No. 5: The Virgin Mary

The veneration of Mary has played a principle role in Roman Catholicism since the Church began to challenge paganism. Jesus having divine origins was critical in allowing Christians to compare favorably their spiritual leader with the pagan gods that were mainly all divine. As the battle between Christians and Pagans waned with the ascendency of Christianity as the Roman Empire's state religion, the importance of Mary should have been de-emphasized. Clearly Jesus resurrection and death were the most important parts of the religious narrative. However; because the Mary story became so engrained into the consciousness of Christian belief the Church has had to make some extraordinary and problematic claims about Mary's life and "death."

The problem hinges on Jesus siblings. The Gospel of Matthew clearly makes references to Jesus having at least four brothers and numerous sisters. The conclusion, of course, is that Mary and Joseph consummated their marriage and produced children after Jesus. This flies in the face of Catholic tradition that Mary remained a virgin her entire life. The pathetic response is that when Matthew says brothers and sisters he really meant cousins.

In most contexts this should be considered a minor and irrelevant issue. Poll any priest on the street and the Mary issue is not of much importance. However; for many Catholic faithful Mary's purity is important. It was Mary who appeared to a young French girl in Lourdes and presumably Mary who is responsible for the "healings." It was Mary who appeared to some shepherds in Fatima, Portugal. It is Mary, almost as much as Jesus, that reveals herself to ardent believers or the most desperate. This has put the Catholic Church in an awkward position of heaping one implausibility upon another in order to defend the ridiculous. The first was obviously the assertion that every Catholic must believe without question that Mary was a virgin at the time of Jesus' birth. Furthermore, Catholics must also believe Mary remained a virgin throughout her life (ignore the siblings issue). Finally, Catholics must believe that Mary's perpetual virginity made her sinless in her life.

This lead the Church to some further speculation. If Mary was without sin she must not have died since the wages of sin are death. Consequently, the Church accepted as doctrine the assumption of Mary, that she was taken straight up to heaven, body and soul. This became problematic because of the politics within the Catholic Church. In the 1870 Vatican council, the doctrine of papal infallibility was defined. For all practical purposes the only time this papal authority as been asserted since is when Pope Pius XII declared the assumption of Mary to be dogma ex cathedra or without any council from the Church hierarchy.

The assumption doctrine had the affect of shining a light on the papal infallibility theology with the consequence that Papal history was highlighted. That Popes throughout the ages have been proven wrong and seriously flawed human beings on numerous occasions made the theological assertion ridiculous. In reality, the infallibility doctrine is extremely limited and is only a factor in some very specific theological instances. Popular culture; however, has not seen it that way and papal infallibility has been perceived as both an embarrassment and lightening rod for Church critics.

The tragic figure in this story has to be hapless Joseph, stepfather to Jesus. In marrying a perpetual virgin Joseph had celibacy forced upon him. It is a little unclear whether masturbation is also a sin but if it is Joseph should be the patron saint of priests rather than carpenters and realtors.