The Immaculate Conception of the Most Holy Virgin

Let us move to the 19th century. The Franciscan Friars of the Kingdom of Naples requested permission from the Holy See to celebrate the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin in the preface of the Mass, something which, until then, was unheard of.

Pius VII granted their wishes on May 17, 1806. This favor excited the holy ambition of the dioceses of Seville, Lyon, and a host of others; they were drawn to this concession, as were a great number of religious Orders, among others, that of Saint Dominic, which finally associated itself with the common belief. Another devotion gave new impetus to the piety of the faithful towards Mary Immaculate. On September 29, 1829, the Congregation of Rites granted, by two rescripts, to the Bishop of Forli and the Bishop of Gaeta, the permission to add to the Litanies of Loreto, which so well recall the prerogatives of our good mother, this beautiful invocation: *Queen conceived without sin, pray for us!* In a short time, this holy practice became general. Pope Gregory XVI, in 1840, received the petitions of fifty-two cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, who insisted on the utility and moral necessity of pronouncing the definitive judgment. Shortly after, about forty similar requests arrived from the Asian Missions, South America, Spain, Italy, Savoy, New Granada, and Bohemia. His Holiness Pius IX received, before Febru ary 2, 1849, forty Sa Sainteté Pie IX Pope who canonized Josaphat in 1867. requests from the bishops of the Kingdom of Naples, with a new petition from His Majesty the King of the Two Sicilies; ten requests from the archbishops and bishops of France; eighty requests from the archbishops and bishops from all parts of the world, not counting the petitions from religious Orders, Chapters, and particular churches. The Holy Father could not remain indifferent to these unanimous wishes of the Catholic episcopate, he who, as he declared in his Bull *Ineffabilis*, had been, from the first days of his pontificate, preoccupied with this grave matter. In the years 1847 and 1848, he appointed a commission of consultors chosen from among the most distinguished prelates and theologians of the Roman Church, and he submitted to them the question of whether the pious belief in the Immaculate Conception could, according to the customs of the Catholic Church, be solemnly defined. At the end of 1848, Pius IX, driven from Rome by the revolution, took refuge in Gaeta; he had the work of the commission continued on the land of exile.

On several occasions he gathered the cardinals who were exiled like him, and sought their advice on the project of defining the prerogative of the Mother of God. It was from Gaeta that he addressed, on February 2, 1849, to all the bishops of the world, the famous encyclical by which he invited them to address the most fervent prayers to heaven, so that it might enlighten the Head of the Church on this important matter, asking them at the same time what was, regarding the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, the belief of their flock and their own personal belief.

The Holy Father wished to ascertain the unanimous consent of the entire Church. His goal was not to provoke new demonstrations of the mystery; however, a great number of prelates justified their faith so well, and exposed with such depth and erudition the proofs of this pious belief, that the responses of the episcopate contain, in their entirety, a complete and irrefutable demonstration of the mystery. It is impossible to read them without conceiving the highest idea of the science and piety of the Catholic episcopate, without admiring its attachment to the Holy See and its devotion to the cause of the Mother of God. The unanimity of the bishops is also a most remarkable thing. Out of approximately seven hundred and fifty cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, and apostolic vicars that the Church counts within its bosom, more than six hundred had responded to the Holy Father before he promoted the definition. If one takes into account oversights, cases of illness, death, vacancies of sees, and letters lost due to great distances, one can say that the entire Catholic episcopate responded to the encyclical of February 2, 1849, and thus manifested the keen interest it took in the matter of the definition.

Joining the episcopate and the faithful were the theologians and doctors who devoted their pens to the glory of Mary; among the most famous, one must cite Rev. Fr. Ravignan, Cardinal Lambruschini, Rev. Fr. Perrone, Rev. Fr. Mariani, Spada, Rev. Fr. Biancheri, Rev. Fr. Bigoni, etc. The *Mémoire* of Dom Guéranger , Abbot of So Dom Guéranger Abbot of Solesmes, author of an influential memoir on the mystery. lesmes, is a small volume full of meaning and reason, which has a quite original character. The author knew how to appropriate ancient arguments in such a way that they appear new under his pen; he also did justice, and in a triumphant manner, to the difficulties that were then being raised both against the mystery itself and against its definability.

But of all the writings that appeared before the definition, there is none that, by its scope, its importance, and its solidity, can be compared to the great work of Rev. Fr. Pas saglia, who has R. P. Passaglia Jesuit theologian whose work served as the basis for the definition bull. since suffered such a sad shipwreck in the faith, today happily repaired. The Bull of definition was modeled on this work. The Pope wished for these publications to be reproduced following the responses of the bishops, as documents contemporary to the great cause he was about to judge. They were therefore collected, like all the other documents, in the curious collection of *Pareri*, which thus reached the number of ten volumes, and of which a complete copy was given to all the bishops present in Rome at the time of the solemnity of the definition.

When the consultors had expressed their opinion in writing, the Holy Father had these opinions printed in three distinct volumes, in order to submit them to the twenty consultors, a special commission that met several times during the years 1852 and 1853, under the presidency of Cardinal Fornari. The minutes of the sessions were drawn up with the greatest care under the title of *Short account of the acts of the special commission appointed by His Holiness Pius IX, to examine the subject of the Immaculate Conception of the most holy Virgin Mary*.

