IMMACULATE CONCEPTION The issue here is not of spelling but of definition. The Immaculate Conception is the doctrine that Mary, the future mother of Jesus, was conceived in her mother’s womb (by the standard biological means) without the taint of original sin. The belief in the virgin birth*18 of Jesus is the belief that Jesus was conceived through the Holy Spirit, without a human father, and while his mother was, indeed, still a virgin. The former is not the latter. In the words of Christopher Durang’s homicidal nun Sister Mary Ignatius: “Everyone makes this error; it makes me lose my
...more
