Catholic Without Marian Dogma?

[auctoris]

Read these:

Thanks for the info. I already have Four Witnesses and The Fathers Know Best. I’ll have to check out the Hahn and Staples books you suggested.

 

[Lenten_ashes]

Thank you. That is helpful.

My question then is why are they dogmas (i.e. they must be believed to join the Church)? I can understand if those reasons are the basis for theological opinion and even doctrine. But dogmas are required beliefs in order to join the Church (i.e become a Christian from the Catholic perspective). What is the reason for that? How is it that not believing these things or believing that they are open to theological opinion makes one unqualified to join the Church?

If it is because of something they relate about the necessary nature of Jesus, what is it? For example, are they saying if Mary was not conceived Immaculately, then Jesus could not be divine? Are they saying, if Mary was not ever virgin, then the nature of Jesus is significantly altered?

If it’s something else, what is it?

That is probably my biggest question. Let’s assume I accept them as absolute, incontrovertible truth. What reason do I give someone that they must accept them as absolute, incontrovertible truth too in order to become a Catholic? Why is it I would have to tell them if they believe there is room for theological opinion on these matters, they can’t become a Christian.

I understand the reasons some dogmas are necessary when it comes to heresies (Gnosticism, Arianism, Manichaeism, etc.). I understand the reasons they are necessary when it comes to the nature of Jesus. But I don’t understand the absolute necessity of these three Marian dogmas.

I completely understand Mother of God. If she’s not Mother of God, then Jesus is not God. You cannot be a Christian in any real sense without that belief. So Mother of God is a necessary dogma without which Christianity is impossible.

This is what I’ve been working on for a while, and I can’t find the answer. That’s why I came here.

Thank you again. And I thank everyone for their patience with my mental thickness in working this out.

Auctoris, this is like reading my own posts from a few years ago, Are you sure you didn’t just copy and paste them? LOL Kidding of course.

While Christology and Mariology are interwoven, I have seen nothing official from the Church, as to why the Marian beliefs have become dogmatic.

Here is my ***personal ***take on this…Councils have been held throughout the ages with the purpose of refuting error and expelling heretics. Arianism was a big problem and almost ripped the Church apart, so Nicea in 325 AD was the response to a already organic belief in the Holy Trinity.

Throughout the ages the Blessed Mother has always been held in very high regard so there was no need to make anything dogmatic. Even some of the early reformers like Luther believed she was ever virgin.

But at some point the reformation spiraled out of control and Mary became nothing but a incubator for Jesus. So the Church responds in defense of Mary (Luke 1:48) with organic beliefs already held within the Church.

I totally get where you are coming from as “Maturing Marian dogma” was a HUGE red flag for me, too, and so a big step for me in my journey was doing a little exploring of the Eastern Orthodox churches beliefs on her. I talked to a Greek Orthodox pastor, did a Church tour, bought some books and did my own research. And well, they ALSO believe she was sinless and assumed, they just didn’t make it dogmatic. In fact, a clip from a EO Mass:

youtube.com/watch?v=-JS82x5WVE8

"O Most Holy Theotokos, Save us"

We dont even say that in Mass ^^^

And we know the Schism was 1054 AD but that’s actually sort of a arbitrary date as the sides were splitting long before that, TBH.

So with that being said we can rest assured that the Catholic Church did not just pull these beliefs out of thin air in the 19th and 20th centuries.The EO’s beliefs and practices are proof positive of that.

I think the bottom line is, though, you probably won’t find much biblical or patristic evidence for the dogmas in question. It really comes down to Matthew 16:18. Do I really believe those keys were handed to Peter and that his office still exists today with the promise that it wont fail? For me the answer is Yes, but it took me a long time to get to that point. so please don’t get discouraged in your journey, friend. God deals with us all differently.

Pax

 

[auctoris]

Auctoris, this is like reading my own posts from a few years ago, Are you sure you didn’t just copy and paste them? LOL Kidding of course.

Thank you so much. This is the best answer I’ve received so far! And it corresponds to what I’ve been finding. Why are the Marian beliefs dogmatic? Because the Church said so.