With the exception of two members who had been part of the commission of the twenty consultors, all the theologians gathered were of the opinion that the privilege of the Blessed Virgin was solidly proven by arguments drawn from Holy Scripture, the monuments of tradition, the doctrine, the magisterium and the spirit of the Church, and the declaration of the Council of Trent.

All, with the exception of one, judged that the Holy See could, without departing from the ordinary rules, pronounce the definition of the mystery of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. This was also the unanimous opinion of the cardinals.

In the first months of 1854, it became known that the Sovereign Pontiff had resolved to define the mystery of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Holy Virgin and to give this solemn act all the splendor that the circumstances required. The entire Catholic episcopate would have come to Rome had the Holy Father desired it. But, whether he did not wish to impose a simultaneous widowhood upon all the Churches of the world, or whether he feared causing some offense to the powers, or whether he had other motives, he limited himself to inviting the foreign cardinals and a small number of prelates from each Catholic nation. Many others traveled to Rome to attend this feast. Three cardinals were charged with presiding over this august assembly.

One of them, Cardinal Brunelli, explained the intentions of the Sovereign Pontiff, which were not to gather the bishops in a Council, nor to authorize a discussion on the substance of the question or on the opportuneness of the definition—two points on which the assent of the Catholic episcopate was already known to him, and of which he reserved the judgment to himself—but to hear their opinion on the draft of the Bull which, already prepared, did not yet fully correspond to his thought. They therefore examined the texts of Scripture, the monuments of tradition that were to appear in the Bull, and the form that it should be given.

After consulting the bishops, the Holy Father consulted the cardinals of the Roman Church, whom he gathered in a secret consistory on the following December 1st; when he had their unanimous assent, happy with this agreement, he resolved to pronounce the definition of the Immaculate Conception on December 8.

When the long-awaited day arrived, the Holy City was crowded with pious pilgrims who had flocked from all parts of the world, and the Roman people, faithful to their ancient renown, prepared to honor the Mother of all the faithful with dignity.

At eight o'clock in the morning, the bishops gathered in the great Ducal Hall at the Vatican Palace to don their pontifical vestments. Clad in the white cope and the white linen mitre, they proceeded to the Sistine Chapel, where the Sovereign Pontiff soon arrived. Upon arriving, the Holy Father knelt at the foot of the altar and recited aloud the antiphon: *Sancta Maria et omnes sancti tui, quæsumus, Domine, ne nos deseras, ut dum eorum merita recolimus, patrocinio sentiamus*.

Then the cantors intoned the litany of the Saints; at the verse: *Sancte Michael*, the bishops fell into line, by order of seniority, and descended in procession down the grand staircase of the palace to go to the Basilica of Saint Peter. The cardinals in precious cha basilique de Saint-Pierre Burial place of the saint in Rome. suble and mitre preceded the Holy Father, who closed the procession. He was shaded by a white canopy. Arriving in the middle of the basilica, the bishops arranged themselves in a semicircle before the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament and waited there for the Sovereign Pontiff, with whom they all knelt. His Holiness first recited a short private prayer, and then sang the three orations: *Deus qui nobis sub sacramento*, etc.; *Deus refugium nostrum*, etc.; and *Actiones nostras*, which concluded the litany. These prayers finished, the procession formed new ranks, and the bishops, followed by the cardinals and the Holy Father, went two by two to the choir which was arranged behind the high altar of the basilica, with the pontifical throne at the back, as for ordinary papal chapels. As soon as the cardinals, bishops, and prelates had taken their places, the Sovereign Pontiff sat on the throne prepared near the altar, on the epistle side, to receive the obedience of the clergy. The cardinals made a deep inclination before him before kissing his ring. And after having kissed it, the bishops made a genuflection on the first step of the throne; kneeling on a cushion placed at the feet of the Holy Father, they respectively kissed the ring he presented to them, covered with its cloth; upon leaving, they made a second genuflection and an inclination of the head, to the right and to the left, toward the assisting cardinals. We will not describe the magnificent rites of the pontifical office as it is celebrated by the Sovereign Pontiff in the Basilica of Saint Peter, first because these ceremonies do not belong to our subject, and second because they have often been described elsewhere. We will only add that, among the twelve bishops assisting at the pontifical throne, was the venerable Archbishop of Paris, Mgr Sibour. He carried the candle during the pontifical mass and while the Holy Father pronounced the definition.

When the holy Gospel had been chanted in Latin and Greek, according to the rite used in the office of the Sovereign Pontiff, the deacons of the two rites went together to the throne of the Holy Father at the back of the choir to present him with the book of the Gospels and receive his blessing; then they returned to the high altar upon which they placed the sacred volume.

It was eleven o'clock in the morning.

