The Immaculate Conception and Other Conceptions

baby, infant, child, family, pro-life

The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the Fall (#73 – 78) explains original sin in this way:

When tempted by the devil, the first man and woman allowed trust in their Creator to die in their hearts. In their disobedience they wished to become ‘like God’ but without God and not in accordance with God….Adam and Eve immediately lost for themselves and for all their descendants the original grace of holiness and justice…. Original sin, in which all human beings are born, is the state of deprivation of original holiness and justice….In consequence of original sin human nature, without being totally corrupted, is wounded in its natural powers. It is subject to ignorance, to suffering, and to the dominion of death and is inclined toward sin. This inclination is called concupiscence.

As the result of the choice made by humanity’s original parents, each human being is now born into the condition of original sin.  We are not born into the original holiness and justice intended before the Fall. Yet what God has planned for our ultimate destination – Redemption – far surpasses what was lost!

Our Lady’s Privilege

The Immaculate Conception means that the Blessed Mother was preserved from original sin from the very first moment of her life. Some Catholics erroneously speak as though this doctrine was created out of whole cloth in the mid-nineteenth century.  Absolutely not!  Pope Pius IX, who promulgated the doctrine, noted:

[O]ur predecessors considered it their special solemn duty with all diligence, zeal, and effort to preserve intact the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. For, not only have they in no way ever allowed this doctrine to be censured or changed, but they have gone much further and by clear statements repeatedly asserted that the doctrine by which we profess the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin is on its own merits entirely in harmony with the ecclesiastical veneration; that it is ancient and widespread, and of the same nature as that which the Roman Church has undertaken to promote and to protect, and that it is entirely worthy to be used in the Sacred Liturgy and solemn prayers. Not content with this they most strictly prohibited any opinion contrary to this doctrine to be defended in public or private in order that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin might remain inviolate….

[T]he Council of Trent itself, when it promulgated the dogmatic decree concerning original sin, following the testimonies of the Sacred Scriptures, of the Holy Fathers and of the renowned Council, decreed and defined that all men are born infected by original sin; nevertheless, it solemnly declared that it had no intention of including the blessed and immaculate Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, in this decree and in the general extension of its definition. (Ineffabilus Deus, 12/8/1854)

Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, “full of grace” through God, was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854:

The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, # 491).

If only to avoid the embarrassment of a non-Catholic getting the correct answer over you on Jeopardy, remember that the Immaculate Conception:

  1. Does not refer to Jesus’ own sinless life;
  2. Does not refer to Jesus’ being born without relations between his mother and St Joseph;
  3. Does not mean that Sts. Joachim and Anne (Our Blessed Mother’s parents) refrained from conjugal relations;
  4. Does not mean that conjugal relations between husbands and wives are unholy. But it
  5. Does mean that “The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin” (Ineffabilus Deus, 12/8/1854).

As the anniversary of the promulgation of Ineffabilus Deus, December 8 is the traditional date for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a holy day of obligation.

Other Conceptions and Deceptions

In my previous article Catholic Medical Ethics: Respect for the Sanctity of Human Life, I briefly reviewed the Vatican’s 2016 New Charter For Health Care Workers (English language translation: National Catholic Bioethics Center, 2017).  Catholic teaching upholds the right of each new human being to originate in the loving embrace of a mother and father who are married to each other.  Yet no matter how each tiny young person came to be, the sanctity of his or her life is owed absolute, uncompromising respect from the very first moment until the individual’s natural death.

So, how do we define the very first moment of human life? Actually, we don’t. Science does:

Each month [for a woman of childbearing years] inside your ovaries, a group of eggs starts to grow in small, fluid-filled sacs called follicles. Eventually, one of the eggs erupts from the follicle (ovulation)….After the egg is released, it moves into the fallopian tube. It stays there for about 24 hours, waiting for a single sperm to fertilize it….At the instant of fertilization, your baby’s genes and sex are set….The fertilized egg….moves slowly through the fallopian tube to the uterus. Its next job is to attach to the lining of uterus. This is called implantation. (WebMD, 11/12/2022)

Not succumbing to duplicitous and novel wording, Church teaching still equates conception with fertilization – both being the very first moment of new life when the sperm meets the egg.  While others may acknowledge that human life starts at conception, a bait and switch claims conception does not take place till implantation – making some early abortions only contraceptive.

According to both the scientific community and long-standing federal policy, a woman is considered pregnant only when a fertilized egg has implanted in the wall of her uterus. (Guttmacher Institute, 5/9/2005)

Such pro-abortion semantics allow for the erroneous claim that a drug acts only in a contraceptive manner when it might very well act in an abortifacient manner.  Whether a so-called contraceptive ends a new life after implantation or possibly interferes with implantation after fertilization, both “fall within the sin of abortion and are gravely immoral” (cf, The New Charter # 56, Dignitas Personae # 23).  If human life were to do an end run around fertilization/conception and begin with the morally prohibited act of cloning, that new human life is still a magnificent gift from God and must be treated with absolute respect.

Conclusion

In case this comes up as a question on Jeopardy, but infinitely more important because of the incredible moral implications, remember that the term conception:

  1. Often gets used in a confusing manner;
  2. Marks the coming together of the sperm and the egg;
  3. Does not only happen when the fertilized egg is implanted! and
  4. Is synonymous with fertilization and marks the beginning of a new human life.

That absolute respect for the sanctity of human Life and the sanctity of the transmission of human life must be at the center of health care.  We will need to be continually vigilant about the sanctity of human life and the sanctity of the transmission of human life.

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