forgiven: that is, the soul is placed in the
relation to God that it would have had had sin not come into existence,
save that there remains a certain weakness of nature due to its sinful
heredity. This that happens to children when they are baptised is what
is held to have happened to Blessed Mary at her creation. Her soul
instead of being restored to God by grace after her birth, was by God's
special grace or favour created in union with Him, and in that union
always continued. The uniqueness of S. Mary's privilege was that she
never had to be restored to union with God because from the moment of
her existence she had been one with Him. This would have been the common
lot of all men if sin had not come into the world.

In view of much criticism of this belief it is perhaps necessary to
emphasize the fact that a belief in Mary's exemption from original sin
does not imply a belief that she was exempt from the need of redemption.
She is a creature of God, only the highest of His creatures: and like
all human beings she needed to be redeemed by the Blood of Christ. The
privileges which are our Lord's Mother's, are her's through the foreseen
merits of her Son--she, as all others, is redeemed by the sacrifice and
death of Christ. There is in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception
no shadow of encroachment on the doctrine of universal redemption in
Christ; there is simply the belief that for the merits of the Son the
Mother was spared any moment of separation from the Father.

It will, of course, be said that this doctrine is but the relatively
late and newly formulated doctrine of the Latin Church and is of no
obligation elsewhere; that we are in no wise bound to receive it. In
regard to which there are one or two things to be said. That we are not
formally bound to believe a doctrine is not at all the same thing as to
say that we are formally bound not to believe it. I am afraid that the
latter is a not uncommon attitude. There is no obligation upon us to
disbelieve the Immaculate Conception of blessed Mary; there is an
obligation upon us to understand it and to appreciate its meaning and
value. We must remember that a doctrine that is not embodied in our
Creed may nevertheless have the authority of the Church back of it. The
doctrine of the Real Presence is not stated in the Creed; yet it is and
always has been the teaching of the Church everywhere in all its
liturgies. Though any particular statement of the Real Pres