Contents – Title – Perception – Meaning

1. The formula of the dogma is:

“The most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin”.

Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus, 1854

It is absolutely Catholic, and I think there is not much really to discuss there.

End of the article?

No – there are still some problems.

2. Title

I think that the title of this dogma was chosen poorly. It tends to mislead, even scandalize those who do not know its content.

Most Orthodox or Protestants reject it because, upon hearing the title, they immediately think: “Oh I see, now the Virgin Mary was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Down with the Catholics and their idolatry”.

However, when someone correctly explains the dogma to them, they often respond: “well, that doesn’t sound too bad; perhaps it could indeed be so”. I have experienced this more than once in my own discussions.

But even Catholics themselves, especially those with little education, often believe that this dogma proclaims the Virgin Mary was born in some unique way, unlike us ordinary mortals.

No wonder: semantically is it odd to attribute the property of being immaculate to the noun conception. The phrase immaculate conception, if we take the words in their most literal and strict sense, is nonsensical.

What do we mean by conception here? If it refers to the act of intercourse, then “immaculate conception” would mean “a sinless physical act”. But that act is always sinless within matrimony. Or would it be “an especially holy physical act”? That sounds unreasonable.

Alternatively, by conception we could mean the moment when a fetus begins to form in the womb. But this act cannot be either vicious or immaculate, it is a purely natural process.

Other terms would convey the meaning of the dogma more clearly, such as “Conception in Immaculacy”, “Conception of the Immaculate One” or even “Immaculacy from the Conception”.

The Blessed Virgin Mary was born without original sin: that is the message, not the peculiarities of the conception process.

Why, then, was the dogma titled this way?

I suspect there was a modicum of theological cunning involved. In 19th century the Church was is distress: it felt its authority waning and people drifting away. Grasping at straws, it sometimes resorted to rather debatable decisions.

One of them was a fervent promotion of Marian devotion – as if there was a desire to quickly shape Her into a kind of goddess: “let us have a feminine aspect of the divinity to complement the masculine one, Christ”.

At the risk of provoking the ire of devotees of Marian spiritualities, I must note, that the Virgin Mary Herself was first and foremost humble. I do not think she would have wanted that.

The title aligned well with this trend: educated believers examined the dogma’s content and were at peace, while simple folk perceived it as implying that the Virgin Mary was “something akin to a goddess”.

This led to a situation where the accusations of Protestants that “Catholics deify the Blessed Virgin” were unfounded on the dogmatic level, yet could be partially justified on the level of popular distortions.

This “grey zone of spirituality” is a burdensome legacy that 19th century left to us, and one day it will need to be clarified, for the sake of the Church’s growth and future.

Regrettably, it is most likely impossible to rename the dogma at this point – though, in my opinion, it would be beneficial for clarity and mission. Still, we must know its content and explain it correctly and precisely to those in doubt.

3. The argument “from Bernadette”

Some may object:

But when the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bernadette in Lourdes, She said, “I am the Immaculate Conception”.

If the Blessed Virgin Herself confirmed and blessed the title of the dogma, we have no right to suggest any changes.

I respond:

First, such private revelations are not binding for belief and do not constitute the official teaching of the Church. This alone is sufficient to dismiss the objection.

However, let us agree that this vision truly did occur. Even then, we must listen closely to the words of the Virgin Many. She said exactly what She said: not “I am immaculately conceived”, but “I am the Immaculate Conception”.

This profoundly shifts the emphasis; surprisingly, it resembles how Jesus Christ in Scripture often turned the logic of His opponents upside down.

Rather than approving, the Virgin Mary gently and subtly corrected the dogma, or even better to say, She illuminated it from within.

«I am Immaculate Conception» does not merely mean «I came into being in purity», but rather that She Herself is a pure source, an unstained beginning.

And indeed, it is so: the Virgin Mary is the clear spring of the Christian faith, the pure mother of God, and the transparent glass through which we behold Christ: “Do whatever he tells you”.

