The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception: the patronal feast of these United States

LAND OF MARY IMMACULATE

Marion A. Habig, O.F.M.

In the year 1846, on May 10, the Fourth Sunday after Easter, Archbishop Samuel Eccleston and twenty-two bishops of the United States were gathered in the city of Baltimore, in the Cathedral of the Assumption of Our Lady, for the opening of the First Session of the Sixth Provincial Council of Baltimore. Archbishop Eccleston offered up a Solemn Holy Mass, and Bishop Purcell of Cincinnati preached an appropriate sermon. The ecclesiastical province of Baltimore at this time comprised the whole United States, and hence the Sixth Provincial Council was able to issue decrees for the entire country. On May 13 the bishops of the United States who were gathered in the residence of the Archbishop and under his chairmanship for the third private meeting of the Council, which began at nine in the morning, adopted a decree by which they chose the Blessed Virgin Mary, conceived without sin, as Patroness of the United States. This decree, translated from the Latin into English, is as follows: With enthusiastic acclaim and with unanimous approval and consent, the Fathers [of the Council] have chosen the Blessed Virgin Mary, conceived without sin, as the Patroness of the United States of America; without, however, adding the obligation of hearing Mass and abstaining from servile work on the feast of the Conception of Blessed Mary. And, therefore, they decided that the Supreme Pontiff be humbly asked to transfer the solemnity, unless the feast fall on a Sunday, to the nearest Sunday, on which both private and solemn Masses may be celebrated of the feast thus transferred, and the vesper office of the same feast may be recited. Shea tells us that it was "to gratify a pious desire pervading the whole United States," that "the Fathers of the Council petitioned the Sovereign Pontiff to ratify their choice of the Blessed Virgin Mary, conceived without sin, as Patroness of the United States, and to transfer the solemnization of the feast to the following Sunday."1 In the fourth private meeting of the Council, held on May 15, same time and same place, the bishops of the United States agreed to ask the Holy See for permission, in all the dioceses of the country, to add the word "Immaculate" in the orations and preface of the divine office and Mass of the Conception of Mary; and also to add in the Litany of the Blessed Virgin the invocation: "Queen, conceived without sin, pray for us." The latter favors were granted first, by Pope Pius IX, in an audience on Sept. 13, 1846, and announced by the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda (to which the Church in the United States was subject at that time) in a decree published two days later. When the Sixth Provincial Council of Baltimore met the ruling Pontiff was Gregory XVI. He died on June 1 of that year, and was succeeded by Pius IX on June 16. The choice of Our Lady in her Immaculate Conception as Patroness of the United States was approved by Pope Pius IX in an audience on Feb. 7, 1847; and this approval was announced in a decree of Propaganda dated July 2, the same year. Both of these decrees of Propaganda have the signature of Cardinal Fransoni. Two more decrees, issued by the Congregation of Sacred Rites on April 10, 1848, answered questions which had arisen. (1) The Mass of the Immaculate Conception, transferred to Sunday, has the Gloria and Credo and the Gospel of the Sunday at the end; and, if the Mass is sung, it has a commemoration only of the Sunday; if it is a private Mass, it has commemorations also of other feasts observed on that day. (2) The obligation of reciting the vespers of the divine office is satisfied by attendance at the vespers of the Immaculate Conception on the Sunday to which the feast is transferred. It will be of interest to list the bishops who signed the decree by which the Immaculate Conception was chosen Patroness of the United States. The first was, of course, that of Archbishop Samuel Eccleston of Baltimore, the chairman of the Council. Then followed the signatures of twenty-two bishops, three of whom were coadjutor bishops (Louisville, New York, and Boston), one an administrator (Detroit), and one a vicar apostolic (Texas). The twenty-two bishops signed their names in the following order: (1) Michael Portier, Bishop of Mobile (2) Francis Patrick Kenrick, Bishop of Philadelphia (3) John Baptist Purcell, Bishop of Cincinnati (4) Guido Ignatius Chabrat, Coadjutor of Louisville (5) Anthony Blanc, Bishop of New Orleans (6) Matthias Loras, Bishop of Dubuque (7) John Hughes, Bishop of New York (8) Richard Pius Miles, Bishop of Nashville (9) Celestine Rene Lawrence Guynemer de la Hailandiere, Bishop of Vincennes (10) John Joseph Chanche, Bishop of Natchez (11) Richard Vincent Whelan, Bishop of Richmond (12) Peter Paul Lefevere, Administrator of Detroit (13) Peter Richard Kenrick, Bishop of Saint Louis (14) John Mary Odin, Vicar Apostolic of Texas (15) Michael O'Connor, Bishop of Pittsburgh (16) Andrew Byrne, Bishop of Little Rock (17) William Quarter, Bishop of Chicago (18) John McCloskey, Coadjutor of New York (19) William Tyler, Bishop of Hartford (20) Ignatius Aloysius Reynolds, Bishop of Charleston (21) John Henni, Bishop of Milwaukee (22) John Bernard Fitzpatrick, Coadjutor of Boston The request of the American bishops for permission to add the word "Immaculate" in the orations and preface for the feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin requires some explanation. The feast of the Conception of Mary was celebrated in some places already in the thirteenth century; however, it did not clearly teach the Immaculate Conception. That was done in the Office "Sicut Lilium" and the Mass "Egredimini" of Leonard of Nogarolis, which was approved in 1477 by Sixtus IV; in fact, these had the same oration we have today for the feast of the Immaculate Conception. When Pius V revised the Roman Breviary in 1568, though the Franciscans were allowed to retain the Office and Mass of Nogarolis, this office was dropped for the rest of the Church and the office of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin was substituted, the word "Conception" being substituted for "Nativity." When the American bishops asked for permission to add the word "Immaculate," they anticipated and perhaps influenced a step taken by Pope Pius IX a year after he had granted the petition of the American bishops. On Sept. 30, 1847, this Pope authorized for the diocese of Rome a new office and Mass proper to the feast of the Immaculate Conception and clearly teaching the doctrine of Mary's Immaculate Conception; and, two years later, he extended the new office and Mass to the universal Church. On Dec. 8, 1854, eight years and four months after the American bishops had chosen Mary Immaculate as the Patroness of the United States, Pope Pius IX solemnly declared the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary to be an article of faith. Numerous petitions for the definition of this doctrine had poured in during the preceding years; and Pope Pius IX had written the encyclical Ubi primum in which he asked the bishops of the world (1) how great the devotion of the faithful was toward the Immaculate Conception and how great their desire for the definition of this doctrine; and (2) what was the opinion and desire of the bishops themselves. More: http://www.ewtn.com/library/HOMELIBR/LANDMARY.htm