Folio 445

Pius IX, 1846-1878

printed p. 413 · pdf p. 445

strictly speaking, should be sanctioned in various cases (see n. 1767); and that all matrimonial cases should be deferred to lay tribunals and be judged by them (see n. 1774); because no Catholic is ignorant or cannot know that matrimony is truly and properly one of the seven sacraments of the evangelical law, instituted by Christ the Lord, and that for that reason, there can be no marriage between the faithful without there being at one and the same time a sacrament, and that, therefore, any other union of man and woman among Christians, except the sacramental union, even if contracted under the power of any civil law, is nothing else than a disgraceful and death-bringing concubinage very frequently condemned by the Church, and, hence, that the sacrament can never be separated from the conjugal agreement (see n. 1773), and that it pertains absolutely to the power of the Church to discern those things which can pertain in any way to the same matrimony.

Definition of the Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M.1

[From the Bull, "Ineffabilis Deus," Dec. 8, 1854]

1641. . . . To the honor of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, to the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, to the exaltation of the Catholic Faith and the increase of the Christian religion, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, 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 at the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in virtue of the merits of Christ Jesus, the Savior of the human race, was preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God, and on this account must be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful. Wherefore, if any should presume to think in their hearts otherwise than as it has been defined by Us, which God avert, let them know and understand that they are condemned by their own judgment; that they have suffered shipwreck in regard to faith, and have revolted from the unity of the Church; and what is more, that by their own act they subject themselves to the penalties established by law, if, what they

  1. CL VI 842 c f.; AP I 616; ACol 238; Analecta Iuris Pontificii I, 1218.—PIUS IX promulgated the definition of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, with the whole Catholic world asking for it and approving. Afterwards, at the time of the Vatican Council, 204 bishops and theologians urged a dogmatic definition concerning the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary for this reason: that, unless the "very firm belief of the Church regarding the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is to be called a very tenuous belief—which it is impious to think of—, it should be most firmly held, that it (the Assumption) has its origin from the divine-apostolic tradition, i.e., revelation" [CL VII 868 ff.]. ↩