Mandatory priestly celibacy is not a doctrine, or dogma, of the Church ( examples of Catholic doctrine would be the principle of the absolute respect for life or the belief in the Assumption and Immaculate Conception ) but a church rule or discipline, like the use of the vernacular ( local ) language in Mass or the ancient rule of Lenten fasting and abstinence.

* Day of the Mary Immaculate Conception.

* 1854 – In his Apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX proclaims the dogmatic definition of Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was born free of original sin.

* Feast of the Immaculate Conception ( public holidays in several countries, a Holy Day of Obligation in the United States and the Philippines ), and its related observances:

The doctrine of papal infallibility was not new and had been used by Pope Pius in defining as dogma, in 1854, the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

For other uses, see Immaculate Conception ( disambiguation ).

The Immaculate Conception is a dogma of the Catholic Church maintaining that from the moment when she was conceived the Blessed Virgin Mary was kept free of original sin and was filled with the sanctifying grace normally conferred during baptism.

The Immaculate Conception should not be confused with the perpetual virginity of Mary or the virgin birth of Jesus ; it refers to the conception of Mary by her mother, Saint Anne.

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception is observed on December 8 in many Catholic countries as a Holy Day of Obligation and in some places as a national or public holiday.

The defined dogma of the Immaculate Conception regards original sin only, saying that Mary was preserved from any stain ( in Latin, macula or labes, the second of these two synonymous words being the one used in the formal definition ).

The Church celebrates the Feast of the Immaculate Conception ( when Mary was conceived free from original sin ) on 8 December, exactly nine months before celebrating the Nativity of Mary.

Other theologians defended the expression " Immaculate Conception ", pointing out that sanctification could be conferred at the first moment of conception in view of the foreseen merits of Christ, a view held especially by Franciscans.

Writers such as Mark Miravalle and Sarah Jane Boss interpret the existence of the feast as a strong indication of the Church's traditional belief in the Immaculate Conception.

With his bull Cum praeexcelsa of 28 February 1477, in which he referred to the feast as that of the Conception of Mary, without using the word " Immaculate ", he granted indulgences to those who would participate in the specially composed Mass or Office on the feast itself or during its octave, and he used the word " immaculate " of Mary, but applied instead the adjective " miraculous " to her conception.

On 4 September 1483, referring to the feast as that of " the Conception of Immaculate Mary ever Virgin ", he condemned both those who called it mortally sinful and heretical to hold that the " glorious and immaculate mother of God was conceived without the stain of original sin " and those who called it mortally sinful and heretical to hold that " the glorious Virgin Mary was conceived with original sin ", since, he said, " up to this time there has been no decision made by the Roman Church and the Apostolic See.

Under Pope Pius V, the Pope who in 1570 established the Tridentine Mass, included the feast ( but without the adjective " Immaculate ") in the Tridentine Calendar, but suppressed the existing special Mass for the feast, directing that the Mass for the Nativity of Mary ( with the word " Nativity " replaced by " Conception ") be used instead.

It was not until 1854 that Pope Pius IX, with the support of the overwhelming majority of Roman Catholic bishops, whom he had consulted between 1851 – 1853, promulgated the papal bull Ineffabilis Deus ( Latin for " Ineffable God "), which defined ex cathedra the dogma of the Immaculate Conception:

For the Roman Catholic Church the dogma of the Immaculate Conception gained additional significance from the reputed apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes in 1858.

At Lourdes a 14-year-old girl, Bernadette Soubirous, claimed that a beautiful woman appeared to her and said, " I am the Immaculate Conception ".

In this sense the dogma of the Immaculate Conception defined by Pope Pius IX is also viewed as a key example of the use of sensus fidelium shared by believers and the Magisterium rather than pure reliance on Scripture and Tradition.

The Roman Catholic tradition has a well-established philosophy for the study of the Immaculate Conception and the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the field of Mariology, with Pontifical schools such as the Marianum specifically devoted to this.

It seems to have been St Bernard of Clairvaux who, in the 12th century, explicitly raised the question of the Immaculate Conception.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of the medieval scholastics, refused to admit the Immaculate Conception, on the ground that, unless the Blessed Virgin had at one time or other been one of the sinful, she could not justly be said to have been redeemed by Christ.

A number of locations consider themselves patronages of the Immaculate Conception.

The report " Mary: Faith and Hope in Christ ", by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, concluded that the teaching about Mary in the two definitions of the Assumption and the Immaculate Conception can be said to be consonant with the teaching of the Scriptures and the ancient common traditions.

The Immaculate Conception is also portrayed by artists in the Orthodox Church, for example Holy Mary in Perlez, Vojvodina, Serbia.

A Requiem Mass was held for Tracy on June 12 at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in East Hollywood.

* Parish Church of the Immaculate Conception, Ħamrun, Malta

* Parish Church of the Immaculate Conception, Ħamrun, Malta

* Parish Church of the Immaculate Conception, Ta ' L-Ibrag, Malta

* Church of the Immaculate Conception, Msida, Malta

* Our Lady of Immaculate Concepcion, Parish Church, Dasmariñas, Cavite

" Our patron, St. Maximilian Kolbe, inspires us with his unique Mariology and apostolic mission, which is to bring all souls to the Sacred Heart of Christ through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Christ's most pure, efficient, and holy instrument of evangelization – especially those most estranged from the Church.

File: St Mary Immaculate Church Falmouth. JPG | Roman Catholic Church of St. Mary Immaculate, Killigrew Street and Kimberley Place

The Claretians ( The Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Rome, or The Claretian Order ) of the Roman Catholic Church had come to Southern California by way of Mexico in the early 1900s, working in Los Angeles inner city missions.

Protestants claim, however, that the Roman Catholic Church has added to the Deposit of Faith handed down by the Apostles, especially since the time of Reformation, such as the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Mary and Papal Infallibility, though Catholics can point to Biblical support for each.

Roman Catholics also counter that the Dogmas of the Assumption and Immaculate Conception are well-supported in the writings of early Church Fathers ( although some Protestants question the way Catholic theologians cite and interpret early Christian writings, or whether they have the same validity as the Holy Scripture ), in addition to being supported by Holy Scripture.

Sudbury's Catholic Church, Our Lady Immaculate and St. John the Evangelist, was designed by Leonard Stokes and erected in 1893.

There are six churches in New Hartford: two Congregational churches ( the oldest church in the town, at New Hartford Center, and another in the village of Nepaug ), an Episcopal church ( at Pine Meadow ), Saint Paul ’ s Lutheran church, a Methodist church ( in the village of Bakerville ), and Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church.

* Rectory and Church of the Immaculate Conception-built in 1924 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

Millhousen is perhaps best known for being the home of the Immaculate Conception Church, one of only four Roman Catholic churches in Decatur County, and Stone's Family Restaurant, one of the best known restaurants in Decatur County.

* Church of the Immaculate Conception, Newport