Paul VI, Vatican II and Our Lady (1964)

In the context of the Second Vatican Council, Pope St. Paul VI made a notable contribution on the role of Our Lady in the teaching and devotion of the Church. One of his particular interests was to formally recognize Mary as “Mother of the Church”. The Blessed Virgin's prerogatives all flow from the Father's eternal choice of her as the Mother of Christ, and while by analogy her motherhood of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, logically follows, the title was far from common and never formally recognized. It had been used by St. Ambrose in the 4th century and by a few popes down the centuries, but seldom otherwise. Yet, such a recognition points us to her universal mediation and participation in the redemption with respect to the members of Christ, albeit secondary and dependent upon her Divine Son. 

Thus, in his address at the close of the Second Session of the Council on December 4th, 1963, Pope Paul VI stated his hope that in the Constitution on the Church to be discussed the following year, the schema on Mary would express,

… the unanimous and loving acknowledgment of the place, privileged above all others, which the Mother of God occupies in Holy Church - that Church which is the principal subject matter of the present Council. After Christ, her place in the Church is the most exalted, and also the one closest to us, so that we may honor her with the title 'Mother of the Church' to her glory and to our benefit.

The following August 6th, in his encyclical Ecclesiam Suum (His Church), the Pope would situate the question in the context of the collegiality of the bishops, without renouncing his primatial right to pronounce finally on the matter. The collegiality of the bishops together with the pope is an important feature of the Church's supernatural constitution, and was originally to be part of the First Vatican Council. Both Bl. Pius IX and Ven. Pius XII, in defining the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption, respectively, queried the bishops of the world. However, that Council was interrupted by the entry of Italian forces into Rome in 1870. Thus, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen gentium would take 

In this encyclical we are deliberately refraining from passing any judgment of our own on doctrinal points concerning the Church which are at present under examination by the Council itself over which we have been called to preside. It is our desire to leave full liberty of study and discussion to such an important and authoritative assembly. In virtue of our office of teacher and pastor, and placed at the head of the Church of God, we reserve to ourselves the choice of the proper moment and manner of expressing our judgment, most happy if we can present it in perfect accord with that of the council Fathers.

When the Council Fathers took up the schema on Mary in September,