You are mistaken in this. Mary, exalted as she was by God, was born a human creature through normal means to human parents. As such she required salvation like all men. In light of her future role as Mother of God, however, she was granted the saving grace made possible through Jesus in advance. For a Catholic, acceptance of this doctrine is not optional. That there is no wiggle room here is made clear in
Ineffabilis Deus, the encyclical which formally defined as doctrine this long-held belief:
Accordingly, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for the honor of the Holy and undivided Trinity, for the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and for the furtherance of the Catholic religion, by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own: “We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.”
Hence, if anyone shall dare – which God forbid! – to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should dare to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he think in his heart.
The idea that Mary needed a Savior is not a recent one. Andrew of Crete, though not sharing the western concept of original sin, wrote in the 8th century:
This is Mary the
Theotókos, the common refuge of all Christians, the first to be liberated from the original fall of our first parents.
As early as the 4th century, Gregory Nazianzen speaks of the purification of the Virgin Mary:
He was conceived by the Virgin, who had first been purified by the Spirit in soul and body…
The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception as we understand it today was clearly outlined by the great Franciscan John Duns Scotus over 700 years ago:
As a consequence of common generation, Mary would have had to contract original sin had she not been preserved by the grace of the Mediator.
