The woman of the Apocalypse according to popes.

n a recent post, Steve “Pur­ple” Hays of Fail­ablogue (he calls it Tri­ablogue) tries to pit those wicked “lay Catholic pop apol­o­gists” against “their reli­gious supe­ri­ors” in the USCCB. To this end, he quotes from the tex­tu­al notes to Rev. 12:1, found on the USCCB Web site:

The woman adorned with the sun, the moon, and the stars (images tak­en from Gn 37:9–10) sym­bol­izes God’s peo­ple in the Old and the New Tes­ta­ment. The Israel of old gave birth to the Mes­si­ah (Rev 12:5) and then became the new Israel, the church, which suf­fers per­se­cu­tion by the drag­on.

Sor­ry, says Mr. Haze to those “lay Catholic pop apol­o­gists” who think that Mary is the woman clothed with the sun. “I’ll side with the bish­ops” who say that Rev. 12:1 is talk­ing about the Church.

I’m glad to know that Mr. Haze now sides with the bish­ops. That’s progress. Maybe, then, he’ll side with the bish­op of Rome. Here is Pope Pius X, in Ad Diem Illum Lætis­si­mum 24:

“A great sign,” thus the Apos­tle St. John describes a vision divine­ly sent him, appears in the heav­ens: “A woman clothed with the sun, and with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars upon her head” (Apoc. xii., 1). Every­one knows that this woman sig­ni­fied the Vir­gin Mary, the stain­less one who brought forth our Head. The Apos­tle con­tin­ues: ‘And, being with child, she cried tra­vail­ing in birth, and was in pain to be deliv­ered’ (Apoc. xii., 2). John there­fore saw the Most Holy Moth­er of God already in eter­nal hap­pi­ness, yet tra­vail­ing in a mys­te­ri­ous child­birth. What birth was it? Sure­ly it was the birth of us who, still in exile, are yet to be gen­er­at­ed to the per­fect char­i­ty of God, and to eter­nal hap­pi­ness. And the birth pains show the love and desire with which the Vir­gin from heav­en above watch­es over us, and strives with unweary­ing prayer to bring about the ful­fill­ment of the num­ber of the elect.

Here is Pope Pius XII, in Munif­i­cen­tis­simus Deus 27:

[T]he scholas­tic Doc­tors have rec­og­nized the Assump­tion of the Vir­gin Moth­er of God as some­thing sig­ni­fied, not only in var­i­ous fig­ures of the Old Tes­ta­ment, but also in that woman clothed with the sun whom John the Apos­tle con­tem­plat­ed on the Island of Pat­mos.

Here is Pope Paul VI, in Signum Mag­num:

The great sign which the Apos­tle John saw in heav­en, “a woman clothed with the sun,“is inter­pret­ed by the sacred Litur­gy, not with­out foun­da­tion, as refer­ring to the most blessed Mary, the moth­er of all men by the grace of Christ the Redeemer.

And here is Pope John Paul II, in Redemp­toris Mater 24:

In this way, she who as the one “full of grace” was brought into the mys­tery of Christ in order to be his Moth­er and thus the Holy Moth­er of God, through the Church remains in that mys­tery as “the woman” spo­ken of by the Book of Gen­e­sis (3:15) at the begin­ning and by the Apoc­a­lypse (12:1) at the end of the his­to­ry of sal­va­tion.

Oh, don’t take my word for it, Mr. Haze. I’m just a lay Catholic pop apol­o­gist. Take it from the bish­op of Rome.

Mr. Haze will sure­ly say: A‑ha! A con­tra­dic­tion! But no. For here is what Hay­dock­’s Bible Com­men­tary of 1859 has to say about Rev. 12:1:

By this woman, inter­preters com­mon­ly under­stand the Church of Christ, shin­ing with the light of faith, under the pro­tec­tion of the sun of jus­tice, Jesus Christ. The moon, the Church, hath all change­able things of this world under her feet, the affec­tions of the faith­ful being raised above them all. — A woman: the Church of God. It may also, by allu­sion, be applied to our blessed Lady [the Vir­gin Mary]. The Church is clothed with the sun, that is, with Christ: she hath the moon, that is, the change­able things of the world, under her feet; and the twelve stars with which she is crowned, are the twelve apos­tles: she is in labour and pain, whilst she brings forth her chil­dren, and Christ in them, in the midst of afflic­tions and per­se­cu­tions. (Chal­lon­er) — Under the fig­ure of a woman and of a drag­on, are rep­re­sent­ed the var­i­ous attempts of Satan to under­mine the Church. — On her head.…twelve stars, her doc­trine being deliv­ered by the twelve apos­tles and their suc­ces­sors. (With­am)

Catholics are a both-and peo­ple, Mr. Haze. The woman clothed with the sun is both the Church and Mary. (For Mary is the Moth­er of the Church, which is also the New Israel.)