www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West The Roman Catholic Doctrine of Mary's Impeccability

In this thread I will post quotations from reputable Roman Catholic theologians who teach the doctrine that Mary, because of her immaculate conception and her divine maternity, is not only sinless, but incapable of sinning (i.e., she is impeccable). The impeccability of the Virgin Mother of God is a common doctrine of the Roman Church, and has been taught since the Scholastic period as de fide tenenda. The East has no corresponding doctrine in connection with the Theotokos.

"No one can attain the Love of God without humility; and that is a gift of God above all temporal gifts. Humility brings true peace to the heart of man; for no one is quarrelsome or sinful, but he who lacks peace. If a man were truly humble he would never sin again. Mary could not sin because she was truly humble; and wherever God finds humility, there He does great things. Augustine says: 'The lowliest on earth is also the holiest.'"

Johannes Tauler, OP
The Inner Way
Sermon XXXIV

"Was the Blessed Virgin free from stain because she did not offend God, or because she was impeccable and incapable of sin? The latter is common teaching in Catholic Tradition, while distinguishing it from the impeccability enjoyed by Christ. His may be called absolute and derived from the union of His human nature with the divinity. He could not sin because He was God, and God is infinitely holy. Mary could not sin by reason of an inherent quality, which some place midway between the state of souls in the beatific vision and that of our first parents before the fall.

Concretely this quality may be identified with perseverance in grace as regards grave sin, and confirmation in grace for lesser sins. In either case, however, her incapacity for sin differed radically from that of Christ. Where His was based on the fact that He is a divine person, hers was an added prerogative. It was absolutely necessary that He could not sin, since God is sinless. It was a free gift of God's mercy that Mary could not sin, but only because she was protected by divine favor."

Fr. John Hardon
The Catholic Catechism
(New York: Doubleday, 1981)
pages 159-160

"According to the teaching of the Church and the nature of the matter, the fact of Mary's sinlessness is based on a special and supernatural grace, or rather on an exceptional privilege of grace. For the reason that this grace made complete sinlessness possible, it was called 'the gift of impeccancy' as in the first couple, and its main feature is freedom concupiscence. In so far as it ensured effective freedom from sin, it was called, in relation to mortal sins, the 'gift of confirmation in grace' or of 'perfect perseverance'; in relation to venial sins, the 'gift of perfect confirmation in good.' In this respect its main characteristic is the fullness of the graces of supernatural sanctification, actual as well as habitual, whereby God, who was with and in Mary in a special manner, so guarded her that she never committed a single sin.

The precise meaning of this grace and its manner of action are linked with the question, whether the confirmation in grace abolished not only the reality but also the possibility of sin, or the reality by the very impossibility, in the same way as the inclination to irregular motions of concupiscence, and thereby to formal sin, was eradicated by the extinction of the fomes.

As clear as it is that Mary is distinguished from God and Christ by the fact that, considered in her being, she was capable of sin, it is just as clear that, because of the divine protection and assistance which Mary enjoyed, it can and must be said in a certain sense that she could not have sinned, that in her, sin was impossible, hence her sinlessness includes the incapability of sinning. This, in a sense at least, is analogous to what, relative to the teaching authority of the Church, is said of the pope, that he cannot fail in certain acts and that his freedom from error includes infallibility.

In fact, Mary's incapability of sinning, as the pillar and vesture of her sanctity, is the original type and guarantee of the infallibility of the Church, like a pillar and vesture of truth. Just as the Church's truth rests on the words, 'I am with you all days,' so Mary's sanctity rests on 'The Lord is with thee.' Both are prophesied in a typical sense by the words: 'The stream of the river maketh the city of God joyful: the most High hath sanctified His own tabernacle. God is in the midst thereof, it shall not be moved.'"