I have no doubt they are rooted in Christianity from an early time, I just haven’t been able to understand why they are dogmatic. It’s beginning to sound like it’s one of the things you accept because you accept the authority of the Church.

I really would like to find more solid reasons for their status as dogma.

Do you (or does anyone) know where I can locate the actual documents that established these dogma? Maybe the original documents can shed some light on it.

I just ordered Tim Staples’ book on the topic so we’ll see what he has to say.

Thank you

 

[pablope]

Thank you so much. This is the best answer I’ve received so far! And it corresponds to what I’ve been finding. Why are the Marian beliefs dogmatic? Because the Church said so.

I have no doubt they are rooted in Christianity from an early time, I just haven’t been able to understand why they are dogmatic. It’s beginning to sound like it’s one of the things you accept because you accept the authority of the Church.

I really would like to find more solid reasons for their status as dogma.

Do you (or does anyone) know where I can locate the actual documents that established these dogma? Maybe the original documents can shed some light on it.

I just ordered Tim Staples’ book on the topic so we’ll see what he has to say.

Thank you

Hi Auctoris…I think to get to the bottom of your question…I think you first determine and understand why the Church declares dogmas…there is underlying reason why…

Just google Immacurw conception and assumption of.mary and you should get a link to the papal documents.

 

[guanophore]

Can someone become Catholic without accepting the Marian dogmas (immaculate conception, assumption, etc.)?

I realize that if you accept the other Catholic doctrines, then the Marian dogmas should follow since you believe in the authority of the Church. But, if someone simply cannot get past the Marian dogmas, can they still become Catholic or should they remain Protestant?

I guess the more general question is, must someone accept every Catholic doctrine and dogma–100%–to become Catholic?

Yes, one must give assent to all the Teachings of Christ infallibly preserved in the Church by the Holy Spirit.

If one has difficulty, one can affirm that the CC is the custodian of the One Faith deposited to her by Christ, and pray “help my unbelief!”. When there is a disconnect between what has been revealed by God and ourselves, we place ourselves at the mercy of God and pray to be brought into faith.

If one cannot trust God to do this, then it is better that one not become Catholic. Imagine yourself on a hillside with Jesus after he just finished preaching about the Kingdom of heaven is like…

Would you walk up to Him and say “Jesus, I want to be your disciple, but there are a couple things you said that I just can’t accept. Will you let me be your disciple even though I can’t accept these things?”

Of course there are many Catholics who don’t accept Catholic doctrine (i.e. “bad” Catholics). I assume they accepted them at the time of confirmation and later rejected them. So can someone become Catholic without accepting all of them? Or can they join the Church as a “bad” Catholic?

Thank you

It is sacriligious to participate in any Sacraments disingenuously. Yes, people should not engage in the sacraments of the Church bearing a false witness. Yes, there are “bad Catholics” who reject part of Christ’s teachings.

YOu can join the Church as a person in progress, incomplete, and trust that Jesus will do all that He has promised in you.

 

[guanophore]

One no and one yes. Hmm.

For the record, I have been a Christian for 40 years. I have been studying Catholicism seriously for over five. I have read about every apologetic work there is. I have read the best Catholic theologians and Biblical scholars (like Raymond Brown). I’ve watched every video Bp. Barron has ever made. I’ve read every book by Scott Hahn. I regularly read Jimmy Akin et al. I’ve watched about every video from Catholic Answers. I’ve actually taught some Catholics things they didn’t know about their own faith. I have attended a few different Catholic churches (no Eucharist of course).

But the Marian dogmas are hanging me up.

So, do I become a Catholic and see if they ever make sense to me. Or do I remain a Protestant sympathetic to Catholicism? Do I continue doing all things Catholic (Mass, Liturgy of the Hours, etc.) but refrain from the Eucharist forever?

Like I said, so far there’s one vote for no and one for yes. Is there a consensus or reference to an “official” answer?

