Just because half of Christians don’t believe it, doesn’t mean it’s not a Christian belief.
Catholics believe that MARY was conceived without her mother having sex? I have never in my life heard that one. I thought they believed that JESUS was conceived when the Holy Spirit came upon Mary the virgin. THAT is in the Bible. Both that she was a virgin and that she became pregnant with Jesus without sex.
Describing it as a Christian belief rather than a Catholic belief is misleading, though, since the group which believes it can be more precisely described as Catholic. It’d be like saying that Americans are Yankees fans: Yes, some are, but there are plenty of other Americans who aren’t.
No, Catholics do not believe that (at least, not Catholics who remember what they learned in Sunday School). As many others have pointed out in this thread, “Immaculate Conception” does not mean “Conception without sex”.
Damn your Vulcan logic Spock!!! Say, I see you are from Bozeman. Does that stunning redhead who became unfortunately famous still live there? I went to summer school with her in college one summer at UCLA. We lived on the same dorm floor. I couldn’t talk in her presence, kinda like Raj on TBBT.
Curt, a genuine question will not cause the wrath of The Lord, but sarcastic blasphemy disguised as a question will. Sit up straight.
To answer the OP, you can separate two distinct questions. If you ask ‘What does the Catholic Church mean by the doctrine of the Imaculate Conception?’, the answer is ‘Mary being born without original sin’. If you ask ‘What do many people seem to think it’s about or get it confused with’, the answer is, ‘the doctrine of the Virgin Birth’.
No matter how many people make the mistake, it doesn’t change the answer to the first question. It doesn’t work the same way as shifts in language and usage, e.g. ‘awful’ used to mean ‘full of awe’ but now means ‘lacking merit or quality’. Religions tend to feel it’s important that the definitions of their various doctrines and core beliefs are not subject to revision based on common usage or popular misunderstanding.
Whether these beliefs and doctrines make a lick of sense is unfortunately irrelevant to this thread, or else I’d be only to happy to offer an opinion.
The confusion probably is from the modern idea that sex=sin, from which it follows that the only way to have a sin-less conception is to have a sex-less conception.
Anybody else think of Franco Harris when you read the title?
Well I never knew that! Although I’m not religious, so that may explain why. 
Now I’m confused about this original sin thing. Why is sex sinful, if it is used to create life?
Also, to address jk1245’s observation, the doctrine is that Jesus’ Grace was applied back through time(*) and prevented Original Sin from being transferred to Mary at her conception. Retroactive salvation.
(* OK, technically, God being eternal is outside of time so there was no “time travelling” involved, but work with me here.)
And as DrFidelius mentions, part of the confusion comes from the commonly-held but also unscriptural and nonmagisterial belief, that “Original Sin” is sex. IT IS NOT. It’s only related in the sense it’s hereditary (in Catholicism) and one of the punishments is painful childbirth (huh!) but nothing (officially) says it was sexual in nature – in Genesis, the humans are told to be fruitful and multibly BEFORE the tale of the Fall.
sandra_nz: No, sex is NOT sin per se. Certain acts of sex are “sinful” if it’s nonmarital and (in Catholicism, save for some cases) nonprocreative.
Actually the full Catholic teaching is- Jesus’ Incarnation, Death & Resurrection was planned from at least the Creation & Fall, if not all Eternity. Thus, the Eternal God applied Christ’s Redemptive Work backward to free His Mother from original sin.
God gave Mary an advance blessing based on what her Divine Son would do, BUT The Son still had to do it.
sandra_nz- It isn’t sex that is sinful, in REAL Catholic/Christian theology. It’s that the whole of human life is tainted with sin. Christ could have been conceived sexually & still been fully Divine and sinless. The Virgin Birth was a sign of His Divine Sonship, not the source of His Divine Sonship.
Darn ya & your hair-trigger theological acumen, JRD!!! Ya got the jump on me!
Ah, but you came up with the (gorgeous) theological language, good Friar. That is also important to have, as opposed to my crass post-60s Star Trek version.
My observation is a lot of “cultural Christians” (and quite a few supposedly practicing ones) really go through life operating on the basis of a hazy memory of the watered-down kiddie version of the theology that they got at Sunday School/Catechism while wishing they were somewhere else; plus half-heard snippets that they get off of some movie on TV. So sure, Sister Enunciata told the third grade kids “no sex! sex bad!” But it was not supposed to be the last word on it.
(To be fair, much of Christian theology if you go into the details WILL leave a layman dazed and confused. Hey, it’s a religion and they’ve had a long time to work on it.)
This very issue has won me a $100 bet and, on another occasion, was the question resulting in a huge come-from-behind NTN trivia victory that netted my team hundreds of dollars in prizes.
Give it up to the Church! Catholic Education + NTN Trivia = Profit!!!
That is not only a very clear explanation, but hilarious as well.
If that’s the case, why is the narrative important? That is, if it Just Was as it was prescribed from the time of creation, then why are the (supposing without conceding) historical/factual circumstances described in the Bible–the Romans, the Betrayal, the Lashes, Barrabas, etc.–significant to the assumption?
As mentioned several times anbove, the Immaculate Conception does indeed refer to Mary being born without the stain of Original Sin, I suppose so that she’d be a fit vessel to carry he Son of God. It has nothing to do with sex.
Someone told me that they heard the following joke from a priest (!) It makes absolutely no sense if you don’t understand the above.
Jesus is interceding on behalf of the Woman Taken in Adultery. “Let Him who is Without Sin Cast the First Stone,” He says, in his iconic way.
A stone comes zipping over his shoulder at the WTiA.
Without looking back, Jesus says, in an exasperated tone, “Motherrrr!”
In the version I heard, it’s “Momma! Stop that!”
And Original Sin definitely isn’t sex. If you’re talking about the first sin, it would be disobedience, lack of trust, or hubris.
I’m not a Catholic but for some reason, I’ve dated several Catholic girls although it was long ago. But I seem to remember having been told that Mary was virgin while carrying Christ, and remained virgin during and after His birth and was still a virgin when she was taken in bodily form directly to heaven. Is my memory failing me?
Nope, exactly correct.