“I Am the Immaculate Conception”

Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me atYour Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

It was a December 8, 1854, a Friday, to be exact, when Pius IX set forth as dogma that Mary “at the first instant of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace of the Omnipotent God,” was conceived without original sin. The belief had been generally accepted by theologians for a couple hundred years, though earlier, there had been some deb...