Three Reasons the Church’s Enemies Hate The Immaculate Conception

TFP ^ | 12.08.06 | Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

[Coleus]

The following text is adapted from a lecture Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira gave on June 15, 1973.  It has been translated and edited for publication without his revision.  Note, in this text, he uses the words Revolution and Counter-Revolution as he defined them in his book Revolution and Counter-Revolution.  In this sense, the Revolution is a centuries-old process, motivated by pride and sensuality, and therefore egalitarianism and liberalism, that dominates the modern world and seeks to destroy Christian civilization.  Counter-Revolutionaries are those dedicated to defeating this process and defending the rights of God. –Ed.

…One of the truly Counter-Revolutionary acts of Pope Pius IX’s pontificate was the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception. 

There are three reasons the definition of this dogma was especially Counter-Revolutionary and therefore hateful to the enemies of the Church.  

First Reason: An Anti-Egalitarian Dogma
As you know, this dogma teaches that Our Lady was immaculate at her conception, meaning that, at no moment, did she have even the slightest stain of Original Sin. Both she, and naturally Our Lord Jesus Christ, were exempt from that rigid law that subjugates all other descendants of Adam and Eve.  Thus, Our Lady was not subject to the miseries of fallen man.  She did not have bad influences, inclinations and tendencies.  In her, everything moved harmonically towards truth, goodness and therefore God.  In this sense, Our Lady is an example of perfect liberty, meaning that everything her reason, illuminated by Faith, determined as good, her will desired entirely.  She had no interior obstacles to impede her practice of virtue.

Being “full of grace” increased these effects.  Thus, her will advanced with an unimaginable impetus towards everything that was true and good.  Declaring that a mere human creature had this extraordinary privilege makes this dogma fundamentally anti-egalitarian, because it points out an enormous inequality in the work of God.  It demonstrates the total superiority of Our Lady over all other beings.  Thus, its proclamation made Revolutionary egalitarian spirits boil with hatred.

Second Reason: The Unsullied Purity of Our Lady
However, there is a more profound reason why the Revolution hates this dogma.  The Revolution loves evil and is in harmony with those who are bad, and thus tries to find evil in everything.  On the contrary, those who are irreproachable are a cause of intense hatred.  Therefore, the idea that a being could be utterly spotless from the first moment of her existence is abhorrent to Revolutionaries.  For example: Imagine a man who is consumed with impurity.  When besieged by impure inclinations, he is ashamed of his consent to them.  This leaves him depressed and utterly devastated.

Imagine this man considering Our Lady, who, being the personification of transcendental purity, did not have even the least appetite for lust.  He feels hatred and scorn because her virtue smashes his pride.  Furthermore, by declaring Our Lady to be so free from pride, sensuality and the desire for anything Revolutionary, the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception affirmed that she was utterly Counter-Revolutionary.  This only inflamed the Revolutionary hatred of the dogma all the more.

Disputing the Doctrine: A Counter-Revolutionary Struggle

Declaring that Our Lady was so free from pride, sensuality and the desire for anything Revolutionary, affirmed that she was utterly Counter-Revolutionary and inflamed the Revolutionary hatred of the dogma all the more.

For centuries, there were two opposing currents of thought about the Immaculate Conception in the Church.  While it would be an exaggeration to suggest that everyone who fought against the doctrine was acting with Revolutionary intentions; it is a fact that all those who were acting with Revolutionary intentions fought against it.  On the other hand, all those who favored its proclamation, at least on that point, expressed a Counter-Revolutionary attitude. Thus, in some way the fight between the Revolution and Counter-Revolution was present in the fight between these two theological currents.

Third Reason:  The Exercise of Papal Infallibility
There is still another reason this dogma is hateful to Revolutionaries: it was the first dogma proclaimed through Papal Infallibility.  At that time, the dogma of Papal Infallibility had not yet been defined and there was a current in the Church maintaining that the Pope was only infallible when presiding over a council.  Nevertheless, Pius IX invoked Papal Infallibility when he defined the Immaculate Conception after merely consulting some theologians and bishops.   For liberal theologians, this seemed like circular reasoning.  If his infallibility had not been defined, how could he use it?  On the contrary, by using his infallibility, he affirmed that he had it.

This daring affirmation provoked an explosion of indignation among Revolutionaries, but enormous enthusiasm among Counter-Revolutionaries.  In praise of the new dogma, children all over the world were baptized under the name: Conception, Concepcion or Concepta to consecrate them to the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady.

Pius IX: Bringing the Fight to the Enemy
It is not surprising that Pius IX so adamantly affirmed Papal Infallibility.  Very different from those who succeeded him, he was ever ready to bring the fight to the enemy.  He did this in Geneva, Switzerland, which then was the breeding ground of Calvinism, which is the most radical form of Protestantism.  When Swiss laws changed to allow a Catholic Cathedral in Geneva, Pius IX ordered that a statue of the Immaculate Conception be placed in the middle of the city, to proclaim this dogma in the place where Calvinists, Lutherans and other Protestants denied it more than anywhere else.  This is an example of Pius IX’s leadership in the fight against the Revolution. It is therefore entirely proper that all Catholics entertain a special affection for the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which is so detested by the enemies of the Church today.

