I heard with my own ears a catholic priest saying that the Immaculate Conception dogma refers to the conception of Jesus*. This is one of the most common misconceptions (eh…) of people calling themselves catholic Christians, but hearing it from a priest takes it to another level!
*shortly: it doesn’t, it’s about the conception of Mary.
slightly longer: Mary needed to be free of the Original Sin in order to give birth to Jesus, so, by special exemption, she was conceived free of the OS. Now that poses the additional problem that the OS is what makes us die, so Mary, born free of OS, could not ‘die’. That was ‘easily’ solved stating the she did not, rather she was “assumed” in the heavens. This is fairly recent stuff: IC 1854 and Assumption of Mary 1950!
One thing that I really do admire about Catholicism is how fan fiction can find its way into actual dogma like that. From Purgatory to Immaculate Conception, they really do put a lot of effort into the worldbuilding aspect of the faith.
During WW2, the author Evelyn Waugh and Freddy (Lord) Birkenhead were deployed with Randolph Churchill (Winston’s son), who would drive the other two mad with his incessant chatter. Waugh recounted what happened next in a letter to Nancy Mitford:
In the hope of keeping him quiet for a few hours Freddy & I have bet Randolph £20 that he cannot read the whole Bible in a fortnight. It would have been worth it at the price. Unhappily it has not had the result we hoped. He has never read any of it before and is hideously excited; keeps reading quotations aloud. “I say, I bet you didn’t know this came in the Bible …” or merely slapping his side & chortling “God, isn’t God a shit!”
Well observed. I guess I knew this inside me, but I had never put it into words. I had to do religious studies at school and I have never forgotten the stuff. But I don’t think I ever believed it, though I know I was supposed to try. But I am surprised with the bits I can recall, and surprised again when some of those who have faith can’t.
There are also people who have regular Bible Study. I would expect they would score more than I do. But it does seem like a terrible waste of time.
It’s less of a surprise with Catholics than it is with the assorted Protestant flavors: Catholicism has mellowed out a bit, and you won’t get burned at stake for meddling with vernacular translations or the like anymore; but, while no longer strictly mandatory, the you-can-leave-scripture-to-the-clergy position was never actually renounced.
Protestants, though, beyond a few specific simony-related complaints and doubts that the bishop of Rome was really all that much more important, tended to make scripture access to the laity fairly central to their whole thing. Not to the extent that the illiterate were all slated for hell; but demands for vernacular scripture and sola scriptura/sola fides interpretations were a big deal.
Ooof. I’m quite used to hearing that misunderstanding, but from non-priests, at least. I did once have to explain transubstantiation to a self-identified Catholic, though. (Once explained, they weren’t into it at all.)
TBH, he was really one of a kind - an immigrant from somewhere in east Europe, spoke quite a good Italian, peppered with uncountable swearwords (he knew more than me) and had some modern position on many things.
Maybe he was an impostor, but not a bad person overall.
speaking of relatively recent doctrinal shifts, remember that the pope has only been infallible for 152 years. it was in 1870 that the pope was declared to be infallible whenever he spoke ex cathedra (literally-from the chair) on matters of faith and morals. some pretty important shit has changed over a span of time less than 10% of the duration of christianity.
