Immaculata

The Immaculate Conception is a doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church that states that the Virgin Mary was free of original sin from the moment of her conception.[1] First debated by medieval theologians, it proved so controversial that it did not become part of official Catholic teaching until 1854, when Pius IX gave it the status of dogma in the papal bull Ineffabilis Deus.[2]

The Roman Missal and the Roman Rite Liturgy of the Hours includes references to Mary's immaculate conception in the feast of the Immaculate Conception. The Immaculate Conception became a popular subject in literature,[3] but its abstract nature meant it was late in appearing as a subject in art.[4] The iconography of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception shows her standing, with arms outstretched or hands clasped in prayer. Her feast day is 8 December.[5]

Protestants rejected the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception as without foundation in the Bible,[6] and Patriarch Anthimus VII of Constantinople characterized the dogma of the Immaculate Conception as a "Roman novelty".[7]

The Immaculate Conception of Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church, meaning that it is held to be a divinely revealed truth whose denial is heresy.[8] Defined by Pope Pius IX in Ineffabilis Deus, 1854, it states that Mary, through God's grace, was conceived free from the stain of original sin through her role as the Mother of God:[9]

We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that 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, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.[10]

While the Immaculate Conception asserts Mary's freedom from original sin, the Council of Trent, held between 1545 and 1563, had previously affirmed her freedom from personal sin.[11]

Anne appears as the mother of Mary in the late 2nd-century Gospel of James.[12] Anne and her husband, Saint Joachim, are infertile, but God hears their prayers and Mary is conceived. [13] The conception occurs without sexual intercourse between Anne and Joachim, but the story does not advance the idea of an immaculate conception.[14]

By the 4th century it was generally accepted that Mary was free of personal sin,[15] but original sin raised the question of whether she was also free of the sin passed down from Adam.[16] The question became acute when the feast of her conception began to be celebrated in England in the 11th century,[17] and the opponents of the feast of Mary's conception brought forth the objection that as sexual intercourse is sinful, to celebrate Mary's conception was to celebrate a sinful event.[18] (The feast of Mary's conception originated in the Eastern Church in the 7th century, reached England in the 11th, and from there spread to Europe, where it was given official approval in 1477 and extended to the whole Church in 1693; the word "immaculate" was not officially added to the name of the feast until 1854).[17]

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception caused a virtual civil war between Franciscans and Dominicans during the middle ages, with Franciscan 'Scotists' in its favour and Dominican 'Thomists' against it.[19] [20] The English ecclesiastic and scholar Eadmer (c.1060-c.1126) reasoned that it was possible that Mary was conceived without original sin in view of God's omnipotence, and that it was also appropriate in view of her role as Mother of God: Potuit, decuit, fecit, "it was possible, it was fitting, therefore it was done."[16] Others, including Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) and Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), objected that if Mary were free of original sin at her conception then she would have no need of redemption, making Christ superfluous; they were answered by Duns Scotus (1264–1308), who argued that her preservation from original sin was a redemption more perfect than that granted through Christ.[21] In 1439, the Council of Basel, in schism with Pope Eugene IV who resided at the Council of Florence,[22] declared Mary's Immaculate Conception a "pious opinion" consistent with faith and Scripture; the Council of Trent, held in several sessions in the early 1500s, made no explicit declaration on the subject but exempted her from the universality of original sin; and by 1571 the Pope's Breviary (prayerbook) set out an elaborate celebration of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on 8 December.[23]

The eventual creation of the dogma was due more to popular devotion than scholarship.[24] The Immaculate Conception became a popular subject in literature and art,[3] and some devotees went so far as to hold that Anne had conceived Mary by kissing her husband Joachim, and that Anne's father and grandmother had likewise been conceived without sexual intercourse, although St Bridget of Sweden (c.1303–1373) told how Mary herself had revealed to her that Anne and Joachim conceived their daughter through a sexual union which was sinless because it was pure and free of sexual lust.[25]

In the 16th and especially the 17th centuries there was a proliferation of Immaculatist devotion in Spain, leading the Habsburg monarchs to demand that the papacy elevate the belief to the status of dogma.[26] In France in 1830 Catherine Labouré (May 2, 1806 – December 31, 1876) saw a vision of Mary as the Immaculate Conception standing on a globe while a voice commanded her to have a medal made in imitation of what she saw,[27] and her vision marked the beginning of a great 19th-century Marian revival.[28] In 1849 Pope Pius IX asked the Bishops of the Church for their views on whether the doctrine should be defined as dogma; ninety percent of those who responded were supportive, and in 1854 the Immaculate Conception dogma was proclaimed with the bull Ineffabilis Deus.[29] Although the Archbishop of Paris, Marie-Dominique-Auguste Sibour, warned that the Immaculate Conception "could be proved neither from the Scriptures nor from tradition" he was present at the promulgation of the decree and shortly afterwards solemnly published it in his own diocese.[30]

