Should Protestants Affirm the Immaculate Conception?

What if I were to tell you that the Immaculate Conception is probably not what you think it is? That's what we're going to talk about today on Conversations with a Calvinist, which begins right now. Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist.

My name is Keith Foskey, and I am a Calvinist. It's the most wonderful time of the year. In fact, it's the time I love the most, and that is Christmastime. Looking forward to celebrating with my family, enjoying a time of remembering the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, getting to preach on those important texts about his birth, and just celebrating the season together as the body of Christ.

What the Immaculate Conception Means in Roman Catholic Teaching

Well, today I want to address a subject that I often hear misunderstood within the church, and that is the subject of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Oftentimes I do believe that, especially among evangelicals, we use that term in a way that is incorrect.

In fact, by show of hands, and of course I can't see anyone, has there ever been a time where you thought the Immaculate Conception, or maybe you still think that the Immaculate Conception, is about the conception of Jesus?

Raise your hand if that's you. I will say this, for several years, when I was a young Christian, that was me. When I heard people say the term Immaculate Conception, when I used the term Immaculate Conception as a 19, 20 year old new believer, I became a believer at 19 years old and used that term Immaculate Conception, I thought that what I was talking about was the very clear and very biblical teaching that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and therefore he was born in a miraculous way.

Again, mixing up terms, I thought Immaculate referenced a miraculous thing, and that we're going to see later that's actually not what it means. I assumed it had to do with Jesus' conception. Again, this was my ignorance, and for those of you who knew all along that that's not what it was about, then you can feel free to feel somewhat intellectually superior to me at a young age, because I didn't know.

But I know this, a lot of Christians don't know this, and I know that simply by anecdotal evidence. I hear Christians all the time saying, yes, we need to celebrate the Immaculate Conception. I hear evangelical non-Catholics say that.

Now when Catholics say it, they know what it means, and we'll find out why that is in just a little while. But when I hear an evangelical say, praise God for the Immaculate Conception, my immediate question is, do you know what you're talking about?

Do you understand that there is a difference between the clear biblical teaching of the virginal conception of our Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, and what is known as the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception?

Do you know that there's a difference? And again, I have to believe, based on my anecdotal evidence, based on things I see people say online, based on conversations I've had with family and friends, I have to believe people often don't know that there is a difference.

And the primary reason is, especially in my neck of the woods, where I'm from, there's not a lot of interaction with Roman Catholics. In fact, I remember I talked about this on a previous episode when I had Uncle Rich on, and we were talking about where we grew up in a small town, Callahan, Florida, we both grew up here, we both graduated from West Nassau High School, and I think we had a graduating class of about 100 people, so it wasn't a big school, wasn't a big group, and I might be off on that number.

Uncle Rich will tell me if I'm wrong. But in our town, there was the Baptist church, where just about everybody went, and then anything else other than that was sort of like, you know, there were some Pentecostals, of course, there's a big Pentecostal church in town, so I guess you were Baptist, Pentecostal, but there were a few Catholics, and we noticed, like, I had a friend who was a Catholic who had certain restrictions on his diet at certain times of the year, but I didn't know much about it, and I didn't ask him a lot of questions, again, I wasn't a believer in high school, so I wasn't super interested in these things, so I didn't know, didn't really care.

But again, as I became a believer, in my adult life, I began to hear terms, use terms, think about terms that I hadn't thought about before, and one of those is the doctrine of the immaculate conception.

This idea, again, what I thought had to do with the virgin birth, actually is not directly related in the sense that it is not, when we say immaculate conception, we're not talking about the conception of Jesus, and that's the part that I really want to stress today.

When someone uses the term immaculate conception, it's actually not referring to Jesus, it's referring to Mary. This is the doctrine that is held within the Roman Catholic Church, that Mary was conceived in a particular way, wherein she was kept from the taint, or the stain of original sin, so that she could be the sinless God-bearer, so that she could be the one who was able to give birth to Jesus Christ herself, needing to have a special dispensation of cleanliness, as it were, or a special dispensation of having her be this particular vessel for the Lord Jesus Christ to come through.

This actually is part of a series of teachings regarding Mary, which are known within Roman Catholicism as the Marian dogmas. I'm going to pull up a list here. There are four dogmas within Roman Catholic teaching, and these are four dogmas that regard Mary in Roman Catholic teaching, and I want to talk about these four today.

