In perfect conformity to the official Acts of the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican...

Mgr Luciani [later Pope John Paul I] retained his devotion as well as his faith in the privileges and prerogatives of the Virgin Mary, founded on the teaching of the Fathers, the Doctors and Magisterium of the Church.

Whilst many bishops read with an indifferent eye the blasphemies of Modernists who denied Mary’s perpetual virginity, Mgr Luciani firmly defended this signal privilege of the Immaculate Mother of God. For example, in his Homily of 12 September 1969:

“Her virginity, during both conception and childbirth, is a miracle that surpasses the laws of philosophy and biology: we profess it by an act of faith, based on God’s evidence […].

“Matthew and Luke expressly say that Jesus was born ‘of the Holy Spirit’. Can one go along with the ‘Dutch Catechism’ and interpret this phrase as follows, namely that Jesus, unlike any other person, is the son of the prophecies and promises inspired by the Holy Spirit over the centuries preceding His coming? Doubtless one can, but only on this condition: that in company with the Gospel, in company with the antique Symbols of the faith and the Magisterium of all time, we add that Jesus was engendered without the intervention of man and that He ‘was born of the Virgin Mary.’ ”

“The preface of the Blessed Virgin expresses it thus:

‘Father, through the working of the Holy Spirit, Mary didst conceive Thy only Son; and, ever intact in Her virginal glory, didst shine forth over the world the eternal light, Jesus Christ, Our Lord.’

“This is the style employed by the Fathers who, to tell us how Jesus came forth from His Mother’s womb, leaving it intact and without causing His Mother any inconvenience or suffering, all had recourse to the following examples: Christ came out of the sepulchre and appeared to His disciples gathered in locked rooms; a ray of light passes through crystal without breaking it; thoughts pass from one mind to another.”

The quotation on which Mgr Luciani ended his homily shows that he had noted down and retained Pius XII’s most explicit words concerning the Virgin Mary’s Universal Mediation of Grace:

“If Peter holds the keys of the Church, Mary holds the keys of God’s Heart; if Peter binds and unbinds, Mary also binds with chains of love; She also unbinds with the art of forgiveness. If Peter is the Guardian and Minister of Indulgences, Mary is the magnanimous and skilful Treasurer of the Divine favors. Those who wish for Grace and yet have not recourse to the Virgin Mary to accomplish their journey, are wanting to fly without wings.”