a six-month commitment and are paid $900 to $1,500 a month. ²

For an extra fee, more details are available regarding the sperm "donor" such as his baby picture, an audiotape and extensive medical history. In our Washington, DC areas there are repeated radio advertisements promoting an IVF Center that promises a pregnancy within a definite number of attempts, or "your money back." Children by guarantee! Artificial production and marketing of children is now a fact! It does not stop there, however. The United States Senate is going to consider a bill "which would allow fertility clinic patients to donate their spare embryos to federally financed researchers." ³ The "donation" of spare children for research: for those who profess belief in the Incarnation, in the sanctity of every human life, in marriage as image of Christ's union with the Church, and the human body-person as dwelling-place of the Trinity, these are egregious violations of the human person. In early centuries of Christianity, Gnostic and Docetist systems of belief penetrated nations in the Mediterranean Basin. Knowledge for an elite group was the means of salvation and the body was considered a problem, an encumbrance to be eluded as much as possible. Basic heresies tend to recur in history, and current fascination with Gnostic writings should not surprise us.

What particularly concerns us here is the challenge that current aberrations present regarding the mysteries of Redemption and mediation. The body and the material universe are crucial to the mysteries expressed in Catholic faith, including the marian doctrines. That is why it is necessary to read the signs of our time regarding the human person, embodiment, marriage and procreation when reflecting on mediation.

The robot that was portrayed as overshadowing man and woman in the World's Fair of 1933 is now available in multiple smaller forms for use in homes, institutions, and industry. In 2003, the Harvard Business Review published an article called "Technology and Human Vulnerability: A Conversation with MIT's Sherry Turkle." Turkle is considered one of the most distinguished scholars in the area of technology's influence on human identity. A sociologist and psychologist, she has spent more than twenty years closely observing "how people interact and relate to computers and other high-tech products." ⁴ The senior editor of the Review who interviewed her said "...there is every indication that the future will include robots that seem to express feelings and moods. What will it mean to people when their primary daily companion is a robotic dog? Or a hospital patient when her health care attendant is built in the form of a robot nurse?" Turkle, who has studied the effects of technical fabrications (such as robotic baby dolls and dogs) on the lives of children and seniors in nursing homes, said that some elders are frustrated if the robot does not say "I love you." She observed:

...I found one woman's comment on AIBO, Sony's dog robot, especially striking in terms of what it might augur for the future of person-machine relationships: '[AIBO] is better than a real dog. It won't do dangerous things, and it won't betray you ... Also, it won't die suddenly and make you feel very sad.' ... The sight of children and the elderly exchanging tenderness with robotic pets brings philosophy down to earth. In the end, the question is not whether children will come to love their toy robots more than their parents, but what will loving itself come to mean?⁵

Disembodiment is a basic issue for faith and theology in our day. As early as the 1950's, N. Katherine Hayles notes: "Norbert Wiener proposed it was theoretically possible to telegraph a human being ... The producers of Star Trek operate from similar premises when they imagine that the body can be dematerialized into an informational pattern, and rematerialized, without change, at a remote location." ⁶

Awareness of the technical and the virtual becomes increasingly important for anyone seeking to understand Christ as The Mediator and Our Lady as Mediatrix. Each of the marian dogmas stems from the uniqueness of her embodied gifts. She was conceived without sin. She conceived Jesus in her true body through the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. She is Mother of God, Theotokos, in an incomparable bodily mediation. She is assumed body and soul into eternal life. There can be nothing virtual in these mysteries of faith.

The fourth aspect of mediation, flowing from its Trinitarian, centering and incarnational aspects: it is meant for the good of all, authentically, truthfully. Christ identified himself as the divine "I am"-the way, the truth, and the life. "The one who sent me is truthful," he said in the treasury of the Temple (Jn. 8:26). He responded to Pilate's questioning: "Yes, I am a king. I was born for this, I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice" (Jn. 18:37). What a travesty of mediation when that which is conveyed is not for the good of others, not truthful and does not reverence the truths of being.

