page_title: Latin Church
section_title: Immaculate Conception
hierarchical_section_title: Latin Church / Theology and philosophy / Immaculate Conception
caption_attribution_description: Español: La obra representa la Inmaculada Concepción de la Virgen María.
context_page_description: The Latin Church, also known as the Western Church or the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest particular church sui iuris of the Catholic Church, and employs the Latin liturgical rites. It is one of 24 such churches, the 23 others forming the Eastern Catholic Churches. It is headed by the bishop of Rome, the pope – traditionally also called the patriarch of the West – with his cathedra in this role at the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome, Italy. The Latin Church traces its history to the earliest days of Christianity through its direct leadership under the Holy See that according to Catholic tradition was founded by Peter and Paul.
  The Catholic Church teaches that its bishops are the successors of Jesus' apostles, and that the pope is the successor to Saint Peter upon whom primacy was conferred by Jesus Christ. Of Jesus' twelve apostles, four are associated with apostolic sees of the Western Church: Peter, who founded Rome and Syracuse; Paul, who founded Rome and Malta; Barnabas, who founded Milan; and James, son of Zebedee, who founded Santiago de Compostela.
context_section_description: The Immaculate Conception is the conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary free from original sin by virtue of the merits of her son Jesus. Although the belief has been widely held since Late Antiquity, the doctrine was dogmatically defined in the Catholic Church only in 1854 when Pope Pius IX declared it ex cathedra, i.e., using papal infallibility, in his papal bull Ineffabilis Deus,
  It is admitted that the doctrine as defined by Pius IX was not explicitly noted before the 12th century. It is also agreed that "no direct or categorical and stringent proof of the dogma can be brought forward from Scripture". But it is claimed that the doctrine is implicitly contained in the teaching of the Fathers. Their expressions on the subject of the sinlessness of Mary are, it is pointed out, so ample and so absolute that they must be taken to include original sin as well as actual. Thus in the first five centuries, such epithets as "in every respect holy", "in all things unstained", "super-innocent", and "singularly holy" are applied to her; she is compared to Eve before the fall, as ancestress of a redeemed people; she is "the earth before it was accursed". The well-known words of St. Augustine (d. 430) may be cited: "As regards the mother of God," he says, "I will not allow any question whatever of sin." It is true that he is here speaking directly of actual or personal sin. But his argument is that all men are sinners; that they are so through original depravity; that this original depravity may be overcome by the grace of God, and he adds that he does not know but that Mary may have had sufficient grace to overcome sin "of every sort" (omni ex parte).
  Bernard of Clairvaux in the 12th century raised the question of the Immaculate Conception. A feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin had already begun to be celebrated in some churches of the West. St Bernard blames the canons of the metropolitan church of Lyon for instituting such a festival without the permission of the Holy See. In doing so, he takes occasion to repudiate altogether the view that the conception of Mary was sinless, calling it a "novelty". Some doubt, however, whether he was using the term "conception" in the same sense in which it is used in the definition of Pope Pius IX. Bernard would seem to have been speaking of conception in the active sense of the mother's cooperation, for in his argument he says: "How can there be absence of sin where there is concupiscence (libido)?" and stronger expressions follow, which could be interpreted to indicate that he was speaking of the mother and not of the child. Yet, Bernard also decries those who support the feast for trying to "add to the glories of Mary", which proves he was indeed talking about Mary.
  The theological underpinnings of Immaculate Conception had been the subject of debate during the Middle Ages with opposition provided by figures such as Saint Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican. However, supportive arguments by Franciscans William of Ware and Pelbartus Ladislaus of Temesvár, and general belief among Catholics, made the doctrine more acceptable so that the Council of Basel supported it in the 15th century, but the Council of Trent sidestepped the question. Pope Sixtus IV, a Franciscan, had tried to pacify the situation by forbidding either side to criticize the other, and placed the feast of the Immaculate Conception on the Roman Calendar in 1477, but Pope Pius V, a Dominican, changed it to the feast of the Conception of Mary. Clement XI made the feast universal in 1708, but still did not call it the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Popular and theological support for the concept continued to grow and by the 18th century it was widely depicted in art.
caption: Inmaculada Concepción by Juan Antonio de Frías y Escalante
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