It’s the most Catholic thing in the world to misunderstand the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. It’s about Mary being conceived without sin — the only human being who was not Divine who did not have original sin. God did that so she could be the immaculate mother of our Lord, Jesus. Most people assume it’s about Mary finding out she was pregnant having never had sex with Joseph (or anyone else). When the White House decided to issue a statement on the feast of the Immaculate Conception earlier this week, it didn’t fall into that trap. There are a few too many Catholics hanging around who have been raised on knowing that’s a Catholic knowledge gap. But they did miss this: The Incarnation — God becoming man — did not happen at Christmas, it happened at the Annunciation. At the Visitation, the unborn John the Baptist recognized Him in Mary, from his mother, Mary’s cousin Elizabeth’s womb.
We call this an unforced error. Who even needed a statement from the White House on the Immaculate Conception, anyway? They didn’t have to say a thing. Instead, the White House said: “God became man when Mary gave birth to a son, Jesus, who would go on to offer his life on the Cross for the redemption of sins and the salvation of the world.”
As the National Catholic Register put it in an editorial in response:
That’s not correct. The Son of God joined his divine nature with his human nature at the Incarnation — the moment of Jesus’ own conception in Mary’s womb at the Annunciation — just as every human life commences at conception. So God had already been man for nine full months when Mary gave birth to Jesus in a Bethlehem manger on Christmas Day.
The reality of Jesus’ fully divine and fully human life in the womb is specifically confirmed by the Gospel account of Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth while both women were pregnant. Elizabeth’s baby, John the Baptist, leaped for joy in her womb because he was supernaturally aware he was in the company of Jesus, the savior who was coming into the world for the salvation of souls.
I was going to ignore the whole thing, until I saw the mistake. It wouldn’t matter, except that it does. I don’t know too many people who seriously look to politics for their theology (although there is plenty of political misuse and abuse of religion). But it matters because the White House outs itself. This is why abortion isn’t all that important to the administration. This is why the White House doesn’t get that its IVF policy is a mess — encouraging IVF is encouraging human life to be created that will be destroyed.
Life really does being at conception.
Every human embryo is human life.
That’s science. And, yes, it’s the Christian faith, as well. But you don’t have to believe what Christians do about Jesus and sing “Silent Night” for this to still be true.
What was no doubt intended to keep the Catholics who voted for him easily happy had an unintended transparency about it in its error. This administration is not pro-life — it does what is politically convenient. Caring about the women having dangerous abortions in their dorm rooms and apartment bathrooms isn’t anything most people want to think about. Telling the truth about IVF isn’t going to make anyone a most favored person. And if you don’t really get it, you don’t really get it. There is always the hope one might learn. Although in this case, I’m counting on the folks reading the corrections more than the politicians who are looking for what is more popular.