We're going to specifically talk about the immaculate conception, but I want to talk about the others as well. I'm going to be using Roman Catholic resources for today's video, because I do think anytime, and this is an important lesson, I will say Dr. James White was very helpful in sort of implanting this in my mind.

As a young believer, as I would listen to him teach a lot, and he would say, anytime you want to deal with something you disagree with, you need to represent it well, you need to represent it correctly, you need to be able to argue from the other side.

I believe that's the truth. I believe we should always try to represent the other side truthfully, even if we disagree. We shouldn't be disagreeing with something they don't believe, because that's called creating a straw man.

If I simply build up a straw man to burn, that's not solving anything. That's not really dealing with the actual arguments of the other side. I've been accused of that on a few of my short videos. Oh, you're just creating straw men.

I tell people, well, my short videos are often humorous, and they're often dealing with an exaggerated position from the other side, and they're not intended to be scholarly and debating. They're just making a funny point regarding a particular issue.

I always tell people, don't take those two too terribly seriously. They're meant to be humorous and to make a humorous point. But when we deal with someone's actual beliefs, we do need to be fair, we do need to honestly evaluate them, and again, we're going to look at these four Marian dogmas, the title Mother of God, we're going to look at the Immaculate Conception, the Perpetual Virginity, and the Assumption of Mary.

We're going to look at these as they are taught by the Roman Catholic Church, and we're going to use two resources. We're going to use Catholic Answers, which is, if you go to catholic .com, you'll find Catholic Answers, which is the apologetics arm for popular Roman Catholicism.

So I would say this is fair to use them as a resource. Another resource we're going to use is Catholic News Agency, and the only reason why I'm using this is because they have a really good article on the four Marian dogmas, and I want to cite that a couple of times as we go through this.

Mary as Theotokos and the Limits of the Title Mother of God

So let's begin, really, with at least defining what these four dogmas are. So let's look first at the first one, which regards the title Mother of God. So I'm going to read from catholicnewsagency .com, it says, Mary's Divine Motherhood was proclaimed at the Council of Ephesus.

Various names are used to describe Mary's role as Mother of Jesus. She is called Mother of God, which translates the more accurately stated Greek term, Theotokos, as Birthgiver of God. The Council of Ephesus attributed the title to Mary, Mother of God.

This needs to be read against the council's declaration that in Christ there are two natures, one divine and one human, but only one person. Indeed, according to the council, the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God since she begot according to the flesh, the Word of God made flesh.

This decision was further explained by the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which says, with regard to Mary's Divine Motherhood, quote, begotten from the Father before the ages as regards his Godhead, and in the last days, the same, because of us and because of our salvation, begotten from the Virgin Mary, the Theotokos, as regards his manhood, one in the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, and the quote ends.

It goes on to say, Mary's Divine Motherhood was not the object of an independent or exclusive dogmatic declaration. This statement is embedded in text defining the person and natures of Jesus Christ. Thus, the dogma of Divine Motherhood becomes an integral part of the Christological dogma.

This does not diminish its definitive and binding character. The dogma of Divine Motherhood is generally accepted by all Christian denominations. Okay, so that's a good point that they make there in the end.

That's what I want to deal with. As far as this regarding Mary, calling her the Mother of God, Theotokos, again, it depends on how we define that. Just this coming Sunday, I'm going to be preaching Jesus, the God-man.

That's the title of my sermon, because I'm going to be looking at Colossians 1, and I'm going to be looking at verse 19, which says that the fullness of God dwelt in him. It says that again in chapter 2, verse 9.

In fact, in chapter 2, verse 9, it's more emphatic, because it actually uses the word for deity. It says that all the fullness dwelt in him bodily. All the fullness of deity dwelt in him bodily. I have no problem saying that Jesus is the God-man.

I have no problem saying Jesus is God incarnate. Even the simplest term, Jesus is God, yes, in the sense that he is God incarnate. Absolutely. I'm a Trinitarian Christian, and I've argued for Trinitarian theology on this show before.

I have no issue with that. Wherein we're saying, if a person is simply saying that Mary gave birth to the person of Jesus, who is himself the embodiment of the divine Logos, and in that sense, mother of God, well, okay.