Thank you

Ask Jesus to give you His attitude toward His mother. They dogmas don’t have to “make sense” to you. The Apostles’ received a lot of teachings of Jesus that did not make sense until much later. If you are able to say “Lord, to whom shall I go? You have the words of eternal life” this is sufficient. No one is expected to fully grasp the whole faith at the start.

You seem to have studied and prayed a great deal. If you have been a Christian so long, surely you can trust God to reveal everything to you that you need to know and believe? Surely you can trust that, if your faith needs to grow in any way, He will bring it to completion? Act out of trust in Him, and do not hold back because of your doubts. Entrust your soul to a faithful creator.

 

[po18guy]

God’s choice to create Mary for the purpose of giving human flesh to His Son, become His Son’s handmaid, and accompany our Lord from virgin womb to virgin tomb ( the perfect example of a faithful handmaid) is not a problem of accepting the Catholic Church - it is a problem of understanding, accepting and granting assent to what the mind and the hand of God have accomplished. The Church honors and venerates Mary solely because God did so first. The Church simply recognizes that and preserves it for the truth and beauty with which God endowed it.

 

[Wesrock]

I know that my response wasn’t the most satisfying answer. I think to sum up what I’ve been saying, it’s not *just *the Marian dogmas that give you pause, but the RCC’s “dogma of the dogma” (my own words) that gives you pause.

Lenten_ashes made an excellent point that hadn’t crossed my mind. These were long standing truths that the Church had taught. Perhaps the need to elevate them to dogma in the west was directly related to the Reformation. An after effect. A response to the “butchering” of the tradition, particularly in the nineteenth and twentieth century as you saw the rise of evangelicalism, liberalism, and modernism. Traditionally even the Lutherans and Anglicans and such, while not placing the emphasis on her maybe as much as Catholics, hadn’t denied her perpetul virginity, her title as Mother of God, and other traditions. (Granted, perpetual virginity and mother of God are far older dogmas)

But then Our Blessed Mother started being truly attacked and torn down, and this may have even have been trickling into Catholicism, so the Church had to be absolute in defense of these teachings. That is, the elevation to dogma was done in the face of a major controversy that was brewing, and not just declared for no reason out of thin air because “the time was right.”

So, to recap, we already taught these as essential truths and doctrines (with sciptural and traditional reasons, largely linked to above), and doctrines themselves are supposed to be accepted anyway. But, in response to anti-Marian sentiments that were rising, particularly in the nineteenth and twentieth century, the Church confirmed these teachings in absolute statements with the elevation to dogma.

 

[carefullytread]

Do you (or does anyone) know where I can locate the actual documents that established these dogma? Maybe the original documents can shed some light on it.

Sure, here they are.

For the Immaculate Conception, it’s Ineffabilis Deus.

For the Assumption, it’s Munificentissimus Deus.

From your original question about whether the documents indicate the reasons the popes held this idea to be so important, here are some excerpts:

From Ineffabilis Deus

Supreme Reason for the Privilege: The Divine Maternity

And indeed it was wholly fitting that so wonderful a mother should be ever resplendent with the glory of most sublime holiness and so completely free from all taint of original sin that she would triumph utterly over the ancient serpent. To her did the Father will to give his only-begotten Son – the Son whom, equal to the Father and begotten by him, the Father loves from his heart – and to give this Son in such a way thhat he would be the one and the same common Son of God the Father and of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was she whom the Son himself chose to make his Mother and it was from her that the Holy Spirit willed and brought it about that he should be conceived and born from whom he himself proceeds.

And from Munificentissimus Deus,

1. Now God has willed that the Blessed Virgin Mary should be exempted from this general rule. She, by an entirely unique privilege, completely overcame sin by her Immaculate Conception, and as a result she was not subject to the law of remaining in the corruption of the grave, and she did not have to wait until the end of time for the redemption of her body.

1. Thus, when it was solemnly proclaimed that Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, was from the very beginning free from the taint of original sin, the minds of the faithful were filled with a stronger hope that the day might soon come when the dogma of the Virgin Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven would also be defined by the Church’s supreme teaching authority.

