By Clement Harrold

August 13, 2026

Protestants are often baffled by Catholic and Orthodox devotion to Mary.  

How can we put so much emphasis on her when she’s barely mentioned in the New Testament? And how are the traditional Marian dogmas at all biblical?  

In this piece, we’ll tackle each dogma in turn before addressing some common Protestant objections.

We’ll conclude with a brief reflection on why this debate matters.

The Four Dogmas

There are four traditional dogmas concerning Our Lady: her status as Mother of God, her Immaculate Conception, her perpetual virginity, and her Assumption into heaven.

Mother of God

The title Mother of God is the easiest of the four dogmas to understand.

Nothing in Sacred Scripture contradicts it, Luke’s Gospel implicitly endorses it, and virtually all the Protestant reformers (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Bullinger) accepted it.

Indeed, the identification of Mary as the mother of God follows directly from our understanding of the Holy Trinity: Jesus is God; Mary is the mother of Jesus; therefore, Mary is the mother of God.  

See here for a more detailed treatment of this topic.

Immaculate Conception

The Immaculate Conception refers to Mary being conceived without original sin in the womb of her mother. Even Martin Luther appears to have accepted that Mary remained free from all sin throughout her life.

The only Scripture verse that might arguably contradict this dogma is Romans 3:23: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” However, the context shows that what St. Paul has in mind is that both Jews and Gentiles are sinners in need of Christ’s redemption. Paul isn’t making a precise theological statement that excludes the possibility of the Immaculate Conception. In fact, the verse seems to be talking about personal sin rather than original sin, but even Protestants would agree that there are many people (for example, little children) who have not committed personal sins.  

The positive evidence for Mary’s Immaculate Conception is based on three key Scriptural considerations.  

• First, the angel Gabriel addresses Mary with the title “full of grace” (Luke 1:28). In Greek, the word is kecharitōmenē, a perfect passive participle that implies one who has been graced and who remains so.
• Secondly, both Luke’s Gospel and the book of Revelation unmistakably depict Mary as the new Ark of the Covenant, the living fulfillment of the mobile tabernacle which was so holy that anyone who touched it would be struck dead (see Rev 11:19–12:1).  
• Thirdly, John’s Gospel clearly portrays Mary as the new Eve who accompanies Christ, the new Adam (see 1 Cor 15:45). This identification was already being discussed by St. Irenaeus in the late second century. Yet the logic of biblical typology is such that the new Adam and Eve must necessarily be greater than the old Adam and Eve. Since the old Eve was created sinless, it therefore makes sense that the new Eve would also be created sinless.

Perpetual Virginity

The perpetual virginity of Mary is not undermined by the Gospel passages that speak of Jesus having siblings.  

It isn’t clear that these are full biological siblings. They could be cousins, or they could be children of St. Joseph from a previous marriage. Indeed, if all the people in the Gospels who are described as siblings of Jesus were full biological children of Joseph and Mary, then their family would have been extraordinarily large by the standards of the time.  

Conversely, there is compelling biblical evidence supporting the tradition that Mary never had sexual relations after the birth of Jesus.

As the Church Fathers rightly observed, Mary’s words in Luke 1:34 along with Jesus’ decision to entrust her to the beloved disciple as He hung upon the Cross (see John 19:25–27) are strong indicators that Mary had taken a vow of virginity, which meant that she had no biological children other than Jesus at the time of His death.

Remarkably, the traditional belief in Mary’s perpetual virginity was upheld by Protestant reformers as varied as Martin Luther, John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, Thomas Cranmer, and John Wesley.  

The Assumption

The Assumption of Mary is also never ruled out in Sacred Scripture.

On the contrary, it has precedent in the figures of Enoch and Elijah, and potentially Moses as well. Why then is it so outrageous to think that the same honor was afforded to the mother of the Redeemer?

Mary’s Assumption flows from her Immaculate Conception, and it is exceedingly fitting in light of her status as the new Eve.  

The New Eve

Mary is the new Eve who assists Jesus, the new Adam, in His redemption of the world.

She is bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh (see Gen 2:23), a sharer in His DNA and in His salvific mission. But in order for the new Adam’s triumph over sin and death to be complete, it was fitting that the new Eve should share in His triumph. Hence Mary was preserved not only from original and personal sin but also from the corruption that follows death.

Mary’s Assumption thus becomes, in imitation of the Resurrection of her divine Son, a first fruit of the glory that awaits our mortal bodies (see 1 Cor 15:20–23). A more detailed treatment of this topic can be found here.

