Inmaculate Conception. The Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is celebrated on the 8th of December in the Latin, and on the 9th in the Greek Church, in which latter church it is held under the name of 'The Conception of St Anne,' the mother of the Virgin Mary. The festival of the Conception itself is traceable in the Greek Church from the end of the 5th century, and in the Latin dates from the 7th; but a great controversy prevailed for a long time in the West as to whether and in what sense the conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was to be held immaculate, and in what sense the Blessed Virgin herself was to be held conceived without sin. It was believed to be a consequence of the doctrine of the divine maternity, and a necessary part of the honour due to the Incarnation, that the Blessed Mother should be held to have been at all times free from the stain of sin. This might have been either by her having been, like the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. i. 6), or the Baptist St John (Luke, i. 35), sanctified before her birth—i.e. purified in her mother's womb from the stain of original sin; or by the still higher sanctification of having been entirely exempted from the stain of sin, either before the formation of the embryo in the womb of her mother, or at least before its animation by union with the soul. The actual controversy in the West may be said to have commenced with St Bernard, who not only remonstrated with the canons of Lyons in 1131 for their unauthorised introduction of this festival in their cathedral, but rejected the opinion of the Blessed Virgin's having been conceived free from original sin, though he admitted her sanctification in her mother's womb. Duns Scotus, in a disputation held before the university of Paris in 1307, maintained the doctrine of the immaculate conception in its highest sense; and the entire order to which he belonged, the Franciscan, as well as the school to which he has given his name, the Scotists, afterwards zealously defended it. The Thomist school, which was that of the Dominican order, denied the immaculate conception, and much division for a time existed; but the prevailing tendency was at all times towards the Scotist opinion.
The university of Paris in 1387 condemned the Thomist doctrine. The Council of Basel—although, it is true, at the time when it was in conflict with the pope—declared the doctrine of the immaculate conception to be a Catholic dogma, and reprobated in the strongest terms the opposite opinion. Sixtus IV., however, imposed on the renderers of both opinions in 1470 the obligation of mutual toleration and charity, and renewed this constitution in 1483; but the university of Paris required from doctors graduating an oath that they would defend the dogma of the immaculate conception. The Council of Trent merely declared that 'in its decree on original sin it did not comprehend the blessed and immaculate Virgin Mary,' and renewed the constitution of Sixtus IV. This abstinence on the part of the council led to a further renewal of the dispute, which reached such a pitch towards the close of the 16th century that Pius V. not only prohibited either side from stigmatising the opposite with the name of heretical, but forbade all public discussions of the subject, except in theological disputations in the presence of a learned auditor. In the pontificates of Paul V. and Gregory XV. earnest requests were made by the Spanish crown to obtain a definite declaration in favour of the doctrine of the immaculate conception; but the pope again refused, contenting himself with repeating the constitution of Sixtus IV. He added, however, certain new provisions: (1) That disputants, in asserting the doctrine of the immaculate conception, should abstain from assailing the opposite doctrine. (2) That no one except the members of the Dominican order, and others specially privileged, should presume to defend, even in private disputation, the doctrine that the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived in original sin. (3) That, nevertheless, in the public mass or office of the church, no one should introduce into the prayers or other formularies any other word than simply conceptio, without adding any epithet involving either doctrine. At the same time opinion was setting steadily in favour of the doctrine of the immaculate conception. Alexander VII., and afterwards Clement IX., added new solemnity to the festival. Clement XI. ordained that it should be observed as a holiday of obligation, and at length Gregory XVI. permitted that the epithet immaculate should be introduced into the public service. In the end, at the instance of bishops in various parts of the church, Pope Pius IX. addressed a circular to the bishops of each nation, calling for their opinion, and that of their people, as to the faith of the church on the point; and on the receipt of replies all but absolutely unanimous, he issued a solemn decree at Rome, in a numerous council of bishops, on the 8th December 1854, declaring the doctrine to be an article of Catholic belief, and proposing it as such to the universal church. This decree has been universally accepted throughout the Roman Church.