 

[pablope]

Thank you so much. This is the best answer I’ve received so far! And it corresponds to what I’ve been finding. Why are the Marian beliefs dogmatic? Because the Church said so.

I have no doubt they are rooted in Christianity from an early time, I just haven’t been able to understand why they are dogmatic. It’s beginning to sound like it’s one of the things you accept because you accept the authority of the Church.

I really would like to find more solid reasons for their status as dogma.

Do you (or does anyone) know where I can locate the actual documents that established these dogma? Maybe the original documents can shed some light on it.

I just ordered Tim Staples’ book on the topic so we’ll see what he has to say.

Thank you

Here is Scott Hahn’s series, that started last Ash Wednesday…Bible and Mary, and goes in depth on the Marian dogmas.

Here is a link…the series is streaming for free for a limited time, all past lessons…stpaulcenter.com/.

 

[Della]

Good points, Wesrock, which I’d like to update to our day and age for our friend, auctoris. Please forgive the length of this post, but it’s impossible to write about so full a topic in just a few words, but I’ll do my best to keep it as short as I can.

The 1960’s were a time of great upheaval, not only in the US, but in all the Christian West. Vatican II (which was supposed to take place before WWII, but got sidelined due to the war) brought about a lot of changes, including a lessening of devotion to Mary. It wasn’t in the documentation, but there was a definite feeling that Mary was to take a back seat in Catholic life and practice. Mary was all but forgotten by an entire generation eager to press on and “modernize” the Church. None of this was the fault of the Council, but many who had been itching to “reform” the Church to modern ideas and modes of belief, decided that it was the right time to implement their programs. Statues of Mary were removed from churches. Devotion to her was downplayed. She was hardly mentioned except at Christmas, just like our Protestant brethren. And what was the result of all this? Badly catechized Catholics. We are still feeling the repercussions of these efforts to water down the faith to just love and nothing else.

And now to the significance to our topic. I firmly believe that if the Church had not affirmed the IC and the Assumption that the other dogmas would also have been called into question, and our faith would have disintegrated even more than it did for many. I have no proof of this, but in hindsight, and coming from a strongly anti-Catholic background, I can see it quite clearly. St. Louis Marie de Montfort warned us that if we lost our faith in the Marian teachings and abandoned our devotion to her, we’d see a great falling away of the faithful. He was certainly right about that. Jesus and Mary are intrinsically linked. Jesus was meant to be born of her from all eternity. I cannot believe that declaring ancient teachings about the IC and Assumption dogmas was mere piety gone amok, but truths God revealed for our benefit.

The Marian teachings are, as I wrote in another posts (perhaps in another thread) a bulwark against the world, the flesh, and the devil. As our Mother in the faith she safeguards our faith and bolsters it, just as she did for the Apostles in the Upper Room on Pentecost. She wasn’t there by accident, either, or at the foot of the Cross. Believing all God has revealed to the Church about her is essential since it reaffirms the Incarnation in a world that now questions everything–which is downright hostile to Christ and his followers. ISIS is only example of this–the most visible. Worse still is indifferentism, which has enabled Christians around the world to be slaughtered in the thousands. Mary is our Protectress against the evils in the world for she our Mother, in place of Eve. We cannot honor her enough for her fiat and for her faithfulness, which God rewarded in her Assumption.

 

[auctoris]

Ask Jesus to give you His attitude toward His mother.

Thank you for all of your answers. They contained much wisdom.

 

[auctoris]

Thank you everyone for your latest responses. Now we are getting to a valuable discussion. I think things got started off poorly and derailed by one particular forum member. I’ve added that member to my Ignore List and the conversation has been so much more pleasant.

With all of the answers and information. I have plenty to read and process.

I very much would still like a logical reason for the Marian dogmas in the style of the Summa, but I’m not sure that exists. Does anyone know if Aquinas covered them? I can do a search, but maybe someone can point me in the right direction.

