Mater si, magistra no (literally "Mother yes, teacher no") is a macaronic phrase that means Catholics need not follow all the teachings of the Catholic Church, particularly in regard to economic justice or the rights of workers. It was originally in direct response to the papal encyclical Mater et Magistra of 1961, as a reference to the then-current anti-Castro slogan, "Cuba sí, Castro no."[1]
The original use was focused on the Church's 1960s teachings on social policy, as expressed by the encyclical Mater et magistra, but Roman Catholic publications such as the New Oxford Review and the National Catholic Reporter have described it as a slogan for "'pick-and-choose Catholicism"[2] or for those who have a "deep love for the faith and tradition, coupled with skepticism about ecclesiastical authority and its claims to special wisdom."[3]
The phrase is often attributed to William F. Buckley, Jr; although it was first published in Buckley's National Review,[4] the phrase was actually coined by Garry Wills during a telephone conversation with Buckley.[1]
Russell Shaw says the phrase "helped set the stage for the self-righteous dismissals that greeted the 1968 publication of Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae", and later Pope Francis's Laudato si' on the environment. It became the expression of a knee-jerk antipathy to church teaching [which] spread to other areas where dissenters happened not to like what was taught.[5]