The Immaculate Conception and the Assumption

Roman Catholics affirm two dogmas about Mary. The Immaculate Conception, defined by Pope Pius IX in 1854, holds that Mary was preserved free from original sin from the first moment of her conception, by the grace of God in view of the merits of Christ. The Assumption, defined by Pope Pius XII in 1950, holds that at the end of her earthly life Mary was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory. Both express the Catholic conviction that the mother of Christ was uniquely graced and is the foremost of the redeemed.

Pius IX proclaimed the Immaculate Conception in the bull Ineffabilis Deus (1854), and Pius XII proclaimed the Assumption in Munificentissimus Deus (1950); neither doctrine rests on an explicit biblical statement, and both are argued instead from centuries of patristic reflection on texts such as the angel's greeting to Mary as "full of grace" (Luke 1:28) and from a long liturgical tradition of feasts, the Dormition or Assumption feast attested in the Eastern church from at least the sixth century and the Immaculate Conception feast observed in the West from the Middle Ages before its doctrinal definition. Pius XII's definition followed a formal worldwide consultation of the Catholic episcopate, initiated by the 1946 encyclical Deiparae Virginis Mariae, which found near-unanimous support among bishops for proceeding to a dogmatic definition.