That seems to be what the counsel is saying, that she was In fact, if you go back, it says the father in Christ were before all ages within the Godhead, but what came about bodily was in regard to how Mary was participating.

We typically say Mary is the mother of Jesus, in the sense that Jesus Christ as the man, the human nature of Christ, came into the world through the birth in Bethlehem, but the divine nature, the Logos, has always existed.

In the beginning was the word. The word was with God. The word was God. And so, this idea of Mary being the mother of God, I think where Protestants, and myself included, would take the biggest issue with that, is in some way, it seems as if the human agent, being Mary, the human agent of birth, and the human agent of giving birth to Christ, is obviously important, obviously used by God in a miraculous way.

Nobody has an issue with that. Nobody takes issue with that. The problem is, is when you say mother of God in the sense of God having come from her, I think that's where some of us would take the issue and say, okay, she's the mother of Christ.

She's the mother of Jesus. Jesus is God, and in that sense, yes, you could say mother of God in one sense, but God himself, and when we say God, we say God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The triune God is from no one, and is born of no one, and therefore, I think where so many have the issue is, it seems as if Mary, in that sense, is being exalted in a way that is unhelpful.

And so, would we say that Theotokos is absolutely off the table? Probably not, but it's not a term that many Protestants are going to use without clarification, and again, there's clarification even in this article.

There's clarification, and this is a Catholic article, so I don't think this is the hugest of the four as far as issues. Certainly, there are issues that could arise, and there are people who have elevated Mary to a position of equality with Christ, and that is a problem we're going to talk about a little bit later.

Some who are pushing for titles like co-redemptrix, co-mediatrix. These are terms which some have applied to Mary, even though I will admit that is not something that has been officially declared by the Roman Catholic Church as dogma, but it just needs to be understood that there are those who, because of terms like mother of God and queen of heaven, things like that, are elevating Mary in a way that certainly is not something we see in Scripture, but also something that is brought with the possibility of the potential dangers of idolatry, and certainly, even within Roman Catholicism, there has to be recognition that there are those who take an ungodly approach to Mary and do set her up as an idol, even though, as we're going to see in a little while, the Roman Catholic Church would deny that they do that.

What's denied officially doesn't always ring true with what's happening within the rank and file believers. I mean, I can tell you that the statues made to Mary and people hugging them and bowing down to them, and there's a picture that one of the missionaries we used to support used to bring from his area, which was over in Eastern Europe, and he would come back and he would show us pictures of the statue of Mary that was in the center of the town, and people encircled this thing for several hundred feet, down on their hands and knees, face down, prostrate before a statue of Mary, and so, yes, it's problematic, it can cause a lot of problems, and so, again, getting back to the four that we discussed just a moment ago, the first one, the title, Mother of God, that's an issue that can be discussed, but that's one of the four dogmas regarding Mary.

The Immaculate Conception and the Claim That Mary Was Sinless

The second one that we're going to look at is the Immaculate Conception. Now, this is, of course, probably why you tuned into the video, because, well, the Immaculate Conception is the subject of today's video, and the Immaculate Conception, actually, we said, doesn't deal with the conception of Jesus, but actually deals with the conception of Mary herself, and I want to quote from Catholic Answers, okay, so we have this quote, it says, the Immaculate Conception is a Catholic dogma that states that Mary, whose conception was brought about the normal way, was conceived without original sin or its stain, that's what Immaculate means, without stain, all right, so right away, we recognize the Immaculate Conception is not about Jesus' virginal conception, this is about Mary herself, and the argument, as it's explained, and you can go to Catholic Answers, you can look up the Immaculate Conception and Assumption, that's the title of the article that I'm citing today, and that's where this comes from, they go through immediately, beginning to define how this operates, because one of the Protestant arguments, and they actually bring this up, one of the Protestant arguments is that, and I'll read it here, Protestant's chief reason for objecting the Immaculate Conception and Mary's consequent sinlessness is that we're told that all have sin, Romans 3, 23, besides they say Mary said, her, quote, spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, end quote, Luke 1, 47, and only a sinner needs a Savior, all right, so real quick, it's interesting that at least they recognize that the Protestants do have an objection to this, and one of the biggest objections that I've made and I've heard is the fact that when they say Mary is sinless, we go back and we say, okay, there are two problems with that, one, all have sinned, and two, the issue of Mary does say that the Lord is her Savior, and again, sinners are the ones who need Saviors, if Mary is sinless, why does she need a Savior?