The summary of what I’ve learned so far is that they are dogmas because they are true and they are necessary dogmas because the Church said so. I’d like more explanation but apparently if there is reasoned explanation a la Aquinas, it is not easy to find.

Thank you

 

[carefullytread]

Thank you everyone for your latest responses. Now we are getting to a valuable discussion. I think things got started off poorly and derailed by one particular forum member. I’ve added that member to my Ignore List and the conversation has been so much more pleasant.

With all of the answers and information. I have plenty to read and process.

I very much would still like a logical reason for the Marian dogmas in the style of the Summa, but I’m not sure that exists. Does anyone know if Aquinas covered them? I can do a search, but maybe someone can point me in the right direction.

The summary of what I’ve learned so far is that they are dogmas because they are true and they are necessary dogmas because the Church said so. I’d like more explanation but apparently if there is reasoned explanation a la Aquinas, it is not easy to find.

Thank you

Here’s a Jimmy Akin article that cites Summa Theologiae III:27:4 for Aquinas explanation of why Mary never committed sin.

However, Akin seems to concede, and I’ve heard this elsewhere, that Aquinas did not believe in the Immaculate Conception, rather only that she lived a sinless life.

Here’s another article with a longer quote from ST III on the same, so I guess that’s where you should look.

Here’s the key quote about Thomas’ rejection of IC, but her being sinless starting from being in the womb:

The Blessed Virgin was sanctified in the womb from original sin, as to the personal stain; but she was not freed from the guilt to which the whole nature is subject, so as to enter into Paradise otherwise than through the Sacrifice of Christ; the same also is to be said of the Holy Fathers who lived before Christ.

 

[Wesrock]

The dogma of the IC doesn’t state that Mary received the preternatural gifts (immortality, immunity to sickness, etc…) does it? That wouldn"t seem to line up with the dormition.

Edit: The essence of original sin consists in the deprivation of sanctifying grace, and its stain is a corrupt nature. Mary was preserved from these defects by God’s grace; from the first instant of her existence she was in the state of sanctifying grace and was free from the corrupt nature original sin brings.

catholic.com/tracts/immaculate-conception-and-assumption

I think Aquinas’ concern was about whether we could say that Mary was saved through Jesus. He believed there had to be a moment of transition in which she was moved from sin to sanctified, and so there had to be at least the briefest moment where she existed in sin. He did believe her sanctification happened in the womb prior to birth. This concern was resolved in the Church after further examination of the Church father’s and, I believe, the modern phrasing was put together by John Duns Scotus, emphasizing that she still needed God to be saved, to be conceived already sanctified, etc…

 

[auctoris]

However, Akin seems to concede, and I’ve heard this elsewhere, that Aquinas did not believe in the Immaculate Conception, rather only that she lived a sinless life.

Does that mean he can be retroactively excommunicated? I’m kidding. Please don’t anyone go nuts over a joke.

I’m sure the response will be that if the dogmas had been declared in his lifetime, he would have accepted them since they were official Church teaching.

Thank you

 

[auctoris]

However, Akin seems to concede, and I’ve heard this elsewhere, that Aquinas did not believe in the Immaculate Conception, rather only that she lived a sinless life.

Is a “sinless life” part of the IC dogma? If not, is it dogma at all?

Thank you

 

[Wesrock]

Is a “sinless life” part of the IC dogma? If not, is it dogma at all?

Thank you

It’s essential Catholic and Orthodox doctrine, certainly. It would seem worse to me to deny her being personally sinless than to deny the IC. Still, not sure if this is dogma, though this itself is widely attested to in the earliest traditions about Mary, and, you could say, the very foundation of the tradition of her IC, and why the IC was discussed at all in the west given western understanding of original sin. I’ll have to check further. I’d be surprised if it was not.

 

[auctoris]

Do Catholics believe that everyone is capable of living a sinless life?

Thank you

 

[Wesrock]

Do Catholics believe that everyone is capable of living a sinless life?

Thank you

The idea that any person (with a solely human nature) could do this on his own would be Pelagianism, which Catholics deny as heresy. It would only be possible by divine aid/grace.