Fr. Matthias J. Scheeben
Mariology (Volume 2)
(St. Louis: B. Herder Book Company, 1948)
Pages 132-134

"Impeccability maybe either metaphysical or moral. Metaphysical impeccability belongs exclusively to God, whereas moral impeccability may also be enjoyed by creatures. It is enjoyed, e.g., by the angels and saints in Heaven. God is impeccable because He is absolutely and infinitely holy; Christ, in consequence of the Hypostatic Union; the angels and saints, by virtue of the beatific vision of the Godhead which they enjoy. How are we to conceive of the impeccability of the Blessed Virgin Mary? It is quite obvious that her impeccability must differ specifically from that proper to God and the God-man Jesus Christ. Here is not a divine attribute, nor is it conditioned by or based upon a personal union of divinity with humanity. It cannot be a result of the beatific vision, because Mary during her sojourn on earth was a wayfarer like ourselves and did not enjoy beatitude. Comparing her impeccability to that of the angels and saints and to that of our first parents in Paradise, we may define it as an intermediate state between the two. It would be asserting too much to say that the Blessed Virgin was capable of committing sin like our first parents; and too little to assert that during her life-time she was incapable of sinning as the angels and saints of Heaven are now, in consequence of the beatific vision. In what, then, did her impeccability consist? We are probably not far from the truth when we assume that God gave her the gift of perfect perseverance as against mortal sin, and that of confirmation in grace as against venial sin. Together with her freedom from concupiscence these two graces may be regarded as the proximate cause of Mary's impeccability. For its ultimate cause we must go back to the higher and more comprehensive prerogative of her divine motherhood. God owed it to His own dignity and holiness, so to speak, to bestow the grace of perfect perseverance and confirmation in grace upon her from whom His Divine Son was to assume human nature. This idea is aptly illustrated by 'the woman clothed with the sun' whom St. John visioned in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse. The analogy between Mary's impeccability and that of her Divine Son would seem to render this theory all the more acceptable, though we must, of course, never forget that the impeccability of Christ is based upon the Hypostatic Union of Godhead and manhood, whereas that of His Mother rests merely upon the grace of divine motherhood."

Fr. Joseph Pohle
Dogmatic Theology VI
Mariology: A Dogmatic Treatise on the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God
(St. Louis: B. Herder Book Company, 1916)
Pages 80-82

"There are two types of impeccability: metaphysical and moral. The former is predicated exclusively of God who is holiness itself, and also of Christ, due to the Hypostatic Union. The latter belongs to the angels and saints on account of the beatific vision, and likewise to Our Blessed Lady, although for reasons other than those mentioned in the case of God, Christ, the angels and saints.

According to Alexander of Hales (d. 1245), Mary impeccable because of her fullness of grace. According to St. Bonaventure (d. 1274), Mary received a special divine assistance which strengthened the potencies of her soul, and this made it impossible for her to sin. St. Thomas (d. 1274) thought that Mary was impeccable owing to the constant act of divine Providence removing all occasions of sin from her path. Finally, in the opinion of Suarez (d. 1617) and most theologians, the remote cause of Mary's impeccability was the divine Motherhood; the proximate cause was threefold: the lack of concupiscence, the fullness of grace and an act of divine Providence which not only removed all occasions of sin from her but also confirmed her in grace."

Fr. Juniper B. Carol, OFM
Fundamentals of Mariology
(New York: Benziger Brothers, Inc., 1956)
Pages 140-141

"Two special factors rendered Mary impeccable or unable to sin. The first was her constant awareness of God, living always in his presence, and the second was her reception of special and extraordinary graces. These special graces made it possible for Mary to maintain a perfect harmony in her mind, will and emotions and to recognize always what was the right thing to do and then to do it."

Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J.
Fundamentals of Catholicism: God, Trinity, Creation, Christ, Mary (Volume 2)
(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1983)
Page 332

"We can also say that Our Lady enjoyed the gift of a certain impeccability, by which is understood indefectibility in the moral order, or the inability to sin. One type of impeccability is that of Christ as man, owing to the Hypostatic Union. In Christ there is only one Person, that of the Word, to whom all actions, both divine and human, are attributed. Secondary causes of Christ's impeccability are also the fullness of habitual grace and the beatific vision. Hence Christ possesses metaphysical impeccability. On the other hand, the angels and saints enjoy physical impeccability, because they cannot turn away from the beatific vision of God in His essence. Our Lady, in her life on earth enjoyed moral impeccability, because given her personal dignity as Mother of God she could not incur the stain of sin."

Fr. Paul Haffner
The Mystery of Mary
(Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 2004)
Pages 94-95

"Moreover, if, as maintained in this essay, Mary's dignity as Mother of God consists formally in a created assimilation to the Eternal Father, then we can observe an intrinsic and necessary connection between her motherhood and some of her other privileges. For example, Mary's formal participation in the fecundity of the Eternal Father necessarily and formally sanctifies her soul. Moreover, because the perfection of motherhood cannot be lost, the sanctity which Mary has in virtue of her motherhood necessarily means impeccability. Whereas Mary was impeccable at least in an extrinsic and consequent sense before the conception of her Son, afterwards she was intrinsically and antecedently impeccable; of course, she remained free to merit, a mystery we meet primarily in Christ.