Ineffabilis Deus found the Immaculate Conception in the Ark of Salvation (Noah's Ark), Jacob's Ladder, the Burning Bush at Sinai, the Enclosed Garden from the Song of Songs, and many more passages.[31] From this wealth of support the pope's advisors singled out Genesis 3:15: "The most glorious Virgin ... was foretold by God when he said to the serpent: 'I will put enmity between you and the woman,' "[32] a prophecy which reached fulfilment in the figure of the Woman in the Revelation of John, crowned with stars and trampling the Dragon underfoot.[33] Luke 1:28, and specifically the phrase "full of grace" by which Gabriel greeted Mary, was another reference to her Immaculate Conception: "she was never subject to the curse and was, together with her Son, the only partaker of perpetual benediction."[34]

Ineffabilis Deus was one of the pivotal events of the papacy of Pius, pope from 16 June 1846 to his death on 7 February 1878.[35] Formerly it had been understood that the content of a dogma had to be contained in Scripture,[36] but Mary's immaculate conception is not stated in the New Testament and cannot be deduced from it;[37] Ineffabilis Deus therefore was a novelty, being based instead on the declaration of a special commission to the effect that neither Scripture nor tradition were necessary to define dogma, but only the authority of the Church expressed in the Pope.[36] Four years after the proclamation of the dogma, in 1858, Mary appeared to the young Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes in southern France, to announce that she was the Immaculate Conception.[38]

The feast day of the Immaculate Conception is December 8.[5] Its celebration seems to have begun in the Eastern church in the 7th century and may have spread to Ireland by the 8th, although the earliest well-attested record in the Western church is from England early in the 11th.[39] It was suppressed there after the Norman Conquest (1066), and the first thorough exposition of the doctrine was a response to this suppression.[39] It continued to spread through the 15th century despite accusations of heresy from the Thomists and strong objections from several prominent theologians. [40] Beginning around 1140 St Bernard of Clairvaux, a Cistercian monk, wrote to Lyons Cathedral to express his surprise and dissatisfaction that it had recently begun to be observed there,[18] but in 1477 Pope Sixtus IV, a Franciscan Scotist and devoted Immaculist, placed it on the Roman calendar (i.e., list of Church festivals and observances) via the bull Cum praexcelsa.[41] Thereafter in 1481 and 1483, in response to the polemic writings of the prominent Thomist, Vincenzo Bandello, Pope Sixtus IV published two more bulls which forbade anybody to preach or teach against the Immaculate Conception, or for either side to accuse the other of heresy, on pains of excommunication. Pope Pius V kept the feast on the tridentine calendar but suppressed the word "immaculate".[42] Gregory XV in 1622 prohibited any public or private assertion that Mary was conceived in sin. Urban VIII in 1624 allowed the Franciscans to establish a military order dedicated to the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception.[42] Following the promulgation of Ineffabilis Deus the typically Franciscan phrase "immaculate conception" reasserted itself in the title and euchology (prayer formulae) of the feast. Pius IX solemnly promulgated a mass formulary drawn chiefly from one composed 400 years by a papal chamberlain at the behest of Sixtus IV, beginning "O God who by the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin...". [43]

By pontifical decree a number of countries are considered to be under the patronage of the Immaculate Conception. These include Argentina, Brazil, Korea, Nicaragua, Paraguay, the Philippines, Spain (including the old kingdoms and the present state), the United States and Uruguay. By royal decree under the House of Bragança, she is the principal Patroness of Portugal.[citation needed ]

The Roman Missal and the Roman Rite Liturgy of the Hours naturally includes references to Mary's immaculate conception in the feast of the Immaculate Conception. An example is the antiphon that begins: "Tota pulchra es, Maria, et macula originalis non est in te" ("You are all beautiful, Mary, and the original stain [of sin] is not in you." It continues: "Your clothing is white as snow, and your face is like the sun. You are all beautiful, Mary, and the original stain [of sin] is not in you. You are the glory of Jerusalem, you are the joy of Israel, you give honour to our people. You are all beautiful, Mary.")[44] On the basis of the original Gregorian chant music,[45] polyphonic settings have been composed by Anton Bruckner,[46] Pablo Casals, Maurice Duruflé,[47] Grzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki,[48] Ola Gjeilo,[49] José Maurício Nunes Garcia,[50] and Nikolaus Schapfl [de] .[51]

Other prayers honouring Mary's immaculate conception are in use outside the formal liturgy. The Immaculata prayer, composed by Saint Maximillian Kolbe, is a prayer of entrustment to Mary as the Immaculata.[52] A novena of prayers, with a specific prayer for each of the nine days has been composed under the title of the Immaculate Conception Novena.[53]

Ave Maris Stella is the vesper hymn of the feast of the Immaculate Conception.[54] The hymn Immaculate Mary, addressed to Mary as the Immaculately Conceived One, is closely associated with Lourdes.[55]