The venerable Cardinal Macchi, Dean of the Sacred College, the n advanced, des cardinal Macchi Dean of the Sacred College who presented the final petition to the Pope. pite his great age, toward the throne of the Sovereign Pontiff at the back of the choir, accompanied by the dean of the archbishops and the dean of the bishops present at the ceremony, and also by the archbishop of the Greek rite and the archbishop of the Armenian rite, and he addressed the following petition in Latin to the Holy Father:

"Most Holy Father,

"That which the Catholic Church ardently desires and asks for with all its wishes, namely that the Immaculate Conception of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of God, be defined by a supreme and infallible judgment of Your Holiness, in order to increase the praises, glory, and veneration of Mary, we come, in the name of the Sacred College, of the cardinals, of the bishops, of the entire Catholic world, and of all the faithful, to humbly and urgently beseech Your Holiness to accomplish it on this solemnity of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, and thus to fulfill the wishes of all. To this end, deign, O Holy Father, in the midst of the celebration of the unbloody sacrifice, begun in this great church consecrated to the Prince of the Apostles, in the presence of such a majestic assembly of bishops and faithful, to raise your apostolic voice and pronounce the dogmatic decree of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, a decree which will give birth to a new joy in heaven, and which will fill the entire world with gladness."

The Holy Father replied that he willingly accepted this request from the Sacred College, the Episcopate, and the faithful; but that it was necessary, before satisfying it, to invoke the help of the Holy Spirit. Immediately the whole assembly knelt and intoned with admirable unity the hymn *Veni Creator*, the lively singing of which made the sacred vaults resound with pious echoes and moved all hearts. After having sung the oration, the Sovereign Pontiff, standing before his throne, began, in the midst of a profound silence, to pronounce in a strong, clear, and distinct voice, the definition of the mystery of the Immaculate Conception.

When the Holy Father reached these solemn words: *To the greater glory of the Mother of God, by the authority of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul and by our own...*, fully penetrated by the grandeur of the action he was performing, touched by the impatient waiting of the clergy and the faithful who kept their eyes fixed on his person and listened with avidity to each of his words, and no doubt also carrying himself, in thought, to the celestial abode where the joy of the angels responded to that of the elect of the earth, the Sovereign Pontiff, moved to the depths of his being, felt his voice fail and his eyes fill with tears. But, making an effort over nature and mastering his emotion, he soon continued his speech in a strong, yet moved and moving voice, and, after having yielded once more to the empire of his sensitivity, he finished the reading of the decree in the midst of a feeling of universal joy.

## PIUS, BISHOP,

## SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD,

For the perpetual memory thereof.

"God, who is ineffable, whose ways are mercy and truth, whose will is omnipotence itself, and whose wisdom reaches from end to end mightily and disposes all things sweetly, foreseeing from all eternity the lamentable ruin of the entire human race resulting from the transgression of Adam, and having, in the mystery hidden from the beginning of ages, decreed that He would accomplish the primitive work of His goodness through the even more mysterious sacrament of the Incarnation of the Word, so that man, driven into evil by the perfidy of diabolical iniquity, might not perish contrary to the design of His mercy; and that what was to fall in the first Adam might be raised up in the second with a happiness greater than that misfortune; chose and prepared, from the beginning and before the ages, a Mother for His only-begotten Son, so that, made flesh of her, He might be born in the happy fullness of time, and He loved her above all creatures with such love that He placed in her alone, by a sovereign predilection, all His complacencies. Raising her incomparably above all angelic spirits and all Saints, He filled her with the abundance of heavenly gifts, taken from the treasury of the divinity, in a manner so wonderful that, always and entirely pure from all stain of sin, all beautiful and all perfect, she possessed in herself the fullness of innocence and holiness the greatest that can be conceived below God and such that, except for God, no one can understand it. And certainly, it was altogether fitting that she should always shine with the splendors of the most perfect holiness, and that, entirely exempt from the very stain of original fault, she should win the most complete triumph over the ancient serpent, this most venerable Mother, to whom God the Father willed to give His only-begotten Son, begotten of His bosom, equal to Himself, and whom He loves as Himself, and to give Him in such a way that He is naturally one and the same and common Son of God the Father and of the Virgin, She whom the Son Himself chose to be substantially His Mother, She of whom the Holy Spirit willed that by His operation should be conceived and born He from whom He Himself proceeds.

"This original innocence of the august Virgin is in perfect harmony with her admirable holiness and with the sublime dignity of Mother of God, the Catholic Church, which, always taught by the Holy Spirit, is the pillar and ground of truth, acting as mistress of the doctrine divinely received and contained in the deposit of heavenly revelation, has never ceased to explain it, to favor it every day more and more by all means and by brilliant acts. This doctrine, in force since ancient times, deeply engraved in the souls of the faithful and propagated in a wonderful manner throughout the Catholic universe by the care and efforts of the sacred pontiffs; this doctrine, the Church herself has indeed very clearly taught when she did not hesitate to propose the Conception of the Virgin to the veneration and public worship of the faithful. By this solemn act, she presented it to be honored as extraordinary, admirable, fully different from the beginnings of the rest of men, and altogether holy; for the Church celebrates with feast days only that which is holy. And that is why she is accustomed to employ, whether in ecclesiastical offices or in the sacred liturgy, the very terms of the divine Scriptures speaking of the uncreated Wisdom and representing its eternal origins, and to apply them to the beginnings of this Virgin, who had been, in the counsels of God, the object of the same decree as the Incarnation of the divine Wisdom.

