Pope Leo approves Pontifical Marian Academy statutes rejecting ‘maximalism’ in devotion to Our Lady

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Pope Leo approves Pontifical Marian Academy statutes rejecting ‘maximalism’ in devotion to Our Lady
The statutes also say that the spread of Marian ‘knowledge’ should serve not only the Church but a ‘universal brotherhood in solidarity, justice, and world peace.’



Pope Leo XIV gives a speech as he joins Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (not pictured) 

during a cultural program in the library of the Presidential Palace on November 27, 2025, in Ankara, Turkey
Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Feb 11, 2026
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Leo XIV has approved new statutes of the Pontifical International Marian Academy that express the goal of avoiding “maximalism” in Marian devotions.

On Saturday, the Vatican published new statutes regarding the “identity and purpose” and governing composition and structure of the Pontifical Marian Academy. A few clauses of the statutes could potentially be used as a pretext for rejecting certain Marian devotions, prompting at least one commentator to describe them as an attempt to subtly alter and weaken Marian devotion.

For example, while expressing the academy’s mission of promoting, supporting, and coordinating Marian research, Article 4 of the statutes declares that this should be conducted “in view of a healthy popular piety to avoid any form of maximalism or minimalism.”

The statues also proclaim that Marian piety should not be “reduced to a sterile devotionism, but give life to Marian places that promote the well-being and integral development of the human person in harmony with the environment.” This particular clause suggests that Marian devotion has as its aim the “well-being and development” of the person and the benefit of the environment, rather than the honor of the Blessed Mother and the spiritual welfare of the person.

“While no faithful Catholic would defend superstition or doctrinal excess detached from the Church’s teaching authority, the terminology employed seems to subtly redefine what generations of saints, theologians, and popes promoted without hesitation,” remarked the Radical Fidelity Substack.

Significantly, the statutes also restructure the Academy to include as its members so-called “‘mariology sents’ of other Christian denominations, as well as other religions and cultures,” meaning its members may include people who reject Catholic teaching on the Blessed Mother, such as on her Immaculate Conception and role as Mediatrix.

In addition, the spread of Marian “knowledge” is to serve not only the Church but a “universal brotherhood in solidarity, justice, and world peace,” according to the statutes. The concept of a “universal brotherhood” united in anything other than the Church and her faith, worship, and sacraments is not a Catholic one. As Bishop Marian Eleganti has put it, “For the sake of the indispensable mediation of Jesus Christ, we should not speak of universal brotherhood, but of charity in the sense of the parable of the Good Samaritan.”

“It is clear that this is an attempt by the Synodal Modernists to reshape Marian theology according to the sensitivities of Protestant sects, false religions, and even atheist perspectives, all to diminish devotion to Our Lady, traditionally honored as the Destroyer of Heresies,” commented Radical Fidelity.

The Academy now must also conduct its activities in coordination with dicasteries such as the Dicastery for Culture and Education, which is currently headed by the heterodox prelate Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, a consistent promoter of LGBT ideology.

Radical Fidelity has suggested that what Catholics need is not the Vatican’s current rejection of Mary’s titles of Mediatrix and Co-Redemptrix, and consequent downplaying of her powerful role in our salvation — and therefore weakening of our devotion to her — but a “more authentic, doctrinally rooted, and confidently proclaimed devotion that recognizes that all true honor given to Mary ultimately redounds to the glory of her Son.”

“In this age marked by the doctrinal confusion and spiritual indifference that is promoted by the squatters in Rome, the safest path remains the one consistently recommended by Tradition: Ad Jesum per Mariam.”