The Immaculate Conception became a popular subject in literature,[3] but its abstract nature meant it was late in appearing as a subject in art.[4] During the Medieval period it was depicted as "Joachim and Anne Meeting at the Golden Gate", meaning Mary's conception through the chaste kiss of her parents at the Golden Gate in Jerusalem;[56] the 14th and 15th centuries were the heyday for this scene, after which it was gradually replaced by more allegorical depictions featuring an adult Mary.[57] The 1476 extension of the feast of the Immaculate Conception to the entire Latin Church reduced the likelihood of controversy for the artist or patron in depicting an image, so that emblems depicting The Immaculate Conception began to appear. Many artists in the 15th century faced the problem of how to depict an abstract idea such as the Immaculate Conception, and the problem was not fully solved for 150 years. The Italian Renaissance artist Piero di Cosimo was among those artists who tried new solutions, but none of these became generally adopted so that the subject matter would be immediately recognisable to the faithful.[citation needed ]

The definitive iconography for the depiction of "Our Lady" seems to have been finally established by the painter and theorist Francisco Pacheco in his "El arte de la pintura" of 1649: a beautiful young girl of 12 or 13, wearing a white tunic and blue mantle, rays of light emanating from her head ringed by twelve stars and crowned by an imperial crown, the sun behind her and the moon beneath her feet.[58] Pacheco's iconography influenced other Spanish artists or artists active in Spain such as El Greco, Bartolomé Murillo, Diego Velázquez, and Francisco Zurbarán, who each produced a number of artistic masterpieces based on the use of these same symbols.[59] The popularity of this particular representation of The Immaculate Conception spread across the rest of Europe, and has since remained the best known artistic depiction of the concept: in a heavenly realm, moments after her creation, the spirit of Mary (in the form of a young woman) looks up in awe at (or bows her head to) God. The moon is under her feet and a halo of twelve stars surround her head, possibly a reference to "a woman clothed with the sun" from Revelation 12:1–2. Additional imagery may include clouds, a golden light, and putti. In some paintings the putti are holding lilies and roses, flowers often associated with Mary.[60]

Piero di Cosimo, Immaculate Conception with Saints, 1505

El Greco, The Immaculate Conception with St John the Evangelist, c. 1585

Rubens, Immaculate Conception, 1628–1629

Zurbarán, Immaculate Conception, 1630

Murillo, Immaculate Conception, 1650

Murillo, Immaculate Conception, 1660

Murillo, Immaculate Conception, 1678

Carlo Maratta, 1689

Juan Antonio Escalante, 17th century

Santa Maria degli Angeli, Rome

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, The Immaculate Conception with Saint Lawrence and Saint Francis of Paola, early 1770s

Baroque altar in Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception Church, Portugal

Caxias do Sul museum, Brazil

Statue, Porto Alegre, Brazil, 19th century

Palmi, Calabria, Immaculate Conception, 1925

Nicaragua, Immaculate Conception, 1950

Our Lady of Aparecida, Brasilia

The Immaculate Conception, Church of the Immaculate Conception in Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Spain).

A bronze statue of the Immaculate Conception at the Manila Cathedral in Intramuros, Manila, Philippines

Eastern Orthodoxy never accepted Augustine's specific ideas on original sin, and in consequence did not become involved in the later developments that took place in the Roman Catholic Church, including the Immaculate Conception.[61][62] When in 1894 Pope Leo XIII addressed the Eastern church in his encyclical Praeclara gratulationis, Ecumenical Patriarch Anthimos in 1895 replied with an encyclical approved by the Constantinopolitan Synod in which he stigmatised the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and papal infallibility as "Roman novelties" and called on the Roman church to return to the faith of the early centuries.[7] Eastern Orthodox Bishop Kallistos Ware comments that "the Latin dogma seems to us not so much erroneous as superfluous."[63]

The Eritrean and Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo do believe in the Immaculate Conception of the Theotokos. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church celebrates the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on Nehasie 7 (August 13).[64][65] The 96th chapter of the Kebra Nagast states: “He cleansed Eve's body and sanctified it and made for it a dwelling in her for Adam’s salvation. She [i.e., Mary] was born without blemish, for He made her pure, without pollution, and she redeemed his debt without carnal union and embrace...Through the transgression of Eve, we died and were buried, and by the purity of Mary we receive the honor, and are exalted to the heights.”

In the mid-19th century, some Catholics who were unable to accept the doctrine of papal infallibility left the Roman Church and formed the Old Catholic Church; their movement rejects the Immaculate Conception.[66][67]

Protestants overwhelmingly condemned the promulgation of Ineffabilis Deus as an exercise in papal power, and the doctrine itself as without foundation in Scripture,[6] for it denied that all had sinned and rested on a translation of Luke 1:28 (the "full of grace" passage) that the original Greek did not support.[68] Protestants, therefore, teach that Mary was a sinner saved through grace like all believers.[34] The ecumenical Lutheran-Catholic Statement on Saints, Mary, issued in 1990 after seven years of study and discussion, conceded that Lutherans and Catholics remained separated "by differing views on matters such as the invocation of saints, the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary;"[69] the final report of the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), created in 1969 to further ecumenical progress between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, similarly recorded the disagreement of the Anglicans with the doctrine, although Anglo-Catholics may hold the Immaculate Conception as an optional pious belief.[70]