Just as the Reformation was Gaining Momentum... Mary appeared and Converted 9 Million Indians

Here's an interesting anti-Reformation argument from the New Oxford Review, May 2014 by Frederick Marks.* The following excerpt is part of a larger article presenting an apologetic for the importance of the Roman Catholic Mary:

Of special interest from the standpoint of history is the fact that hostility to Marian devotion is a post-Reformation phenomenon that appears to have arisen in response to an event that occurred in faraway Mexico. When Luther and Calvin launched their reform movement, they subscribed to all that the Church practiced and taught on the subject of Mary. But fourteen years after Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, just as the Reformation was gaining momentum, Mary appeared to Juan Diego at Guadalupe, triggering the conversion of nine million native Indians. The year was 1531, and Christians were on the fence theologically. Should they leave the Church? If they had already done so, should they return? Suddenly, Mary appears to a Catholic and asks him to approach a Catholic bishop to have a Catholic church built in her honor so that people may approach her Son in the Eucharist.
Over the years, evidence for Mary’s New World apparition mounted, and Protestant reformers found themselves in a quandary. How could they admit that the mother of Jesus had come down on the opposite side of the theological fence? Subsequent apparitions, such as those at Lourdes (1858) and Fatima (1917), undeniably authentic, did little to ease the pain. Consequently, some Protestants wound up denying the importance of the Blessed Mother while others questioned the existence of post-apostolic miracles and advised folks to go “straight to Jesus.” 



1. "Hostility to Marian devotion is a post-Reformation phenomenon that appears to have arisen in response to an event that occurred in faraway Mexico."

The key word here is devotion. If devotion is nothing more than saying nice things about Mary, then Protestants are not hostile to Mary (even those in the 17th century). On the other hand, if devotion includes the intercession of the saints, and the cult of the virgin, then hostility to Marian devotion is a Reformation phenomenon, not a post-Reformation phenomenon.


2. "When Luther and Calvin launched their reform movement, they subscribed to all that the Church practiced and taught on the subject of Mary."

 Both Luther and Calvin denied the intercession of the saints, thus changing their theology of Mary drastically and radically compared to popular Roman piety then and now. Neither would pray to Mary, and would tell those people listening to them not to pray to her either. Yes, in 1517, Luther appears to have held the typical Marian piety of medieval Christianity. By 1522, one can find written evidence that he was instructing people away from the intercession of the saints, and not soon thereafter emphasizing to his hearers to move away from the cult of the saints. If the statement is true that Luther "subscribed to all that the Church practiced and taught on the subject of Mary" in 1517, I would include the popular notion that Christ was the cruel judge and Mary was the merciful advocate turning away His wrath.

I've not found any evidence that Calvin held to the intercession of the saints or the cult of the saints during his Reformation career. Then there were Marian issues that weren't official teachings of the Roman church during the Reformation period that both did not embrace- like Mary's assumption. Then there were issues like the immaculate conception in which Luther changed his view on, and Calvin did not adhere to at all. Then there's the fact that Calvin's position on Mary's perpetual virginity is that the Gospel writer did not wish to record what happened afterwards to Mary- so Calvin doesn't decide one way or the other. This is hardly subscribing to "all that the Church practiced and taught on the subject of Mary."


3. "But fourteen years after Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, just as the Reformation was gaining momentum, Mary appeared to Juan Diego at Guadalupe, triggering the conversion of nine million native Indians."

Well, because of the Reformation there have been more than 9 million Protestants. I doubt the author intends to argue that the number of conversions = truth.

One source I looked at said the written tradition of the 1531 event "cannot be traced earlier than the work of Fr. Miguel Sanchez in 1648..." I don't claim to be a knowledgeable person on Mary's alleged appearances- probably because rarely if ever in all my years of Internet encounters with the defenders of Rome have I come across any of them using these appearances for apologetic purposes. One can spend hours on dissecting the source material and debate of Juan Diego and Mary. The way it typically comes down is that Rome did an investigation and declared him a saint, so whatever disparaging evidence is presented won't do much good to one of Mary's defenders. One fact though did bother me enough to look into: the nine million Indian converts. The majority of sources I looked at say it was eight million, not nine,  during the seven year period of 1531-1538. Some sources say 9 million in little over a decade. I have sought out verification of this- and so far, I haven't come across any actual historical evidence documenting this mass conversion due to Mary, nor have I found any indication of what such a conversion entails and how it was determined. Most often, the pro-Roman sources simply say it happened, and happened because of Mary's appearance. The conversion of South America to Christianity may in fact be a lot more complicated than the appearance of Mary (yes, that's sarcasm). See or instance, this article.


4. "The year was 1531, and Christians were on the fence theologically. Should they leave the Church? If they had already done so, should they return? Suddenly, Mary appears to a Catholic and asks him to approach a Catholic bishop to have a Catholic church built in her honor so that people may approach her Son in the Eucharist."

I'm not exactly sure which Christians on the fence in 1531 the author is describing. If he's describing people in Europe, I'm not familiar with any documentation of European Christians in 1531 that were pushed one way or other because of a report of Mary's appearance in Mexico.


5. "Over the years, evidence for Mary’s New World apparition mounted, and Protestant reformers found themselves in a quandary. How could they admit that the mother of Jesus had come down on the opposite side of the theological fence?"

I'm not sure exactly which Protestant Reformers the author has in mind. I know of no statements from either Luther or Calvin on Juan Diego's story.


6. "Subsequent apparitions, such as those at Lourdes (1858) and Fatima (1917), undeniably authentic, did little to ease the pain. Consequently, some Protestants wound up denying the importance of the Blessed Mother while others questioned the existence of post-apostolic miracles and advised folks to go 'straight to Jesus.'"

The miracles of Lourdes and Fatima are undeniably authentic... if one is a Roman Catholic. Protestants did not and have not denied "the importance of the Blessed Mother." Mary played her role in the gospel story, and is therefore an important person (as was Peter, Paul, James, Abraham, etc.). What the author is getting at is that Protestants have denied the intercessory role of Mary, devotion to Mary, and Mary's alleged miracles, and would rather "go straight to Jesus." Well, yes, we would rather go straight to Jesus... and the problem is...?

*The link to the article from the New Oxford Review requires a subscription. The article appears to have been cut-and-pasted here.


Addendum 
Here's an interesting pro-Juan Diego source and it's anti-Reformation polemic:

She declared to Juan Diego that she was the Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of the True God.  This doctrinal statement contradicted emphatically the ideas of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation then turning all Europe into two camps.  She called Juan Diego her very dear son, and proclaimed herself a loving mother to all who would come to her with their problems and cares; in other words, substantiating the Church's traditional teaching that Our Lord, from the Cross, in giving her to St. John as his mother and appointing St. John as her son, was creating for her a universal role as Mother of us all.  This was being denied by the Protestant Reformers:  Mary was for them simply the historic mother of Jesus and had no other role to play.

She offered her intercession—as a mediatrix of graces—to all who should ask for it.  This, too, was of course denied by the Reformers, and where "national churches" were being set up, taking over the magnificent churches of the "Old Faith" as in England, the many little German kingdoms and the Scandinavian countries, the images of the Blessed Virgin, as well as those of the Saints, were being thrown out of the churches and homes and were burned or hacked to pieces.  But Our Lady in 1531 firmly emphasized her intercessory role in "the Communion of Saints."