To read another commentary on the Immaculate Conception, click here.
To read Fr. Saint-Laurent's commentary on the Immaculate Conception, click here.
To order your free copy of a picture of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, click here.

[Conservative til I die]

Not only is the Canon of Scriptures not contained in the Bible, the idea of Sola Scriptura is not in the Scriptures. Nowhere is it explicitly or implicitly stated that the Bible alone is to be used. And in fact, many verses contradict this idea.

[DungeonMaster]

So the question stands, where in the Bible does it say which books are inspired?

It doesn't stand with me.

[Frank Sheed]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1752704/posts?page=368#368

This is a more expert exegesis but he didn't buy that either, Larry.

[Pyro7480]

The bible doesn't say you have to be baptised to be saved.

"Jesus answered: Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (John 3:5).

Footnote: "Unless a man be born again"... By these words our Saviour hath declared the necessity of baptism; and by the word water it is evident that the application of it is necessary with the words. Matt. 28. 19.

[kawaii]

Mar 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

Jam 2:14 ¶ What [doth it] profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?


Jam 2:15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,


Jam 2:16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be [ye] warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what [doth it] profit?


Jam 2:17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.


Jam 2:18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

[Pyro7480]

See my #604 as well. :)

[Frank Sheed]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1752704/posts?page=511#511

Check #511...

[Pyro7480]

That's where I got my quotes from. What should I check for? Was I in error?

[Salvation]

Some interesting thoughts for all to ponder:

---

Reading	A treatise against the heresies, by St Irenaeus
Eve and Mary
The Lord, coming into his own creation in visible form, was sustained by his own creation which he himself sustains in being. His obedience on the tree of the cross reversed the disobedience at the tree in Eden; the good news of the truth announced by an angel to Mary, a virgin subject to a husband, undid the evil lie that seduced Eve, a virgin espoused to a husband. As Eve was seduced by the word of an angel and so fled from God after disobeying his word, Mary in her turn was given the good news by the word of an angel, and bore God in obedience to his word. As Eve was seduced into disobedience to God, so Mary was persuaded into obedience to God; thus the Virgin Mary became the advocate of the virgin Eve. Christ gathered all things into one, by gathering them into himself. He declared war against our enemy, crushed him who at the beginning had taken us captive in Adam, and trampled on his head, in accordance with God’s words to the serpent in Genesis: I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall lie in wait for your head, and you shall lie in wait for his heel. The one lying in wait for the serpent’s head is the one who was born in the likeness of Adam from the woman, the Virgin. This is the seed spoken of by Paul in the letter to the Galatians: The law of works was in force until the seed should come to whom the- promise was made. He shows this even more clearly in the same letter when he says: When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman. The enemy would not have been defeated fairly if his vanquisher had not been born of a woman, because it was through a woman that he had gained mastery over man in the beginning, and set himself up as man’s adversary. That is why the Lord proclaims himself the Son of Man, the one who renews in himself that first man from whom the race born of woman was formed; as by a man’s defeat our race fell into the bondage of death, so by a man’s victory we were to rise again to life.

---

[wagglebee]

The bible doesn't say you have to be baptised to be saved.

John 3:5.

[xzins]

See the post I was replying to.

In it, that could be a derived assumption.

[blue-duncan]

"That's why there's a difference between the traditions of men and Holy Tradition, which is the Tradition of the Church Christ established, and send the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter to guide."

I know but I consider my tradition to be the "Holy Tradition, which is the Tradition of the Church Christ established, and send the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter to guide." In fact at the last annual GRPL/Neener picnic the Tradition was affirmed, isn't that right you GRPL/Neener bishops?

[xzins]

prayer to saint

Not so.

You attribute omniscience and/or omnipresence to those who can hear anyone pray at anytime in any place.

John falls to worship one who apparently an angel in Revelation and he is told not to do so. He is to worship only God.

God alone is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.

[DungeonMaster]

Not only is the Canon of Scriptures not contained in the Bible, the idea of Sola Scriptura is not in the Scriptures. Nowhere is it explicitly or implicitly stated that the Bible alone is to be used. And in fact, many verses contradict this idea.

Acts 17:11 These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.

Paul spoke for 3 days and was rejected by one group, but the fair minded group went to the OT and verified the gospel he preached to them was true. If it was not in the OT....

Understand that the OT is about Jesus.

[DungeonMaster]

"Jesus answered: Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (John 3:5).

Clear from the rest of the Bible that isn't baptism.

[xzins]

The tradition is "No list"

It is passed down.

It is of sacre bleu or Gott im himmel status

The LHP has so affirmed.


{!}

[DungeonMaster]

Time to start the weekend. Thanks for the enjoyable discussion.

The Lord Bless you.

DM

[trisham]

He shows this even more clearly in the same letter when he says: When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman. The enemy would not have been defeated fairly if his vanquisher had not been born of a woman, because it was through a woman that he had gained mastery over man in the beginning, and set himself up as man’s adversary.

That is why the Lord proclaims himself the Son of Man, the one who renews in himself that first man from whom the race born of woman was formed; as by a man’s defeat our race fell into the bondage of death, so by a man’s victory we were to rise again to life.

************

Excellent. Thanks!

[trisham]

May God be with you.

[kawaii]

That's the difference, you alone are not a church. Further you weren't present at the church under the Apostles.

You're just someone who likes to read and speculate.