This week in Christian history: Mary declared sinless, Saint Sabas dies

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, December 04, 2022

Pope declares Virgin Mary sinless – Dec. 8, 1854

Pope Pius IX, born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, who reigned as head of the Roman Catholic Church from 16 June 1846 to his death in 1878. He convened the First Vatican Council. | Wikimedia Commons

This week marks the anniversary of when Pope Pius IX issued a controversial papal bull declaring that the Virgin Mary was conceived without original sin, a teaching known as the “immaculate conception.”

The bull, which was titled Ineffablis Deus or “Ineffable God” in English, Pius IX drew from centuries of tradition to justify the claim that Mary was born without original sin.

“From the very beginning, and before time began, the eternal Father chose and prepared for his only-begotten Son a Mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, he would be born into this world,” read the decree.

“Therefore, far above all the angels and all the saints so wondrously did God endow her with the abundance of all heavenly gifts poured from the treasury of his divinity that this mother, ever absolutely free of all stain of sin, all fair and perfect, would possess that fullness of holy innocence and sanctity than which, under God, one cannot even imagine anything greater, and which, outside of God, no mind can succeed in comprehending fully.”

In 1870, Pius IX’s decree on the immaculate conception would later be declared infallible with the introduction of the concept of “papal infallibility,” or the idea that the pope cannot err when speaking on matters of faith from the authority of his office.

Critics of the teaching, among them the Protestant apologetics website Got Questions, have argued that the immaculate conception is unbiblical and that Mary, while righteous, was not perfect.

“The Bible nowhere describes Mary as anything but an ordinary human female whom God chose to be the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ,” stated the site.

“The Bible never hints that there was anything significant about Mary’s conception. Mary is not an exception to the Bible’s statement that “all have sinned” (Romans 3:23). Mary needed a Savior just like the rest of us (Luke 1:47).”