A Doubly-Significant Sesquicentennial

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - December 10, 2004

Two days ago, the Church celebrated a monumental 150th anniversary and two even more important realities.

On December 8, 1854, Blessed Pope Pius IX solemnly proclaimed as a dogma of the faith what many in the Church had long believed: that Mary, from the first moment of her conception, was free from all stain of original sin.

At least as noteworthy as what Pope Pius said was how he said it. For the first time in papal history, he made use of what theologians now call the "extraordinary magisterium" to teach that dogma infallibly.

From the beginning of the Church, the successors of St. Peter had always taught with special authority. They had often pronounced on infallible teachings, such as the articles of the Creed, the inspiration of Sacred Scripture, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and various moral teachings. But they had never proposed a teaching as infallible in so formal and explicit a way as Pius did:

"By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, … by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own: We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine [of Mary's Immaculate Conception] … is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful."

Christ wished to endow his Church — as the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council taught — with the Lord's own infallibility so that we might have certainty with regard to what we have to believe and do to please God and fully enter into communion with him. Christ's vicar exercises this charism whenever he, as supreme shepherd and teacher of the faithful, proclaims in an absolute way a doctrine pertaining to faith and morals.

To celebrate this anniversary is, first, to rejoice in this gift of papal infallibility — and to thank God for it.

The second motive for celebration is the reality that that charism was used solemnly to declare: Mary's Immaculate Conception.

From the beginning, the Church had taught uniformly Mary had never committed a personal sin, but saintly theologians could not discover a means by which Mary would have been conceived without original sin; without original sin, she would have had no need of redemption. Blessed Duns Scotus (d. 1308) eventually posited that she was pre-redeemed from the first moment of her existence by virtue of the eternal but temporally-subsequent merits of Christ her Son. This solution eventually gained widespread acceptance and the ancient celebration of Mary's conception developed into the liturgical memorial of her immaculate conception.

It's important to know, however, why there was a need to proclaim this reality infallibly in the mid-1800s. Catholics in various nations were requesting that the Holy Father solemnly define this teaching because they saw it as an antidote to some dangerous trends of thought — from sole reliance on the Bible on the one hand, to a sole reliance on human scientific reason on the other — that, on those bases, were calling it into question.

The bishops of the United States — who had already in 1847 chosen Mary Immaculate as Patroness of our nation — thought that the definition of this truth would be pastorally beneficial for another reason.

Americans have always prided themselves on self-reliance. From the pilgrims, to the pioneers, to people in every class today, we have gloried in our independence, in our capacity to "pick ourselves up by our bootstraps," in our ability to get things done on our own and in our own way. When Frank Sinatra crooned his triumphant auto-eulogy, "I did it my way," he was bellowing the theme song for so many of his countrymen.

The bishops of our country saw in Mary's Immaculate Conception a powerful contrast to excessive self-sufficiency. Francis Cardinal George of Chicago, an Oblate of Mary Immaculate, recently gave the rationale:

"The meaning of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception is that Mary was always totally dependent on God, that her mission in life was given to her, and that she never did anything on her own but always did things God's way. Never touched by sin, nothing in her resisted God's will for her and for the salvation of the world through her Son. Of the few words attributed to her in the Gospels, the most basic is, 'Let it be done to me according to your word.' From this free decision on her part flows her instruction to the servants at the wedding feast of Cana, 'Do whatever he tells you.'"

Rather than "my way," Mary Immaculate tell us to do it God's way.

God's way involves both her immaculate conception and the gift of papal infallibility.

God's way involves our following the popes' teaching and Mary's example.

That's why the message of this feast is as relevant today as it was 150 years ago.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.