The Specificity of Catholic Mariology in the Context of Benedict XV`s Social Policy

The article is devoted to the peculiarities of Western Mariology during the First World War and its role in the anti-war policy of Pope Benedict XV (1914–1922). In Russian theological science, this issue has not been raised in this aspect before. Acting as an ecclesiastical measure to counter the ideas of the «sacredness» of this conflict, the Catholic veneration of the Virgin Mary as the «Queen of Peace» was one of the ways to counter the principles of European chauvinism, promoting the popularization of prayer for peace and the demilitarization of the consciousness of the flock of the Roman Church, a significant part of which initially approved of entering the war. The paper analyzed the reasons for the ethnocentric bias of Catholic Mariology at the initial stage or hostilities and the response measures of the Holy See to correct it. For this purpose, a significant amount of sources and official papal documents from 1914–1922 were studied, and modern studies of the pontificate of Benedict XV, practically unknown to the Russian audience, were used. Based on the results of the study, it can be argued that Catholic Mariology was significantly influenced by political factors, and the First World War can be considered as one of the catalysts for Mariological reforms in the twentieth century, while simultaneously serving as the main motivator to the formation of Catholic social teaching on the peace. In the context of the existing parallels between the era of Benedict XV and the current state of the world community, the issues covered in the article may be of scientific interest.