My name is Andrew Peters and I am a Catholic with a Fundamentalist father. I can usually come out on top of most of our debates but he always stumps me with one about the Immaculate Conception. I've searched Catholic websites and picked the brains of other Catholics but no one has an answer that can satisfy me. I was hoping you could help me out or at least tell me that I'm not the only one ever faced with this argument! It goes like this:
1.
If Christ were to be perfect, Mary his mother must have been perfect also since otherwise she would have passed on her original sin to her son.
2.
But for Mary to be perfect, St. Anne her mother did not have to be perfect because Mary was immaculately conceived by a special grace from God.
The problem is that if (2) is possible, then (1) becomes sort of a ridiculous statement. Why even worry about the possibility of Mary passing on her sin to Jesus if we weren't worried about Anne passing hers on to Mary? Why not just conceive Jesus immaculately without involving Mary?
My answer is usually something along the lines of "I don't know why God decided to do it that way, he just did", which of course satisfies neither of us and he goes away with a victory. Most of my arguments for Mary are based on (1) so if he can show that it isn't true or necessary, he defeats me in a big way. I was hoping you could help me answer that question: Why even worry about the possibility of Mary passing on her sin to Jesus if we weren't worried about Anne passing hers on to Mary? Why not just conceive Jesus immaculately without involving Mary?
hank you for your very good question. I, myself, do not accept this argument advanced by some defenders of the Immaculate Conception. Remember, not all arguments advanced to support Catholic teachings are necessarily good ones. You do not have to accept the argument – just the teaching!
The arguments for Mary's Immaculate Conception are based on the support garnered from passages like Genesis 3:15 and Luke 1:28, 1:40-41. Another passage you might want to consider is a passage found in Revelation:
I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. (Revelation 21:22-27)
Did Mary have to be immaculately conceived in order to be Jesus' "tabernacle" for 9 months? I would say "yes" – because of the Church's teaching on mortal sin and the Eucharist (see 1 Corinthians 11:27-32). God cannot commune with us while we have sin on our souls (Matthew 5:8, Hebrews 12:14). When God's presence chose to dwell between the Cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant, he insisted it (both the Ark and the Cherubim) be made of pure gold (Exodus 25:18-22; 1 Samuel 4:4; 6:2; 1 Kings 6:23-35; 1 Chronicles 13:6; Psalm 80:1; 99:1; Hebrews 9:5). If this is the kind of purity that God demanded of the Ark of His Presence in the Old Testament, why would we expect Him to make an exception for the "throne" (womb) of His "Ark" (Mary) in the New Testament?
Does that mean that St. Anne would have had to have been immaculately conceived as well, in order to provide an appropriate home for Mary? No, and here is a good place to remind your father that Catholics don't claim that Mary is some sort of female deity, holding equality with God. Mary did not require a pure womb in which to be "enthroned" for 9 months because, quite simply, Mary is not God. She is not holy by nature, like God is. She required the supernatural grace of God to be applied to her soul, and He did so in an extra-ordinary way: before she was conceived.
John Pacheco
June 7, 2002
