Several scholars have considered Fernando de Rojas's Celestina to be a parodic representation of the Virgin Mary. By the time Rojas takes up his story, however, the old bawd's power has waned and in Auto XII, she meets her death. This article suggests that Rojas's choice to make Celestina mortal and have her influence decline has critical implications for an understanding of the work within the context of parody. Through a close analysis of her access to power in the social order, I propose that Celestina might be read not in terms of parodia sacra, but as a secular parodic construct; and that the analogy crafted by Rojas is not between Celestina and the Virgin Mary but between Celestina and late-medieval Spain's secular version of the Virgin Mary, the contemporary ‘reyna y senora’, Isabel I of Castile.