Biblically Grounded

As this very brief overview shows, none of the four major Marian dogmas are beyond the bounds of what the Bible teaches.  

In fact, the dogmas generally make better sense of the Scriptural data than the Protestant position does. Even if the sincere Protestant isn’t yet ready to embrace the Catholic understanding of Church authority, he can still accept that the Catholic view of Our Lady never contradicts—and in many ways is supported by—a close reading of Sacred Scripture.

For the Catholic, of course, there is an added confidence that comes with the knowledge that Christ has given us a visible Church to settle major theological disputes, rather than leaving such questions to the guesswork of the individual believer.

By contrast, the Protestant must believe that for more than a thousand years leading up to the Reformation, the Holy Spirit allowed every Christian on the planet to believe in all manner of doctrines that Protestants today would regard as unbiblical. If so many Christians could get the faith so wrong for so long, how then can today’s Protestant be so sure that he is right?

Common Protestant Objections

Protestants usually object to the Catholic understanding of Mary on several grounds.

Objection 1: Lack of New Testament Evidence

The first objection is that Mary is hardly mentioned in the New Testament. It seems unreasonable, therefore, for Catholics to turn her into such a big deal.

We’ve addressed this argument directly in a previous blog post. We might also quote from something we said in another blog post on New Testament heroines:

According to the New Testament, Mary is the one whose perfect submission to the will of God helps undo the sin of Eve (see Lk 1:38), the one who is filled with grace (see Lk 1:28), the one who is overshadowed by the Holy Spirit (see Lk 1:34), the one who is most blessed among women (see Lk 1:42), the one whom all generations will call blessed (see Lk 1:48), the one whose maternal intercession moves Jesus to begin His ministry of miracles (see Jn 2:5), the one whom Jesus entrusts to His most cherished disciple (see Jn 19:27), and the one who is portrayed as a spiritual mother to all believers (see Rev 12:17).

From a biblical standpoint, Mary is the Mother of God (see Lk 1:43) and the new Ark of the Covenant who earns the wrath of Satan (see Rev 11:19–12:1,17). She is present, moreover, at all the crucial moments in the gestation of the Church: the Incarnation, the birth of Christ, the crucifixion (see Jn 19:25–27), and Pentecost (see Acts 1:14). In short, our Blessed Mother receives a far more elevated status than any other human figure in Sacred Scripture; and as such, she ought to be appreciated and celebrated by all Christians.

Objection 2: Marian Idolatry

Another common Protestant objection is that Catholics are guilty of idolatry due to the level of veneration they show to Mary.

But Catholics see Mary as God’s greatest handiwork. The respect we show her, therefore, is by extension a sign of respect towards her Creator. By fostering devotion to Mary, we follow in the footsteps of the angel Gabriel, St. John the Baptist, and St. Elizabeth, who each treat Mary with profound veneration.

At the same time, we never conflate Mary with God. The beating, bleeding heart of Catholic Christianity is not the Rosary but the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the most theocentric event on earth.  

Objection 3: Praying to Mary Makes No Sense

A third Protestant objection is that praying to Mary makes no sense because it would be impossible for her to hear the prayers of millions of people at once.  

We have addressed this topic in detail on a previous occasion.

The short explanation is that Sacred Scripture provides solid grounds for believing in both the communion of the saints and the intercession of the saints. Given this, we should expect that God in His omnipotence grants the saints in heaven the power to hear the petitions of their fellow Christians who are still on earth. In heaven our minds will not be constrained by time and space in the way that they are in our present condition.

Catholics also think it’s no accident that St. John decides to structure his Gospel in such a way that Our Lord’s first public miracle wouldn’t have happened without the intervention of His Blessed Mother.

More generally, the discomfort that Protestants feel over the intercession of the saints is indicative of the extent to which Protestants fail to grasp the centrality of secondary causes in God’s plan of salvation. The Protestant seeks a theology that skirts around secondary causes in a misguided attempt to focus on God alone. By contrast, the Catholic embraces a theology which understands that at every level Christianity is a religion defined by God’s decision to glorify Himself through the use of secondary causes in achieving His chosen ends.  

Objection 4: Jesus Downplays Mary’s Significance

A fourth Protestant objection is that Jesus Himself seems to downplay the significance of Mary when He is approached by His family in the Gospels:

And his mother and his brethren came; and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brethren are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brethren?” And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brethren! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Mark 3:31–35)

Here the objection runs the risk of proving too much.

Does the Protestant wish to suggest that Jesus is dismissing His mother as an overbearing nuisance? Surely that isn’t what’s going on in this passage.