So the answer is that, at least the answer that they give, is that Mary does receive a salvation of sorts, but her salvation is what happened in her, when she was conceived and being kept from sin, that was like a preemptive salvation, it was keeping her from being a sinner, and this is an analogy directly from the website, directly from Catholic Answers, it says this, suppose a man falls into a pit and someone reaches down to pull him out, this man has been saved from the pit, now imagine a woman walking along and she is too about to topple into the pit, but at the very moment she is to fall in, someone holds her back and prevents her, she too has been saved from the pit, but in an even better way, she was not simply taken out of the pit, she was prevented from getting stained by the mud in the first place, this is the illustration Christians have used for a thousand years to explain how Mary was saved by Christ, by receiving Christ's grace at her conception, she had this grace applied to her before she was able to become mired in original sin and its stain.

All right, so the argument from their side is that yes, Mary is being saved, but she's being saved preemptively, she's being saved from the original sin of Adam being transferred to her, that's why it's a miraculous or immaculate, remember immaculate means without stain, so the reason for the immaculate conception or this without stain conception is so that she doesn't receive the stain of Adam and so therefore she is, she's still saved as it were, but she's saved preemptively.

So Protestants argue that Mary was a sinner because she said she needed a savior or that God was her savior and that all have sinned and their response to that is well, she would have been a savior, but she was kept preemptively, that's the illustration they give from falling into the pit of sin and so she's kept sinless.

And so what we end up with then in scripture or rather not in scripture, in Catholic tradition is the idea that we really have two sinless people in history because often we argue there's only one sinless person and that's Jesus Christ, but the Roman Catholic teaching would be no, there's two sinless people, there's Jesus and then there's Mary and Mary was kept from original sin and therefore kept from actual sin.

They believe Mary was sinless not only by virtue of the fact that she didn't carry on the Adamic nature and the original sin, but that she herself wasn't a sinner. And I remember very specifically Dr. James White telling or in a debate with a Roman Catholic apologist and the Roman Catholic said, he said he was retelling the story of Jesus with the adulterous woman being thrown at his feet and how Jesus said he who is without sin cast the first stone.

And now this is a story told by the Roman Catholic. He said in his version a stone flew in and hit the woman and Jesus stopped and looked and he says, I'm not talking about you mom, not you mom, as if to say, yes, there is someone who is without sin who could have cast the stone and it wasn't Jesus only, it was Jesus and Mary who were sinless.

And again, where we take the biggest issue with this, this doctrine is that it is nowhere found in scripture. It's based on, and when I say we, I say Protestants because they say, well, here's the Protestant argument that she says she needed a savior and she herself was a sinner because all have sinned.

Yeah, I think those two are still legitimate even though the Roman Catholic would disagree with our arguments there and they make their own, you know, sort of run around by saying that she was, uh, you know, still saved and she was saved without sin.

But the bigger issue is that we don't find this in scripture. A lot of, a lot of, um, a lot of the argument from, from Roman Catholics comes from the Gospel of Luke where we get what's known as the Magnificent or, or Mary song, uh, in the Gospel of Luke.

And one of the arguments they make is that in this, in this particular instance where we have Mary interacting with the angel Gabriel, that Mary is, uh, expressing certain, certain things that they can draw from that, that arrive at these conclusions.

I want to read from Luke chapter one, Luke chapter one, verse 26 says in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David.

And the Virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, greetings old favored one. That that's a huge one because that, that, that, uh, that word favored one, uh, is often they, they, they attach a lot to that because it refers to being, uh, full of grace.

And so you'll hear the term hail Mary, full of grace, uh, that term old favored one as we as translating the ESV is the term which is often attached to this idea of Mary being, uh, having this grace prior to even this event, but that this grace has been on her whole, whole life.

And they will argue that that grace is what kept her from sin. Um, but it goes on verse 29 it says, but she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.

And the angel said, do not be afraid, Mary, where you have found favor with God. Again, the, the word there, grace, you found grace in the eyes of God and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus.