Second, this notion of the divine motherhood seems to involve some necessary and intrinsic connection with virginity. For if the divine motherhood is the most perfect possible created assimilation to the divine paternity, it seems that Mary's divine motherhood is necessarily a virginal motherhood; otherwise something possible would be lacking in its assimilation to the virginal divine paternity. However, a good deal of obscurity lurks here, and we may have to be content with the connection demanded by the purpose of divine motherhood as freely intended by God. Third, there may be some intrinsic connection of divine motherhood with the Assumption, or even bodily immortality, although it seems very doubtful. In any case, the notion of the divine motherhood as a formal participation in the divine paternity opens up many avenues for gaining new insights into the divine economy of salvation. We must humbly remember that it is one of God's great mysteries and we cannot fully understand it. If this article has stirred any of its readers to a greater admiration of God’s loving condescension in raising one of our fallen race to the highest possible created participation in His trinitarian life, the author will be very grateful."

Fr. Juniper B. Carol
Mariology (Volume 2)
(Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company, 1955)
Page 227

"Along with the extinction of the fomes, the Scholastics also defend Mary's confirmation in grace. This they usually connect with the second sanctification; although even before that sanctification took place, Divine Providence preserved her from all personal sin. Hence, in a certain sense, Mary was impeccable. However, her impeccability differed both from that of Christ and of the blessed in heaven. Mary was a pure creature and still on her way to the state of final blessedness; hence she was rendered impeccable exclusively through the abundance of grace which she received. St. Thomas explains it in this way: 'The power of sinning may be taken away in one of two ways: First, by the union of the free will with its last end, which so entirely fills it that no defect remains; and this is brought about by the vision of God in glory; hence, in no person who is still on the way to heaven is the power of sinning taken away in such a manner. . . . Secondly, the power of sinning may be removed by the infusion of such an abundance of grace that thereby all defects are expelled: and so it was removed in the case of the Blessed Virgin when she conceived the Son of God. All power of sinning was taken away, although the Virgin herself still remained in statu viae.' Or as St. Bonaventure briefly puts it: 'Not only was sanctifying grace given to the Virgin in her second sanctification, but also the grace whereby she was confirmed in good; and this was granted to her because she was so closely united to her Son that He could in no way permit her to be separated from Himself.'"

Fr. Bernard John Otten, S.J.
A Manuel of the History of Dogmas (Volume 2)
(St. Louis: B. Herder Book Company, 1918)
Pages 402-403

"The anointing of the humanity in the Hypostatic Union makes even the possibility of sin an absurd hypothesis in Jesus, however difficult systematic theology finds it to reconcile the human freedom of Christ with His impeccabilitas. In the case of Mary, however, there is only a weak human person, conscious of her own lowliness and of God's mercy. What meaning does impeccabilitas have in Mary's life on earth? In what did it consist? How does it show God's love for her? What meaning has it for the Church?

Our first main point is the exact meaning of impeccabilitas. It is 'indefectibility in the moral order, as infallibility is 'indefectibility in the doctrinal order.' Mary's impeccantia was her freedom from actual sin throughout her life; her impeccabilitas means she was 'unable to sin.' Through her whole life she was unable to lose friendship with God in grace. In contrast to the 'physical impeccability' of the blessed in heaven, in contrast to the 'metaphysical impeccability' of Christ in His humanity, Mary has a moral impeccabilitas. There is a semantic difficulty here as well, because the difference between the earthly and heavenly condition of man is so great impeccabilitas can be used of both only by virtually redefining it. For this reason it is common to paraphrase and speak of Mary's impeccabilitas and/or 'confirmation in grace.'

A descriptive definition by Gummersbach reads, 'confirmation in grace is a special privilege thanks to which the Blessed Virgin, on account of the divine maternity and its singular dignity, possessed an extrinsic impeccabilitas of will from the first instant of her existence.' Hagiography offers examples of saints who were confirmed in grace. From a certain period in their lives, whether long before or shortly before their death, these privileged friends of God were so fixed in His love as to avoid serious sin. More is said of Mary - God's loving providence in her regard protected her even from venial sin, from any willful wavering in her response to God's grace. How was our Lady confirmed in grace? Such a divine favor is not a 'single grace,' once given and never withdrawn. Confirmation in grace consists rather in the whole series of efficacious graces by which the privileged person perseveres until death as friend of God. The danger of 'objectifying' grace, of treating it as a thing, almost like the power-pack of an electrical device, is not absent from this whole way of speaking. The modem evolutionary outlook will insist also on taking into account the 'growth factor' in spiritual development — the constant progress towards the Eden ahead rather than simply an echo of a static lost paradise.