The means of communication in our time are often summed up in the word "media." The word can mean highly organized institutions that produce sophisticated methods of communication. The term can also refer to audio-visual and print materials, but it especially refers to electronic forms of communication: computers, the Internet, television, radio, and wireless messages of various kinds. We are inundated-lifesoaked- in images and information. Google Print, for example, has a goal "to organize all of the world's information and make it universally accessible, whatever the consequences." ⁷

The media absorb more and more of life. The forms range from small, handheld games which children play on minute screens, to worldwide networks which communicate the conduct of war or inundate air waves with pornography. Fifty years ago, Marshall McLuhan, Canadian genius, was prescient when he said "The medium is the message." He meant that it was not only what was transmitted via the media, but the forms of media themselves that were a predominant message of the future. He noted that they "would have far-reaching sociological, aesthetic, and philosophical consequences, to the point of actually altering the ways in which we experience the world." ⁸

We know how indiscriminate, how sly and disdainful of truth, messages conveyed by the media can sometimes be. Recently, I came across an uninvited advertisement on the Internet for bogus academic degrees. Someone calling himself "Jerry Burnett" was offering a "Genuine college degree in two weeks." The ad filled less than a half page when printed, but it urged "have you ever thought that the only thing stopping you from a great job and better pay was a few letters behind your name? Well now you can get them! BA BSC MBA PHD." ⁹There is "No study required" and it's 100% verifiable. A legal loophole allows some colleges to do this, the ad assured.

In this place, honoring Mary's personal mediation of conversion and hope to children (and through their mediation, to the world) it is especially pertinent to consider how the electronic media are impacting the lives of children across the world. Children almost seem to be born "wired for transmission." Their small hands hold miniature screens that absorb so much of their lives. They are often incapable of distinguishing what is real from what is only virtual. A playful cartoon in the daily paper illustrates this. In "The Family Circus," the grandmother tells the little boy Jeffy: "I've been enjoying the weather lately." He replies, "I don't watch that channel." Unfortunately, it is not always innocent misunderstanding that affects children.

Over a year ago, in Japan, noted for its courteous respect, the nation was horrified by an incident occurring in one of its schools. A girl in the fourth grade brutally murdered a fellow student in the school's washroom. The next day, when brought before authorities, she asked that the murdered child be brought in so that she could apologize to her personally. In electronic games, if a figure was eliminated, it could be brought back again for another game. The girl could not distinguish the actual taking of life from the manipulation of characters in a game.

Adults, also, can be caught in a virtual environment of their own choosing. There are programs available on the computer that invite participants to replace their undesirable bodies with "avatars" of their own contriving, and to fashion virtual environments which they can inhabit and where they can interact with other virtual people. One site on the Internet, called Second Life, suggests to those who are interested:

Second Life is an online digital world, built, shaped, and owned by the participants. Create a shared reality in a world full of people, activities, adventures, and fun ... Explore a boundless world of surprise and adventure. Fly through an ever-evolving 3D landscape and encounter wonderful places and things-all created by residents like you ... Change your appearance to look like anything-an imaginary superhero, a mythical monster, or your own mirror image. Or, change your surroundings. Build your dream home ...

Technological information can take on a life of its own to the point where we can be deceived or uncertain whether a real person is addressing us from that vast arena called cyberspace. For many, this can bring confusion or even a shrug, perhaps, about the difference between the truly supernatural and what is only an extremely clever electronic fabrication. I find that serious students of the electronic media are sometimes more prescient about the impact these media have on faith and human life than many within the Church. Michael Heim, for example, wrote almost a generation ago:

Will human nature itself change? Will we soon pass some point where we are so altered by our imaginations and inventions as to be unrecognizable to Shakespeare or the writers of the ancient Greek plays?

No one knows, but many are trying to imagine such a world. They describe our children and grandchildren as no longer being like us. They call them trans-human, or posthuman. ¹⁰

What a mystery the Church places before us in Mary as Mediatrix who is intercessor, participant in the mediation of her Son, and exemplar for the contemporary world, which so often operates from a position of isolated independence, selfcenteredness, disembodiment and relativity. I have suggested that it is crucial to consider the meaning of mediation in its larger dimensions-trinitarian, centered, embodied, and truthfully conveying and uniting what is for the good of others. Marian mediation, while it means her intercession on our behalf, continues to involve her entire body-person, as it does that of her Son, The Mediator.

The understanding we have of mediation affects every mystery in the deposit of faith.

In Mary: The Church at the Source, coauthored by then- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and Hans Urs von Balthasar, the future Pope Benedict XVI wrote:

Mary is not ensconced merely in the past or merely in heaven, God's preserve. She is, and remains, present and active in this hour of history. She is an acting person here and today. Her life is not only behind us, nor is it only above us. She goes before us, as the Pope repeatedly stresses. She interprets the historical moment for us, not through theories, but through action, through the action of showing us the way forward. To be sure, in this texture of action it also comes to light who she is, who we are ... mariology therefore becomes a theology of history and an imperative to action. ¹¹