Could you provide me with scriptural reference for this? If I am to believe a doctrinal issue it must be clear to me from the Word of God not the words of men.
I do believe that Mary was sinless when she conceived Jesus (her sins were forgiven). The old convenant provided a way for Mary to be forgiven of her sins. However, I don’t believe that Mary never sinned. The Bible contradicts this claim and you have provided no Biblical reference to support it. Only your words.
All doctrinal understanding about Mary must first begin with the acceptance of Old Testament typology about her.
I do not have the time, but there has been many in depth works that break down how much of Catholic doctrine has developed from the Old Testament’s fulfillment in the New.
A common argument is that there is actually very little recorded in the New Testament about Mary.
The dearth of information about Mary makes sense when one considers two things....
Mary was still alive when it was written and most doctrines regarding Mary were delineated and defined due to challenges to what was commonly believed about her, i.e. in regards to her perpetual virginity, her assumption into heaven and her preservation from sin. Dissent about Mary was and is a way for Protestants to justify their separation from the Church.
Second, the New Testament was written to a very new Church in order to maintain truth and unity in teachings and to chastise and correct when churches veered from that truth and unity.
The New Testament does two things, it confirms that Jesus was born, suffered, died and rose in fulfillment of the Old Testament Scriptures promising a Messiah and it lays out to the new Christians how they are to live in Christ.
Ah.
You see, we Catholics do not thing that words are EITHER Scripture OR 'words of men.' We take from the letter written after the conference in Jerusalem and from other NT writings that God cares for His Church enough to keep it from totally messing up. It comes pretty close, as Peter himself did, even after Pentecost, but while it rocks back and forth it never quite goes off the rails and over the cliff, in our view.
Consequently we believe that the Church has the authority to teach teachings like this one.
That's one reason I do not argue so much FOR this teaching (and others like it) but content myself with dealing with some of the challenges to it -- because I know most non-Catholics do not agree with us about the authority of the Church.