The Immaculate Conception and Original Sin

By Russell Shaw
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 12/2/04)

On Dec. 8, 1854, Blessed Pius IX, the pope of that day, spoke these words:

"We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary at the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God, and on this account must be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful."

This year Dec. 8 marks the 150^th anniversary of that memorable event—the infallible definition of the dogma of Mary's Immaculate Conception. It deserves more than routine attention.

Obviously, the Immaculate Conception is a notable Marian doctrine in which Mary's children rightly rejoice. But something else also is involved—the doctrine of original sin, from whose stain the Blessed Virgin was preserved, in the words of the dogmatic definition, "by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ."

How many people believe in original sin today? "I don't buy that stuff about the apple and the snake," a Catholic friend, holder of a graduate degree from a Catholic university, once sneered. He was one of those intelligent individuals whose religious education hadn't made it out of third grade.

And yet…"original sin is the only empirically verifiable doctrine in Christianity." The Lutheran theologian Reinhold Niebuhr said that. Whether the remark is or isn't literally true, it points to a disturbingly visible fact—the aberrant, destructive behavior that runs throughout human history and is present in the lives of human beings today. Something is needed to account for it. Original sin is the explanation divine revelation supplies.

It isn't necessary to believe literally in the story of "the apple and the snake," which uses metaphor to express profound mystery. At the heart of it, though, lies a profound truth.

"The human race is implicated in some terrible original calamity," John Henry Newman wrote in his classic Apologia Pro Vita Sua. "It is out of joint with the purposes of its Creator. This is a fact, a fact as true as the fact of its existence; and thus the doctrine of what is theologically called original sin becomes to me almost as certain as that the world exists, and as the existence of God."

But God doesn't just leave it at that. Alongside the fact of original sin stands another fact—our redemption by Jesus Christ. Note that Pius IX was at pains to emphasize redemption in defining the Immaculate Conception, which, like all Marian doctrines, points ultimately to Christ.

Christ's redeeming grace poured out on fallen human beings who, despite sin, freely accept redemption by the act of faith and live accordingly is what G.K. Chesterton had in mind in calling original sin a hopeful doctrine.

It is hopeful, he explained, because it means "we have misused a good world, and not merely been entrapped into a bad one. It refers evil back to a wrong use of the will, and thus declares that it can eventually be righted by the right use of the will."

These things should be part of our grateful remembrance on the 150^th anniversary of the dogmatic definition of the Church's ancient faith that the Blessed Virgin was preserved from original sin. Humanity's escape from the ravages of original sin lies, as did hers, in Christ's redeeming grace, of which his Mother—and ours—is the generous mediatrix.

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