Her words “I am the Immaculate Conception” are deeper, more poetic and simultaneously more theologically precise, than the title of the dogma. 

4. Blurred teaching

There is another problem. The understanding of this dogma, even within the Church, is often vague, and, at times, bizarre.

For instance, there was a seminary professor, no less, who explained it to me in the following way:

«The Virgin Mary had to be born immaculate, so that She would not transmit to Christ the original sin through a corrupted human nature».

With all due respect, this is an error that reveals a deep misunderstanding of both original sin and Immaculate Conception.

Original sin is not a hereditary disease but a fundamental metaphysical wound affecting the entire human nature.

Let us imagine that the Lord were to create from nothing a human infant – without mother and father, yet otherwise a perfectly ordinary one.

This child, too, would share in the fallen nature and would need to be baptized and introduced to the Sacraments, just like any of us.

Conversely, God can create any child, much more his own Son, without an original sin if he so wills. For that, he does not require any prerequisites from the parents.

God is omnipotent; he does not have to obey any man-made laws of “spiritual genetics”.

Moreover, such an interpretation of the dogma is demeaning to the Virgin Mary, for it undermines Her own participation and effort in the work of our salvation. It reduces Her to a nothing more than a “conduit of a high-quality human nature”.

And yet, that professor must have been taught this way somewhere, and now he, in turn, teaches others the same.

Why do such errors emerge? Once again, the problem lies in wording. The dogma clearly explains what IC is, but not so clearly why IC was necessary. Let us try to address it once and for all.

5. Immaculate Conception – What For

The purification of the Virgin Mary was needed because God, even before Her birth, foresaw that She would be the first human being since Adam and Eve capable of living the life without committing sin. No such person had appeared before Her.

God willed that this very woman would become the mother of the Word Incarnate. In this, humanity took part in its own salvation: we offered to God the best we could bring forth – the Virgin Mary.

But we are all born with a wounded, fallen nature, in the state of non posse non peccare: that is, we cannot avoid sinning sooner or later. God decided to grant the Virgin Mary the chance to escape this condition.

For that, before Her birth, he bestowed on Her the grace of the Immaculate Conception – roughly speaking, a grace similar to that of Baptism, yet given before Baptism was established in the timeline.

This grace did not make Virgin Mary a saint, a demi-goddess or anything different from a regular human. But it did give her posse non peccare – the ability not to sin.

And She did not. The glory of Virgin Mary lies in the fact that, possessing only the grace of a “pre-temporal Baptism”, before the Church and Sacraments came into existence, and relying solely on Her free will, She was able to live an entire life without sin.

That is why at the Annunciation, when the Angel appeared to Her, She could answer with a perfectly pure “Yes”, free from any bondage to sin.

Without this “Yes”, there would have been no Christ, no faith, no Church. The entire history of humanity would be reshaped in another, most likely grimmer, way.

Perhaps God would have devised an alternative plan of salvation, but this time we would have had no Champion to meet him on behalf of humanity.

That is why the pre-purification of Virgin Mary was necessary.

6. Related problematics

A concept closely linked to this dogma is that of original sin. It is also often understood vaguely.

For example, no distinction is made between its removable consequences (the inevitability of sin, the separation from God) and its irremovable ones (sickness, aging, mortality – even the Blessed Virgin was subject to these during Her earthly life).

This often causes confusion in discussions, both within the Church and, even more so, in dialogues with other confessions.

Further articles will explore the theology of original sin in greater depth.

7. Final prayer

Lord Jesus Christ, and You, Most Holy Virgin Mary:

Being weak and sinful, we have stumbled many times along this winding path. We pray, every time we fall, help us rise again and gather anew the broken pieces of our purity.

May we preserve all that is truly precious and carry it intact through the dust and dirt of this mortal valley to the gates of Paradise. Amen.