"All these things, known everywhere by the faithful, show sufficiently with what care the Roman Church, mother and mistress of all churches, has applied itself to propagate this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin; but this Church, center of truth and Catholic unity, in which alone religion has been inviolably kept and from which all other churches must borrow the tradition of the faith, has a dignity and an authority such that it is fitting to recall its acts in detail. It has never had anything more at heart than to support, protect, promote, and defend by the most brilliant means the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, its worship, and its doctrine. This is attested and proclaimed by so many solemn acts of the Roman Pontiffs, our predecessors, to whom, in the person of the prince of the Apostles, Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself divinely entrusted the charge and supreme power to feed the lambs and the sheep, to confirm their brothers, to rule and govern the universal Church.

"Our predecessors, indeed, made it their glory to institute in the Roman Church, by virtue of their apostolic authority, the feast of the Conception with a proper office and mass, where the prerogative of exemption from hereditary stain was affirmed in the clearest and most manifest manner. They further attached themselves to increasing the splendor of this feast and to propagating by all means the instituted worship, whether by enriching it with indulgences, or by authorizing cities, provinces, and kingdoms to place themselves under the patronage of the Mother of God, honored under the title of the Immaculate Conception, or by approving brotherhoods, congregations, and religious communities instituted in honor of the Immaculate Conception, or by exciting by their praises the piety of those who erected monasteries, hospitals, altars, and temples under this title, or who committed themselves on the faith of an oath to defend energetically the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. They were especially happy to order that the feast of the Conception be celebrated throughout the Church like that of the Nativity, and then that it be celebrated with an octave in the universal Church, then, that it be placed in the rank of holy days of obligation and holily observed everywhere; finally, that each year, on the day consecrated to the Conception of the Virgin, there should be a papal chapel in our Liberian patriarchal basilica. Desiring to inculcate every day more deeply in the souls of the faithful this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God, and to excite their piety to honor and venerate the Virgin conceived without sin, it was with great joy that they permitted the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin in the Litanies of Loreto and in the very preface of the mass, as if to establish the law of prayer. As for Us, walking in the footsteps of so great a number of Our Predecessors, not only have We received and approved what they so wisely and piously established; but further, remembering the decree of Sixtus IV, We have clothed with the sanction of Our authority a proper office of the Immaculate Conception, and to the great consolation of Our soul, We have granted its use to the universal Church.

"But, because things that belong to worship hold closely and by an intimate bond to the very object of worship, and because they cannot remain determined and fixed if this object remains in a state of doubt and ambiguity, Our predecessors the Roman Pontiffs, in putting all their care into increasing the worship of the Conception, applied themselves with solicitude to declare and inculcate its object and doctrine. They taught therefore clearly and openly that the feast had for its object the Conception of the Virgin, and they proscribed, as false and contrary to the spirit of the Church, the opinion of those who thought and affirmed that it is not the Conception, but the sanctification that the Church honors. They did not believe they should act with more restraint toward those who, to ruin the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, had imagined a distinction between the first and the second instant of the Conception, saying that the Church, in truth, celebrates the Conception, but that she does not intend to honor it in its first instant or first moment. Our predecessors, indeed, regarded it as their duty to protect and propagate with the greatest zeal, not only the feast of the Conception of the blessed Virgin, but also the doctrine that the Conception, from the first instant, is the true object of this worship. Hence these altogether decisive words by which Our predecessor, Alexander VII, declared the true intention of the Church: 'It is the ancient and pious belief of the Christian faithful, that the soul of the blessed Virgin Mary, from the first instant of its creation and its union with the body, was, by special grace and privilege of God, and in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, her Son, Redeemer of the human race, preserved and exempt from original sin, and it is in this sense that they honor and celebrate with solemnity the feast of her Conception.'

"Our predecessors attached themselves above all, with a jealous care and extreme vigilance, to maintaining inviolable and sheltered from all attack the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. Not only did they never suffer that this doctrine be in any way censured and outraged; but, going much further, they proclaimed, by formal and repeated declarations, that the doctrine by virtue of which We confess the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin is fully in harmony with ecclesiastical worship: and that this ancient and universal doctrine, such as the Roman Church understands, defends, and propagates, is worthy in all respects to be formulated in the Sacred Liturgy itself and in the solemnities of prayer. Not content with that, so that this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin might remain inviolable, they forbade, under severe penalties, the support, whether publicly or in private, of the contrary doctrine, wishing, by the repeated blows dealt to the latter, to make it succumb. And, so that these brilliant and repeated declarations might not appear vain, they clothed them with a sanction. Our predecessor Alexander VII, whom we have just cited, recalled all these things in these terms:

"'Considering that the holy Roman Church celebrates solemnly the feast of the Conception of Mary without stain and always Virgin, and that formerly it had ordered a proper office on this mystery, according to the pious and devout disposition of Our predecessor Sixtus IV; wishing in Our turn to favor this laudable devotion, as well as the feast and the worship which is its expression, which has never changed in the Roman Church since it was instituted, and desiring, following the example of the Roman pontiffs, Our predecessors, to protect and favor this piety and devotion which consist in honoring and celebrating the blessed Virgin, as having been, by the action of the Holy Spirit, preserved from original sin; finally, to preserve the flock of Christ in the unity of spirit and in the bond of peace, to extinguish dissensions and make scandals disappear; upon the instances and prayers of the aforementioned Bishops, as well as to the chapters of their Churches, as well as upon the instances and prayers of King Philip and his kingdoms, We renew the constitutions and decrees that the Roman Pontiffs, Our predecessors, and especially Sixtus IV, Paul V, and Gregory XV have issued in favor of the sentiment which affirms that the soul of the blessed Virgin Mary, in its creation and in its union with the body, was provided with the grace of the Holy Spirit and preserved from original sin, and also in favor of the feast and the worship of the Conception of the Mother of God, which have been established, as it is said above, in the sense of this doctrine, and We command that the said constitutions and decrees be kept under the penalties and censures which are specified therein.

"'Furthermore, as to all and each of those who seek to interpret these constitutions and decrees in such a way as to diminish the favor which results from them for the doctrine in question, and who strive to put into discussion the feast or the worship rendered in the sense of this doctrine, to make it the object of their attacks, whether directly or indirectly, as under the pretext of examining whether this doctrine can be defined, of commenting or interpreting the sacred Scripture, or the holy Fathers or the Doctors; all those, in a word, who would have the audacity, for whatever motive it may be and in whatever way it may be, to speak, to preach, to treat, to dispute against it, in writing or by word of mouth, by determining this or that, by affirming, by making arguments prevail or by leaving without solution the alleged arguments, or whatever may be the means employed for the same purpose; as to all those, besides the penalties and censures contained in the constitutions of Sixtus IV, to which We intend to submit them and submit them by these presents, We will that, by this fact alone and without other declaration, they be deprived of the power to preach, to give public lessons or to teach and interpret, as well as of all active or passive voice in any election: they will therefore be by the very fact, and without other declaration, struck in perpetuity with incapacity to preach, read in public, teach and interpret, and they will not be able to be relieved or dispensed from these penalties except by Ourselves or by Our successors; and We intend to submit them also to the other penalties that We, or the Roman Pontiffs Our successors, may inflict upon them, as We submit them to them by these presents, renewing the constitutions or decrees above recalled of Paul V and Gregory XV.

"'As for the books in which the aforementioned doctrine, the feast or the worship rendered in the sense of this doctrine would be called into doubt, or in which, in any way whatsoever, something would be written against it, or which would contain speeches, disputes or treatises intended to combat it, We prohibit all those which have been published subsequently to the cited decree of Paul V or which would be published in the future, and this under the penalties and censures specified in the index of prohibited books, and We command and will that they be held and considered as expressly prohibited by the very fact and without any declaration.'

"Now, everyone knows with what zeal this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, Mother of God, has been professed, supported, and defended by the most illustrious religious Orders, by the most famous academies of theology, and by the Doctors most versed in sacred science. Everyone knows also how much the bishops have always been jealous, even in ecclesiastical assemblies, to declare openly and publicly that the most holy Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, by the merits of the Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ, was never subjected to original sin, but that she was entirely preserved from the original stain and in that way redeemed in a more admirable manner. To all these authorities is joined the most grave and highest authority, that of the Council of Trent. In formulating the dogmatic decree on original sin, where, in accordance with the testimonies of the holy Scriptures, the holy Fathers, and the most accredited Councils, it established and defined that all men are born stained by original fault, the Council declared solemnly that it was not in its intention to include in this decree and in this generality of its de finition the bles Concile de Trente Ecumenical council cited for having excluded Mary from the universality of original sin. sed and Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God. By this declaration, the Fathers of Trent showed, as much as times and circumstances made it opportune, that the blessed Virgin Mary was exempt from the original stain, and they thus expressed clearly that nothing in the divine Letters, nothing in tradition nor in the authority of the Fathers, can be validly alleged which, in any way whatsoever, harms this great prerogative of the Virgin.

"And nothing is more true: famous monuments of venerable antiquity, both of the Eastern Church and of the Western Church, prove indeed with evidence that this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the blessed Virgin Mary, which has been, in such a brilliant manner, explained, declared, and confirmed every day more, which has propagated in such a wonderful way among all peoples and among all the nations of the Catholic world, with the firm assent of the Church, by its teaching, its zeal, its science, and its wisdom, has always been professed in the Church as received from hand to hand from our fathers and clothed with the character of revealed doctrine. For the Church of Christ, vigilant guardian and protector of the dogmas entrusted to it, changes nothing in them, diminishes nothing from them, adds nothing to them; but, treating with scrupulous attention, with fidelity, and with wisdom the ancient things, if there are any that antiquity has sketched and that the faith of the Fathers has indicated, it studies to release them, to put them in light, in such a way that these ancient dogmas of heavenly doctrine take on evidence, brilliance, clarity, while keeping their fullness, their integrity, their property, and that they develop, but only in their own nature, that is to say, by preserving the identity of the dogma, of the sense, of the doctrine.