Instead, Jesus is clarifying that every baptized Christian becomes a member of God’s family through the grace of the Holy Spirit. As He affirms in Luke’s version of the same episode, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (Luke 11:28).

This statement may sound like a slight against Mary, but in the context of Luke’s Gospel it’s actually quite the opposite. After all, Mary is the one whose perfect “yes” to the word of God paves the way for redemption of the world: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

In these passages Jesus is clarifying that the kingdom of heaven is defined by kinship bonds that are spiritual rather than biological. This in no way disparages the role of Mary, who is the only woman whom Scripture describes as “full of grace,” as well as the one who will be called blessed by all generations (see Luke 1:48).

As we’ve discussed in a previous post, Mary’s role as spiritual mother to all believers is strongly supported in both the Gospel of John and the book of Revelation. This point was already being affirmed by the great biblical exegete Origen in the early third century. Since the heavenly queen who is clothed with the sun in Revelation 12 is described as the one who gives birth to Jesus, there is no good reason to exclude the idea that this is a depiction of Mary. But if that is the case, then we must take seriously what the passage says about Mary’s children encompassing all “those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus” (Rev 12:17).

Why Mary Matters

I remember talking to a Protestant friend about the traditional Marian dogmas, and he raised an objection that was somewhat different from the ones we’ve already discussed. “I just don’t get it,” he said. “I don’t get why you Catholics are so into all these Marian doctrines. Why do you make such a big deal out of them?”

I appreciated my friend’s honesty, because he was summing up how a lot of Protestants (and even some Catholics!) feel about Our Lady.

Sure, you can say she’s important and worthy of respect. But what’s the deeper purpose of all these doctrines, and why does the Catholic Church care so much about them? It’s a great question, to which we’ll offer five brief responses.

• First, as we’ve seen, Sacred Scripture itself assigns a very high importance to Our Lady. This becomes especially true when we identify her with the woman of Revelation 12, and when we understand her typologically as the new ark of the covenant and the new Eve.
• Second, Christians have venerated Mary since ancient times, and most of the Marian dogmas have been embraced by the majority of the world’s Christians since the earliest centuries of the Church. As we’ve seen, even the Protestant reformers accepted most of the dogmas, and they continued to hold Our Lady in high esteem.
• Third, a high view of Mary supports a high view of Christ. The title Theotokos emphasizes Christ’s divinity. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception emphasizes Christ as the perfect Savior, since Mary was perfectly and preemptively redeemed by the merits of His saving work. The doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity highlights how her womb was uniquely consecrated as the living tabernacle in which God became man. The doctrine of her Assumption underscores the totality of Christ’s victory over death, where His spiritual bride, the new Eve—she who is both exemplar and mother of the Church—shares in His preservation from bodily decay in anticipation of the resurrection that is promised to all believers.  
• Fourth, Catholic devotion to Mary marvelously elevates the dignity of women. God became man, but the greatest disciple—and indeed the greatest human person in history—is a woman. (Christ is a divine Person who assumed a human nature.) By combining dignity with piety, self-sacrifice with strength, Our Lady provides a timely antidote to today’s toxic feminism that seeks the abolition of the family and the holocaust of unborn children. The devil is the ultimate misogynist, but in God’s plan of salvation the evil one must forever live with the fact that he was bested by a girl from Nazareth: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen 3:15).
• Fifth and finally, Mary is the guarantor of Christian civilization. We see this in the magnificent cathedrals of Europe. As Henry Adams observed in his essay The Dynamo and the Virgin, “All the steam in the world could not, like the Virgin, build Chartres.” It was love of Mary, not the machinery of men, which gave us this Gothic masterpiece. The celebrated historian Kenneth Clark put it this way: “In the early twelfth century the Virgin had been the supreme protectress of civilisation. She had taught a race of tough and ruthless barbarians the virtues of tenderness and compassion.”  

A culture in which men are raised to love Mary is a culture defined by the ideals of the Magnificat: a culture that glorifies God, defends the poor, and empowers the family to flourish.

It was devotion to the Virgin that allowed the Church to overcome the diabolically inspired paganism of the ancient world, and it is by renewing that same devotion that we will triumph over the new paganism that rages around us today.  

Further reading:

7 Amazing New Testament Women

The Deeper Meaning of the Assumption

Don’t the Mysteries of the Rosary Get Boring Eventually?

How Can Mary Listen to the Prayers of Millions of People At Once?

If Catholics are Right about Mary, Why is She Talked About so Little in the Bible?

Is the Assumption of Mary Biblical?

Mary and the Gift of Motherhood