{"id":4137,"date":"2006-12-08T09:43:02","date_gmt":"2006-12-08T09:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/wondering-about-that-ic.html"},"modified":"2006-12-08T09:43:02","modified_gmt":"2006-12-08T09:43:02","slug":"wondering-about-that-ic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/wondering-about-that-ic.html","title":{"rendered":"Wondering about that IC?"},"content":{"rendered":"

David’s Scott article on the dogma. He does an excellent job of setting the historical context. explaining the conflicts over the idea among theologians through history, and so on:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

One hundred and fifty years later, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception can be understood even more clearly as the Church\u2019s prophetic response to the modern world.<\/p>\n

As Bishop Fulton Sheen pointed out near the 100th anniversary of the dogma: \u201cThe definition of the Immaculate Conception was made when the modern world was born.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it did come at a time when rival moral and spiritual blueprints were being drawn up for the modern world. Within five years, Marx would unveil his philosophy of atheist class struggle; Darwin would publish his theory of evolution; and John Stuart Mill, his ethics of radical individualism.<\/p>\n

These architects of modernity shared an unshakable faith\u2014 that man had no need of God, that there was no such thing as original sin, and that human progress and perfection were not only possible but inevitable.<\/p>\n

In other words, Bishop Sheen said, they believed that \u201ceveryone is immaculately conceived.\u201d<\/p>\n

From his exile, Blessed Pius seemed to sense all this.<\/p>\n

And in defining Mary\u2019s Immaculate Conception he was writing a new charter for the modern world. The dogma was a piece of resistance, a defiant vow to resist the false spirit of the emerging age.<\/p>\n

The Immaculate Conception remains a powerful reminder of the reality of evil and of human sin. But it\u2019s also a promise\u2014that humanity is destined for something far greater.<\/p>\n

Mary, the dogma revealed, was the clean slate humanity so desperately needed\u2014the new Eden from which the world would be made new again.<\/p>\n

Blessed Pius\u2019 definition inspired a century of intense Marian piety and devotion\u2014culminating with the declaration, in 1950, of the dogma of Mary\u2019s final Assumption into heaven.<\/p>\n

In defining the beginning and end of Mary\u2019s life, the Church defined the meaning and destiny of every human life\u2014to be transfigured by grace, freed from sin, made able to love with a pure heart, and to hope for heaven.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Mike Aquilina remarks:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

In the East, Mary is all-holy, panagia. In the West, we celebrate her as sinless. These are two complementary aspects of the same truth. (And maybe the most perfect illustration of the difference between a \u201chalf full\u201d and \u201chalf empty\u201d approach to theology!) <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David’s Scott article on the dogma. He does an excellent job of setting the historical context. explaining the conflicts over the idea among theologians through history, and so on: One hundred and fifty years later, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception can be understood even more clearly as the Church\u2019s prophetic response to the modern…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nWondering about that IC? - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/wondering-about-that-ic.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wondering about that IC? - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"David’s Scott article on the dogma. He does an excellent job of setting the historical context. explaining the conflicts over the idea among theologians through history, and so on: One hundred and fifty years later, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception can be understood even more clearly as the Church\u2019s prophetic response to the modern…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/wondering-about-that-ic.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-12-08T09:43:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Wondering about that IC? - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/wondering-about-that-ic.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Wondering about that IC? - Via Media","og_description":"David’s Scott article on the dogma. He does an excellent job of setting the historical context. explaining the conflicts over the idea among theologians through history, and so on: One hundred and fifty years later, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception can be understood even more clearly as the Church\u2019s prophetic response to the modern…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/wondering-about-that-ic.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2006-12-08T09:43:02+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/wondering-about-that-ic.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/wondering-about-that-ic.html","name":"Wondering about that IC? - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-12-08T09:43:02+00:00","dateModified":"2006-12-08T09:43:02+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/wondering-about-that-ic.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/wondering-about-that-ic.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/wondering-about-that-ic.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Wondering about that IC?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}