So, uh, just for starters, the title is, uh, very deliberately phrased with the word might.

[chuckles] So I don't know that I have any answers, but I have some possible avenues for, uh, examining this, you know, role of Our Lady, uh, causally speaking.

So based on the principles allowing Aquinas to ascribe a physical instrumental causal agency to Christ's human nature and to the sacraments, I want to argue that an analogous causal agency could be held as pertaining to Mary in such a way that she is able to exercise in the distribution of grace to mankind a mediating role that exceeds the boundaries of moral causality.

The saintly testimony, I think, is best summed up by St. Albert the Great, "The Blessed Virgin is very properly called Gate of Heaven, for every created or uncreated grace that ever came or will ever come into this world came through her.

Likewise, all good that ever came from heaven to earth, and vice versa, passed through her." What kind or kinds of causality might this involve? Well, primary versus secondary causality, we're concerned with the latter.

[chuckles] Principle versus instrumental causality, we are concerned with the latter.