A review by ltgallant
Hail, Holy Queen: The Mother of God in the Word of God by Scott Hahn

1.0

I was interested in this book because as a Protestant I wanted to understand why the Catholic Church venerates Mary so much when she is hardly in the Bible. This book was not only recommended to me but gifted to me by a dear catholic friend. I have tried faithfully to read it for about 1.5 years, but I have found it so poorly done that I’ve given myself permission to give up. First you have to get past the truly appalling puns used as section titles (“fetal attraction” really?!?). But the real stickler for me was the recursive reasoning. Mary is special because she was special and because she was special she could bear Christ and because she bore Christ she is special. I’ve never understood the reasoning that Mary must have been without sin to birth Christ but her mother didn’t need to be without sin to carry a sinless child? Especially frustrating was the use of typology and implicit reference to make assumptions about Mary’s assumption and her presence in Revelation as the woman in labor pains (which she shouldn’t have if she is free of the sins of Eve right?). But then a refutation of explicit reference when it comes to the perpetual virginity of Mary and Jesus’ siblings.