"The Fathers and writers of the Church, instructed by the heavenly oracles, have had nothing more at heart in the books they composed to explain the Scriptures, to defend the dogmas, to instruct the faithful, than to celebrate in rivalry and to exalt in a thousand admirable ways the sovereign holiness of the Virgin, her dignity, her integrity from all stain of sin, and her brilliant victory over the cruel enemy of the human race. That is why, when they report the words by which God, in the beginnings of the world, announcing the remedies prepared in His mercy to regenerate mortals, confounded the audacity of the seductive serpent and wonderfully raised the hope of our race by saying: 'I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and hers,' the Fathers teach that, by this oracle, was clearly and openly announced the merciful Redeemer of the human race, Christ Jesus, only-begotten Son of God, and that His blessed Mother the Virgin Mary is also designated there, that the enmity of the Son and of the Mother against the demon is also and formally expressed there. That is why, just as Christ, the Builder of God and of men, having taken human nature, erases the seal of the sentence that was against us, and attaches it as a victor to the cross, so the most holy Virgin, united to Him by a close and indissoluble bond, with Him and by Him exercising eternal hostilities against the poisonous serpent, and triumphing fully over this enemy, crushed his head with her immaculate foot.

"This unique and glorious triumph of the Virgin, her most excellent innocence, her purity, her holiness, her integrity preserved from all stain of sin, her ineffable richness of all heavenly graces, of all virtues, of all privileges, her greatness, the same Fathers saw the image of it, sometimes in that ark of Noah, which, after having been established by God, escaped fully sound and safe from the common shipwreck of the entire world; sometimes in that ladder that Jacob saw rise from the earth to heaven on the steps of which the angels of God ascended and descended, while God Himself leaned on the summit; sometimes in that bush that Moses saw all on fire in a sacred place, and which, in the midst of the burning flames, far from being consumed or suffering the slightest diminution, grew green wonderfully and covered itself with flowers; sometimes in that impregnable tower in front of the enemy, to which are suspended a thousand shields and the complete armor of the strong; sometimes in that closed garden which could not be violated and where no ruse can introduce corruption; sometimes in that brilliant city of God, which has its foundations on the holy mountains; sometimes in that most august temple of God, which, shining with divine splendors, is full of the glory of the Lord; sometimes in a crowd of other symbols of the same nature, by which, according to the tradition of the Fathers, the sublime dignity of the Mother of God, her stainless innocence, and her holiness preserved from all attack, had been admirably figured and predicted.

"To describe this same ensemble, this abundance of divine gifts, and this original integrity of the Virgin, of whom Jesus was born, these same Fathers, using the words of the Prophets, celebrated the august Virgin herself as the pure dove, the holy Jerusalem, the sublime throne of God, the ark of sanctification, and the house that the eternal Wisdom built for itself; as that queen, who, filled with delights and leaning on her beloved, came out of the mouth of the Most High all perfect, all beautiful, all dear to God. And considering in their heart and their mind that the blessed Virgin Mary was, in the name of God and by His order, called full of grace by the angel Gabriel when he announced to her her incomparable dignity of Mother of God, the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers taught that, by this singular and solemn salutation, of which there is no other example, it is declared that the Mother of God is the seat of all divine graces, that she was adorned with all the gifts of the Holy Spirit; even more, that she is like the infinite treasury of the inexhaustible abyss of these gifts, so that she was never reached by the curse, and that, participating, in union with her Son, in the eternal blessing, she deserved to hear from the mouth of Elizabeth, inspired by the Holy Spirit: Blessed are you among all women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

"Also, it is their sentiment, no less clearly expressed than unanimous, that the glorious Virgin shone with such a brilliance of all heavenly gifts, of such a fullness of grace and of such an innocence, that she was like an ineffable miracle of God, or rather the culmination of all miracles, and in a word Mother of God, and that, brought closer to God as much as created nature allows and more than all creatures, she rises to a height that the praises of neither men nor angels can reach. To attest to this state of innocence and justice in which the Mother of God was created, not only did they often compare her to Eve, innocent and pure virgin, before she fell into the mortal snares of the astute serpent, but further they placed her above her, finding a thousand admirable ways to express this superiority. Eve, indeed, by miserably obeying the serpent, lost original innocence and became his slave; but the blessed Virgin, increasing without ceasing her original gifts, far from ever lending an ear to the serpent, destroyed entirely, by the divine virtue she had received, his strength and his power.

"That is why they never ceased to call the Mother of God: Immaculate Virgin and immaculate in all respects, — innocent and innocence itself, — integral and of perfect integrity, — holy and exempt from all stain of sin, all pure, all chaste, the very type of purity and innocence, — more beautiful than beauty, of a grace above all kinds of charms, — holier than holiness, the only holy, — most pure of soul and body, Virgin who surpassed all chastity and all virginity, — the only one who was made all entire, the tabernacle of all the graces of the Holy Spirit, she who, below God alone, is above all creatures, who by nature is more beautiful, more perfect, more holy than the Cherubim and Seraphim, than all the army of Angels, and whose praises neither on earth nor in heaven can any tongue worthily celebrate. This language, no one is ignorant of it, passed naturally into the monuments of the holy liturgy and into the ecclesiastical offices; one finds it there here and there, it reigns and dominates there; the Mother of God is invoked and praised there as the only dove of beauty, exempt from corruption; as the rose always in the brilliance of its flower; as entirely and perfectly pure, and always immaculate and always happy, and she is celebrated there as the innocence that suffered no attack, as another Eve who gave birth to the Emmanuel.

