Wow, so does this cause any tension or resentment among the other saints? I mean, if you spent your life abstaining from sex, giving away all your possessions, scourging your flesh and healing the sick with the power of your touch until your death by slow torture, wouldn’t you be a bit pissed to see some ordinary schlubs who did jack shit living the good afterlife just because of family connections?
What’s the old joke? Oh yeah.
“Can you imagine being Jesus’ brother? The pressure of being compared to Him?!?”
It matters in the sense that *immaculate conception * is a theological term with a very precise meaning. When it’s misused (as it very often is) it immediately undermines the credibility of the one who misused it.
I know many “high” Anglicans who also believe this doctrine.
I think James did alright…
-DF
Just curious, since I can’t find it via my google fu, but does anybody know who first said
“Immaculate conception maculates conception.”
?
Wouldn’t say so. Without Original Sin equals being without a functional sex-drive? Not likely. Joseph most likely would have had one 
A few years ago snopes did a page on this. You would not believe the hate mail he received for it. The average response was along the lines of
That was my first thought. “Also, the immaculate reception was not a Hail Mary.”
And requiring some fancy foot-stepping around the mention of Jesus’ brothers and sisters in the New Testament. (Matthew 13:54-58, John 2:11-12, John 7:3-5, etc.)
C’mon, Manny, the whole Virgin Birth idea is based on the reported fact that St. Joseph never completed a pass!
Is it still a sin if you lubricate with Chrism?
“Can you imagine being Jesus’ brother? The pressure of being compared to Him?!?”
[/QUOTE]
Well, somebody wrote a song about it. Would you like to hear it? Here it go!
Well, sure. It would be another almost 2000 years before the Lord started helping people complete passes and even then he didn’t waste the miracle on something as pedestrian as sex. 
Nobody says that. Just (some specific churches) that she is aeiparthenos, “ever-virgin”. The Churches that teach that teach that the “brothers” mentioned in the Gospel are close kin (cousins) foster-raised in the same household, or pre-Mary children of Joseph.
Sorry, I could have been clearer. I didn’t mean that anybody here said that. Just that I don’t agree with the Church on that. (For the record, I’m not Catholic, so I doubt the Church’d be impressed :p)
Though I have the feeling that the RCC is not the only one that thinks that way about Mary. I’m fairly certain my SO does, and he’s Protestant.
Just for the record, when I was commenting on “who believes X” about the different doctrines above, I was referring to churches’ official statements of belief, not to what Joe Catholic, Pete Protestant, or Oleg Orthodox might happen to themselves believe.
I.e., Catholicism teaches the Immaculate Conception and the Perpetual Virginity; Lutheranism does not. But it doesn’t automatically mean that Officer O’Malley is convinced of them and Sven Svensson is not.
…and as I have mentioned in some prior threads, my personal heresy on this issue goes along the lines of, since (a) the condition of aeiparthenos is taught to mean that through miraculous workings, neither conception, nor pregancy, nor even labor and delivery itself affected her virginal state; (b) it is also taught that "virginity"is not just a physical, but a mental/spiritual state of being, i.e. crudely put, you can be “virginal” w/o a hymen and a slut with one; © Joseph and Mary were lawfully wedded spouses therefore carnal contact between them would not only be unsinful, but would actually be a holy act; then (D)(the Delirious Heresy) it would be a cakewalk for God to have Mary miraculously remain “virginal” in the transcendent sense, and unsullied even through a normal marital life with Joseph.
BTW, in more mundane terms: The Church does indeed insist very vehemently is that there is NOBODY who can claim direct or even close-to-it blood-descent from the Joseph/Mary/Jesus family unit (vide, a particular best-selling recent novel); that particular (alleged) Davidic bloodline would have dead-ended c. 30AD, according to the RCC. Think about it, through most of the last 2K years, anyone who could reasonably claim such descent would “reasonably” be a pretender to Absolute King of All Humanity, and we can’t have that, can we…?
[Totally irrelevant hijack. Don’t kill me]
Did you know that there’s a book called The Va Vinci Cod coming out? It’s about a famous museum curator found dead with a three-foot codfish stuffed down his throat. I am not making this up.
I’m sorry. I had to tell somebody.
[end horrendous hijack]
According to the Catechism, Mary’s Immaculate Conception, and therefore sinlessness, was necessary for her to assent to God’s will. She was borne by grace and preserved from sin so that she was able to give her whole self freely. Section 494, Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Lissa. I mean this in the most dopely manner. You are my new bestest friend.
On to the Hijack:
Dial F for Fish.
It’s not my plaice to say this, but anyone who would perpetrate that should look to saving his sole.