He will be great and will be called the son of the most high and the Lord will give to him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom. There will be no end.

Mary said the angel, how will this be since I'm a virgin? And he answered her, the Holy spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the son of God, and therefore your relative or behold, your relative Elizabeth and her old age has also conceived a son and the six month with her who was called barren for nothing will be impossible with God.

And it says in verse 38 and Mary said, behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word and the angel departed from her. Well then we later after she has this instance where she goes to the house of Elizabeth and she speaks with Elizabeth and John the Baptist is in Elizabeth's womb.

He, he, he leaps with joy upon her visit. Uh, we, we, we read these words in verse 44, it says for behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leapt for joy. Verse 45 says, and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of the, of that which was spoken to her from the Lord.

And verse 46 and Mary said, my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God. My savior, there's that phrase, God, my savior, and that's again, a lot of process say, well, there it is. She, she needed a savior.

She was a center and we already heard about that argument earlier where he has looked in the humble estate of his servant for behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed. And, and again, they, a lot of, a lot of theology is being attached to these ideas.

Well, okay. All generations must call her the blessed virgin is, is one of the arguments that comes from this and it goes on verse 49 for he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name and his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud and the thoughts of their hearts is brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of the humble estate. He is filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away is helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.

Again, that is the, that's the second section, which is often referred to as the magnificent or Mary's song regarding her blessings from the Lord. And these are the, these are the sections. The sections I just read, uh, in Luke chapter one, that we're, we're Gabriel visits Mary and then where Mary visits Elizabeth and, and, and, and, and we hear this song.

These are the two sections where so much of the dogmas are, are, will point to, they'll say, well, see where Mary said here, you know, uh, the, the, or the, all generations will call her blessed. And, and, and, and we, you see here where the angel said, Oh, Oh, favored one.

And if there was ever, in my opinion, if there was ever a time where we could rightfully call out, Hey, uh, that's Isa Jesus. When you're arriving at a doctrine of sinlessness based upon those very specific passages, which are not, um, clearly saying what you're saying, they're saying, and you're having to do these, uh, is a genital runarounds that this is where, this is where so many Protestants take issue.

And I've heard it said, well, you Protestants, you just disrespect Mary. No, no, it's not about disrespecting Mary. It's about not allowing Mary to be put in a place that the scripture doesn't allow. And, um, someone might from the Roman Catholic side might argue, well, well, we get to define what the scripture means because we have the Pope and we have the magisterium.

And again, this is, this comes back. And for those of you who are evangelical Baptist, maybe from a tradition similar to mine, where you haven't had a lot of exposure with Roman Catholicism, it's important to understand that where we hold to a doctrine called sola scriptura, which means the Bible is the only infallible rule of faith and practice.

We hold to the fact that the Bible is the sole authority that is infallible in the church. We have other authorities. We have elders, we have, um, pastors, teachers, you know, we have even creeds and confessions that we look to, but all of those things are subservient to scripture.

Scripture alone, sola scriptura is the only infallible rule of faith and practice. And that's the Protestant position with a position of the Roman Catholic church is not the same. The position of the Roman Catholic church is that the, the magisterium of the church, the, the, the, the, the, the teaching and tradition of the church have the ability to declare de fide, to, to, to declare what is to be believed.

Um, and it can be done outside of scripture. It can be done without the, the, the scripture. Um, and, and, and what's interesting is about the doctrine of the immaculate conception is it did not become official dogma.

And remember dogma means what must be, what must be believed. Dogma is, is not optional. Dogma is, this is, this is what you must believe to be a good Roman Catholic or to, to be a record, to, to, to be part of the, the, um, to be accepted as part of the Roman Catholic faith.

These are things have to be believed. And so the doctrine of the immaculate conception was not officially recognized until Pope Pius the ninth did so in 1854. Now, just, just think for a moment, 1854, that is, that's what, 170, 180 years ago.

Uh, you know, uh, it's not that long ago. Um, and when we think about that, we have to also consider the fact that for 1850 years, it was not dogmatically taught. Now I'm not saying people didn't believe it.