"There is therefore no reason to be astonished if this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mother of God, recorded in the divine Scriptures, in the judgment of the Fathers, who transmitted it by their testimonies so express and in such great number, doctrine that so many illustrious monuments of venerable antiquity express and exalt, and that the Church has proposed and confirmed by the most grave judgment, there is no reason to be astonished if this doctrine has excited so much piety, religious sentiment, and love among the very pastors of the Church and among the faithful peoples, that they have gloried in professing it in a manner from day to day more brilliant, and that nothing is sweeter and dearer to them than to honor, venerate, invoke, and celebrate everywhere, with ardent devotion, the Virgin Mother of God, conceived without original stain. Also, since ancient times, the Pontiffs, the members of the clergy, the religious Orders, the emperors themselves, and the kings have asked insistently of this apostolic See to define the Immaculate Conception of the most holy Mother of God as a dogma of the Catholic faith. These requests have been renewed in our days; they have been addressed above all to Our predecessor Gregory XVI, of happy memory, and to Ourselves, whether by the bishops, or by the secular clergy, or by the religious Orders and by the faithful peoples.

"Also, knowing perfectly all these things, finding in them for Ourselves the motives for the greatest joy and making them the object of a serious examination, scarcely had We been, despite Our unworthiness, carried, by the mysterious designs of divine Providence, to this sublime chair of Peter, to take in hand the rudder of the entire Church, than, in the sentiment of veneration, piety, and love with which We were from Our childhood penetrated for the most holy Virgin Mary, Mother of God, We had nothing more at heart than to do everything that the Church could still desire to honor more the blessed Virgin and give a new brilliance to her prerogatives. But, wishing to bring to this all the maturity possible, We constituted a particular Congregation formed of several of Our venerable Brothers the Cardinals of the holy Roman Church, distinguished by their piety, their prudence, and their science in divine things; We chose in addition, both in the secular clergy and in the regular clergy, men deeply versed in theological sciences, so that everything that concerns the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin might be examined by them with the greatest care, and that they might expose to us their own sentiment. And although the great number of requests that had been addressed to Us to define finally the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin made Us see clearly what was on this point the sentiment of most of the pastors of the Church, We sent to all Our venerable Brothers the bishops of the Catholic world an encyclical letter given at Gaeta on February 2, 1849, to ask them to address prayers to God, and to make Us know then in writing what was the piety and devotion of their faithful toward the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God, and above all what they themselves thought of the definition to be brought; what was on this point their desire, in order to render Our supreme judgment with all the solemnity possible.

"It was not, certainly, a small consolation for Us when the answers of Our venerable Brothers arrived to Us. Putting into writing to Us the eagerness of an inexpressible joy and happiness, not only did they confirm to Us again their pious sentiments and the thought that animates them, them most particularly, and their clergy, and the faithful people, toward the Immaculate Conception of the blessed Virgin, but further they solicited from Us, as by the expression of a common wish, that the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin be defined by the supreme judgment of Our authority. We experienced no less joy when our venerable brothers the Cardinals of the S. R. C. composing the special Congregation of which We have spoken, and the consulting theologians chosen among us, after having maturely examined all things, asked Us with the same zeal and the same eagerness for this definition of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God.

"Following the glorious traces of Our predecessors, and desiring to proceed in accordance with the established rules, We then convened and held a Consistory where, after having spoken to Our venerable brothers the Cardinals of the holy Roman Church, We had the extreme joy of hearing them ask Us to be willing to issue a dogmatic definition on the subject of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, Mother of God.

"Full of confidence in God and persuaded that the opportune moment had come to define the Immaculate Conception of the most holy Virgin, Mother of God, which the divine oracles, the venerable tradition, the permanent sentiment of the Church, the admirable agreement of Catholic pastors and the faithful, the brilliant acts and the constitutions of Our predecessors attest and put wonderfully in light; after having examined all things with the greatest care and offered to God assiduous and fervent prayers; it appeared to Us that We should no longer defer sanctioning and defining by Our supreme judgment the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, and thus satisfying the very pious desires of the Catholic world and Our own devotion toward the most holy Virgin, in order to honor more and more in Her her only-begotten Son Our Lord Jesus Christ, since everything that one renders of honor and praise to the Mother returns to the glory of the Son."

“Wherefore, after having continually offered, in humility and fasting, Our particular prayers and the public prayers of the Church, to God the Father through His Son, that He might deign to direct and strengthen Our soul by the virtue of the Holy Spirit; after having further implored the assistance of the whole heavenly Court and called upon the consoling Spirit with our groans; acting today under His inspiration, for the honor of the holy and indivisible Trinity, for the glorification of the Virgin Mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith and for the increase of the Christian Religion; by the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by Our own, We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine according to which the blessed Virgin Mary was from the first instant of her Conception, by a special grace and privilege of almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved and exempt from all stain of original sin, is revealed by God, and that consequently it must be formally and constantly believed by all the faithful. If therefore some, which God forbid, should have the presumption to think in their hearts otherwise than has been defined by Us, let them learn and know that, condemned by their own judgment, they have made shipwreck of the faith and have fallen away from the unity of the Church; and furthermore, that, if by word, by writing, or by any other external means, they should have expressed these sentiments of their hearts, they would by that very fact incur the penalties established by law.