Was our Lady's impeccabilitas 'intrinsic' or 'extrinsic'? Again the question, familiar to the classical treatises, may reflect a stilted attitude towards the dynamics of grace. 'Uncreated grace' must retain pride of place in every discussion of grace. 'Uncreated grace' is God communicating Himself in charity to our Lady, so that whatever the 'means' by which her impeccabilitas was achieved, the source is God, and the result is a lasting bond with Him.

Did God in his love give Mary an 'intrinsic' or 'extrinsic' inability to sin? In other words, did He remove from her radically the very power to choose evil, whether in her conception or at the moment she became the Mother of God (as St. Thomas held)? Or did he extrinsically protect Mary in all the circumstances of her life so she would always choose only his will? In this second view the radical power to choose self in preference to God still remained, indeed could not be taken away without destroying her freedom. There are partisans of both positions, and many shades of opinion in between. Many defenses of intrinsic impeccabilitas have only historical interest now, e.g., G. Biel (d. 1495), who held that God rendered sin impossible in Mary by withholding his concurrence.

Suarez' conclusion after surveying various views - Gummersbach is among many who follows him here - was that our Lady's title to impeccabilitas prior to the Incarnation was extrinsic and moral only, but from the instant of her divine maternity her impeccabilitas was both physical and moral, both intrinsic and extrinsic. The divine maternity is Mary's principal title to impeccabilitas, though not even then was her will made intrinsically impeccabilis."

Fr. Eamon R. Carroll, O.Carm.
University of Dayton Review (Volume 5)
(University of Dayton Press, 1968)
Page 22-23

"Mary was not only sinless but incapable of sinning, yet not absolutely so and in her own right as Christ was, but in virtue of the confirmation of grace that was granted her from the beginning and because of the special assistance of divine providence. This special assistance was the effect of the Blessed Virgin Mary's predestination, and under this particular help she retained her complete freedom in the performance of good, without deviating from the right path. This is a participation in the immortality and impeccability of God's supreme liberty."

Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.
Christ the Savior: A Commentary on the Third Part of St. Thomas' Theological Summa
(St. Louis: B. Herder Book Company, 1957)
Page 697

"Impeccability - Not merely the absence of sins committed by a person, but also the impossibility of sinning. In theology this quality is applied to Jesus. He was sinless in fact and impeccable in theory. The Church Fathers and theologians unanimously teach the impeccability of Christ. His freedom from original sin was declared by the Council of Florence and from person sin by the Council of Chalcedon. The Second Council of Constantinople condemned the theory that Christ became completely impeccable only after the Resurrection.

The Blessed Virgin Mary also possesses this special quality. She was free from original and personal sin (Immaculate Conception) because of the divine grace of God in choosing her to be the mother of His Son. The blessed in heaven are also impeccable, since they are eternally realizing the purpose of their lives. They possess the beatific vision of God, which renders sin impossible."

Fr. Peter Stravinskas (Editor)
Our Sunday Visitor's Catholic Encyclopedia
(Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., 1998)
Page 524

"Theologians go a step further, and assert that Mary was 'impeccable,' i.e., unable to commit sin; not indeed, like Christ, by the essential perfection of her nature, but by that special Divine privilege which assimilated her as far as possible to her Son."

Joseph Wilhelm, D.D., Ph.D.; Thomas B. Scannell, D.D.
A Manual of Catholic Theology: Based on Scheeben's 'Dogmatik' (Volume 2)
(London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Company, Ltd., 1901)
Page 218

"Mary, who already by a singular privilege had been conceived without the stain of sin, appeared at her birth all pure, and all fair to the eyes of her Lord; and God, on contemplating His work, again found it perfect, and decreed that the light should remain eternally separated from the darkness, that is to say, God confirmed her in grace, and rendered her impeccable.

Msgr. Romualdo Gentilucci
The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary
(New York: Edward Dunigan and Brother, 1860)
Page 123