Benedict XIV and the Bull Gloriosae Dominae (1748) – Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces (Doctrina Pontificia IV, nn. 209-220)

Benedict XIV (1740-1758) is the scholar-pope of the eighteenth century, a canonist, liturgist, and Mariologist. His golden Bull Gloriosae Dominae (September 27, 1748) is one of the most complete Marian documents of the pontifical Magisterium before Pius IX, covering eleven numbers in Doctrina Pontificia IV (nn. 210-220).

n. 209, constitution “Nuper ad nos” (March 16, 1743)

This Constitution addresses the question of Marian devotions in the Eastern Churches in union with Rome (the Uniate Churches). Benedict XIV states that the Eastern Churches have their own wealth of Marian devotion, the cult of Mary as Theotokos, the Byzantine Marian liturgy, and that it must be preserved and not Latinized.

nn. 210-220, bull “Gloriosae Dominae” (September 27, 1748)

The Bull Gloriosae Dominae is Benedict XIV’s Marian summa. Its eleven numbers in Doctrina Pontificia IV develop:

• Mary’s title: “Gloriosa Domina”, the Glorious Lady, Queen of the universe
• Mary’s mediation: Benedict XIV uses the expression “mediatrix omnium gratiarum” (Mediatrix of All Graces), a title that would become controversial in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries but that here has express pontifical authority
• Mary’s Assumption: The text states that Mary was assumed body and soul into Heaven, as a “pious belief” of the Church, two centuries before Pius XII defined it as a dogma
• Mary’s Queenship: Mary reigns with Christ in Heaven over all creation
• Universal intercession: All graces pass through Mary’s hands

«Illud constans et persuasum habemus, omnia divinae gratiae munera, omnia Dei cum hominibus beneficia, omnes virtutes, quae christianam vitam illustrant, cuiuslibet generis indulgentias, per manus Mariae esse dispensanda, ut per eam distribuantur»

We hold it as firm and certain that all the gifts of divine grace, all God’s benefits toward men, all the virtues that adorn the Christian life, indulgences of every kind, are to be dispensed by the hands of Mary, so that through her they may be distributed.

Theological significance

The Gloriosae Dominae is the high point of pontifical Mariology before Pius IX. Benedict XIV, the most learned of the modern popes, affirms with pontifical authority Mary’s universal mediation, a doctrine that the ecumenical Councils never defined as a dogma (the Second Vatican Council chose not to define it), but that the ordinary Magisterium of the papacy had been repeating for centuries. This Bull is the central reference for anyone studying the history of the title “Mediatrix of All Graces.”

Further reading

Explore Mariology, Munificentissimus Deus (the Assumption), Ad Caeli Reginam (the Queenship), and the Postgraduate Program in Mariology.