“Our lips open in joy and Our tongue speaks in gladness! We render and shall never cease to render the most humble and most ardent thanks to Christ Jesus Our Lord, who, despite our unworthiness, has granted us the singular favor of offering and bestowing this honor, this glory and this praise upon His most holy Mother, and we rest with entire and absolute confidence in the certainty of Our hopes. The blessed Virgin, who, all beautiful and immaculate, has crushed the poisonous head of the cruel serpent and brought salvation to the world; who is the praise of the Prophets and Apostles, the honor of the Martyrs, the joy and crown of all the Saints, who, as the sure refuge and invincible helper of all who are in peril, as the all-powerful mediatrix and conciliator of the earth before her only Son, as the glory, splendor and safeguard of the holy Church, has always destroyed heresies; who has snatched the faithful peoples and nations from the greatest calamities and from evils of every kind, and who has delivered us ourselves from the countless perils by which we were assailed, the blessed Virgin will ensure by her powerful patronage that, all obstacles being removed, all errors vanquished, the holy Catholic Church, our Mother, may be strengthened and flourish more each day among all peoples and in all regions; that she may reign from sea to sea, from the shores of the river to the ends of the earth; that she may fully enjoy peace, tranquility, and liberty, so that the guilty may obtain pardon, the sick a remedy, the weak strength of soul, the afflicted consolation, those who are in peril help; so that all who wander, seeing the darkness of their minds dissipate, may return to the path of truth and justice, and that there may be one flock and one shepherd.

“Let all Our beloved sons of the Catholic Church hear our words; let them persevere, and with an even more vivid ardor of piety, religion and love, honor, invoke and pray to the blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, conceived without original stain, and let them have recourse with entire confidence to this sweet Mother of grace and mercy in all their dangers, their anxieties, their needs, their fears and their terrors. There is nothing to fear, there is never any reason to despair, when one walks under the guidance, under the patronage and under the protection of Her who, having a mother's heart for us, and taking upon herself the cause of our salvation, extends her solicitude to the whole human race. Established by the Lord as Queen of heaven and earth, exalted above all the choirs of angels and all the orders of Saints, seated at the right hand of her only Son Our Lord Jesus Christ, her maternal prayers have a most powerful force; what she wills she obtains; she cannot ask in vain.

“Finally, so that this definition of the Immaculate Conception of the blessed Virgin Mary may reach the knowledge of the whole Church, We have wished to publish this apostolic letter, which will preserve its memory forever; ordering that copies or exemplars, even printed ones, of this letter, if they are subscribed by a public notary or provided with the seal of a person constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, shall be evidence for all, as if the original itself were produced.

“Let it not be permitted to any man to infringe this text of Our declaration, decision and definition, or by a rash audacity to contradict and oppose it. If anyone does not fear to commit this attempt, let him know that he will incur the indignation of almighty God and of His blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.

“Given at Rome, at Saint Peter's, in the year of the incarnation of Our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, on the sixth of the ides of December, in the ninth year of Our pontificate.”

PIUS IX, POP PIE IX, PAPE Pope who canonized Josaphat in 1867. E. This reading completed, the Dean of the Cardinals prostrated himself again at the feet of the Holy Father, to thank him for the decree of definition he had just pronounced, and to pray him to make it public by an authentic Bull. At the same time, the apostolic protonotaries presented themselves, and the Promoter of the Faith, as consistorial advocate, prayed the Holy Father to order that a formal record be drawn up of this solemn act; the Sovereign Pontiff immediately gave his orders to this end. These last ceremonies were scarcely noticed by the public and the clergy, who were entirely absorbed by the sweet thought of having heard the dogmatic definition of the great privilege of the Mother of God pronounced. Scarcely had the last words of the definition escaped the lips of the Pontiff, when the cannon of the Castle of Saint Angelo announced, with redoubled shots, the great event to the Holy City and the neighboring regions. All the bells of Rome were set in motion, and the houses decorated as if by enchantment. After the lectio missa est, the Holy Father intoned the Te Deum, which was sung alternately by the chanters of the papal chapel and by the choir. The tone with which this canticle was sung attested, by its vivacity and brilliance, to the sweet and profound joy with which all souls were penetrated, and added a new luster to the feast. The Holy Father, after the prayer of thanksgiving, gave the pontifical blessing, recited the last Gospel, and, adorned with his tiara, he blessed on his throne the golden crown, laden with precious stones, which he was to place on the head of the image of the Blessed Virgin, which is painted on the chapel of the altar of the chapter of Saint Peter. The coronation took place in the presence of the bishops and the immense crowd that filled the basilica. It was estimated at fifty thousand the number of people who attended the ceremony of the definition; this number is not exaggerated. The church of Saint Peter was filled in all its parts, to the point that circulation had become impossible. It was not remembered, in Rome, to have ever seen such a crowd gathered under the vaults of Saint Peter.