Peter Damian FEHLNER.  The Collected Essays of Peter Damian Fehlner. Volume 2, Systematic Mariology. Edited by J. Isaac Goff. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2023. pp. 275. $37.00 pb. ISBN 9781532663802; $52.00 hb. Reviewed by Clare MCGRATH-MERKLE, Benedictine College.

      Peter Fehlner, OFM, Conv. (1931–2018) served as a priest and as professor of theology in the Franciscan Institute of Ecclesiastical Studies at the Immaculatum in Frigento, Italy. His published doctoral dissertation was on the role of charity in the ecclesiology of St. Bonaventure. He theorized in the tradition of Bonaventure, Scotus, and Kolbe, writing several books on Mariology, including Mary and Theology: Scotus Revisited (1978), The Great Sign: The Virgin Mother - The Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ (1999), and St. Maximilian Kolbe: Martyr of Charity - Pneumatologist (His Theology of the Holy Spirit) (2004).

This volume is one of eight and follows closely the first, Marian Metaphysics. Arthur B. Calkins, author of the introduction,  earned a licentiate in sacred theology with a specialization in Mariology from the International Research Institute in Dayton, and a doctorate in the same field from the Seraphicum in Rome. His introduction serves as a good chapter-by-chapter explication and as a summary of Fehlner’s “Marian anthropology.”

The essays included in this volume were those offered at a series of nine symposia on the topic of Marian coredemption. Also included are other supporting texts. The essays are best understood in light of the first volume, which sets complex metaphysical parameters to past and current debates.
Fehlner outlined in this second volume his take on what he called Marian minimalists and maximalists, the former denying “her a role in the ‘oblatio Christi,’ viz., as coredemptrix.” He asserted, as a maximalist himself, that Mary is “inside the hypostatic union,” an idea he explicated in the first volume, citing Scotus as its origin, and claiming as its basis, in part, two orders of mediation: that of the processions in the Trinity and, ad extra, that of the missions. Thusly, Fehlner held that Mary enjoys a “unique partnership” in the “theandric operations” of her Son. The author further argued that the Redemption depended on Mary’s fiat both to the Incarnation and at the foot of the Cross.

Other topics in this second volume include, among others, Marian coredemption in the Eucharistic mystery, the dependence of the idea of Mary as comediatrix of all grace on her status as coredemptrix, and the predestination of Mary and her Immaculate Conception.

The detailed metaphysics and extensive references found in both volumes make them indispensable for those interested in research into controversies surrounding the proposed and controversial fifth Marian dogma.

That said, further study of the understudied Post-Reformation era would provide important distinctions either missing or undertreated in Fehlner’s analysis. As a scholar of the Post-Reformation era, this reviewer is aware of the efforts of Suarez and others to place not only Mary, but Joseph, as well as priests, inside the hypostatic order. While Aquinas held to the idea that Christ alone mediates in the order of being, the idea took hold, which Fehlner followed (citing Bonaventure), arguing in the first volume for a “Christian metaphysics” that focuses on exemplarism and divine illumination rather than efficient and final causalities. This misconstrued exemplarism was aided by a conflation of procession and mission, and a number of other essentialist mystical doctrines, as detailed in my own study, Berulle’s Spiritual Theology of Priesthood (2018).

            The longstanding challenge of the title of coredemptrix as technically inaccurate and scandalous could be solved by a turn toward a focus on Mary as comediatrix, and not in the order of being, but grace. Therein lies her very human greatness and the essence of a fifth Marian dogma.