Boniface Ramsey, in his translation of the sermons of Maximus of Turin, refers to passages in which Maximus "demeans" Mary (The Sermons Of St. Maximus Of Turin [Mahwah, New Jersey: Newman Press, 1989], n. 1 on p. 365). Given Roman Catholicism's history of claiming that Mary is God's greatest creation, that she was sinless throughout her life, that she cooperated with Jesus' work in the world at every moment of her life, and so on, it doesn't take much to say something that demeans Mary from a Catholic perspective. For example:
"How grateful and magnificent a spectacle to see in the cities, and towns, and villages, on land and sea—wherever the Catholic faith has penetrated—many hundreds of thousands of pious people uniting their praises and prayers with one voice and heart at every moment of the day, saluting Mary, invoking Mary, hoping everything through Mary." (Pope Leo XIII, Octobri Mense)
"Predestined from eternity by that decree of divine providence which determined the incarnation of the Word to be the Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin was in this earth the virgin Mother of the Redeemer, and above all others and in a singular way the generous associate and humble handmaid of the Lord....This maternity of Mary in the order of grace began with the consent which she gave in faith at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, and lasts until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect. Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this salvific duty, but by her constant intercession continued to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation....Placed by the grace of God, as God's Mother, next to her Son, and exalted above all angels and men, Mary intervened in the mysteries of Christ and is justly honored by a special cult in the Church." (Second Vatican Council, "Dogmatic Constitution On The Church", nos. 61-62, 66)
"Mary's role in the Church is inseparable from her union with Christ and flows directly from it. 'This union of the mother with the Son in the work of salvation is made manifest from the time of Christ's virginal conception up to his death'…By her complete adherence to the Father's will, to his Son's redemptive work, and to every prompting of the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary is the Church's model of faith and charity….'This motherhood of Mary in the order of grace continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect.'" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 964, 967, 969)
Many church fathers, not just Maximus, demeaned Mary in many ways by that sort of standard. They held a far lower view of her than modern Catholicism does.
One of the passages Ramsey cites is Sermon 13A:1-2, in which Maximus refers to how the baptismal water in which Christ was baptized is "greater than Mary" (pp. 33-34).
In Sermon 38:4 (p. 94), Maximus refers to how Jesus' birth from the grave (resurrection) is superior to ("more religious than") his birth from Mary's womb. The birth from the tomb is "more glorious" (Sermon 78:2, p. 190).
Ramsey also cites Maximus' Sermon 39:1 (p. 94), where he refers to how Joseph of Arimathea had no less a love for Christ than Mary did. He goes on to refer to how Joseph and Mary's service to God and reward are "similar" and even suggests Joseph's superiority in that "there is this difference: an angel called Mary to her service, but righteousness alone persuaded Joseph".
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