And that's what the argument, if you, if you go to Catholic answers, it says the document, the doctrine of the immaculate conception was officially defined by Pope Pius the ninth in 1854. When Protestants claim that the doctrine was invented at this time, they misunderstand both history of dogmas and what prompts the church to issue from time to time definitive pronouncements regarding faith and morals.

They are under the impression that no doctrine is believed until the Pope or an ecumenical council issues a formal statement about it. I, I don't, I don't think that I know that there were people who believe these things about Mary prior to 1854.

I mean, obviously it wasn't just in 1854, this became a thing. No people, there were people who believe this. The issue is, uh, at this point now it can't be, I can't be disbelieved. Uh, if you're a Roman Catholic, you, you have to believe this because this is official church doctrine.

Now it's official church church teaching. And, and, and where I see that the big danger is there are people who now, again, going back, there are people who now believe within Roman Catholicism, uh, that, that Mary is co-mediatrix and co-redemptrix with Christ.

And even though if you look up that on Catholic answers, you'll, you'll see in one of their, um, one of their, uh, uh, hosts received a call and there's a transcript of the call. And I read through the transcript and what he says is he says that, well, you know, in a sense she is, you know, she participates with God in the salvation, you know, by bringing Christ into the world.

So in that sense, it's true, but there's, there's no, there doesn't seem to be any direction in which this, um, is, is ever going to actually become official. In fact, let me pull it. I just want to read, read, read what he says.

He says, um, uh, and this is just, just to be clear, this is again from Catholic answers. And this is, uh, Jimmy Akin does the church teach Mary is co-redemptrix. And, um, so he, he, he kind of explains it here, what, what he believes that means, um, in the sense that co meaning, uh, uh, does, doesn't mean equal, but it means with, and therefore, um, they're not saying Mary's equal with Jesus.

They're just saying, she's a woman who cooperates with the redeemer. She cooperates with God's plan and her son's role in it. And therefore she's cooperative in our salvation. Again, it's still participant, still participant in our salvation, but he goes on to say this.

Um, he said, Pope Benedict in an interview has said, even as far back as the reign of John Paul II, that he didn't think that there would ever be an action to make this a dogma to proclaim this language as dogma.

So, so here, here's my issue. They're saying this, this will probably never become dogma. Um, but he goes on to say later, and I hope I can find it here. He says, ultimately that if, uh, yeah, here it is.

He says, now that could change with a future Pope who might have a different opinion, uh, who might revive it. But that's my assessment on the current status of the phrase vis-a-vis authoritative teaching.

And so, so he's saying, he's saying, yeah, right now, I don't think we should use the expression. This is, this is his, he was, he was referring to a Pope saying, I don't think we should use this expression.

But he says, but if you, a future Pope may have a different opinion. And again, this is where, this is where the problem lies. And this is something I want to, I'm trying to point out in today's episode.

What we have is we have Roman Catholic teaching, which you can move from something being something that is believed among Catholics to being demanded to be believed. And it is so at the, uh, under the authority of the Pope, because again, they're not under the authority of scripture, which is unchanging and is certain and is a, a, a plum line against which we can measure everything else.

They have the magisterial authority arm of the church. They have the papacy and the papacy has the ability, as he just said, he can have a different opinion, which means the, the opinion of the previous Pope would become void at that point.

And, and, and another Pope could come along in this idea of co-redemption, co-redemptrix. Uh, uh, sure. Yeah, that could go back on the table. So, so again, you know, if you're wondering, you know, why is all this an issue?

It's an issue, I think, because quite frankly, we're dealing with the, the issue of, of authority, because when it comes to the Marian dogmas, and again, looking back at what they are, the four dogmas, the title, mother of God, again, we could debate how to understand that, but on the immaculate conception, if you're a Roman Catholic, you don't have an option not to believe this, because this is dogmatically defined, even though it's only 170 some, some years ago, it's been dogmatically defined.

It must be believed. And if you don't believe it, you're, you're not part of the church, the Roman Catholic church in the sense of you're, you're not affirming what the Roman Catholic church teaches. Now, there are two other dogmas regarding Mary.

The Perpetual Virginity of Mary

I just want to mention, even though today really was about the immaculate conception and it's, it's the perpetual virginity and the assumption of Mary. Now, the perpetual virginity of Mary is simply the doctrine that she, she was never not a virgin and there are, let me read, I'll go back to the Catholic News Agency article.