And, again, the “Veni Creator Spiritus” was sung.
The most solemn silence had, a second time, succeeded to the melodious sacred song, when again the eyes of the multitude were following the grave steps of the purple-robed Cardinal, advancing, for the third time, to the throne of the successor of St. Peter, to ask again:
“Holy Father, tell us if we can believe that the blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, was immaculate?”
The Pope, as if he had just received a direct communication from God, answered with a solemn voice:
“Yes! we must believe that the blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, was immaculate in her conception. * * * There is no salvation to those who do not believe this dogma!”
And, with a loud voice, the Pope intoned the Te Deum; the bells of three hundred churches of Rome rang; the cannons of the citadel were fired. The last act of the most ridiculous and sacrilegious comedy the world has ever seen, was over; the doors of heaven were, for ever, shut against those who would refuse to believe the anti-scriptural doctrine that there is a daughter of Eve who has not inherited the sinful nature of Adam, to whom the Lord said in his justice:
“Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return!” and of the children of whom the God of truth has said:
“'There is none righteous; no, not one; they have all sinned!'”
We look in vain to the first centuries of the Church to find any traces of that human aberration. The first dark clouds which Satan had brought to mar the gospel truth, on that subject, appeared only between the eighth and ninth centuries. But, in the beginning, that error made very slow progress; those who propagated it, at first, were a few ignorant fanatics, whose names are lost in the night of the dark ages.
It is only in the twelfth century that it began to be openly preached by some brainless monks. But, then, it was opposed by the most learned men of the time. We have a very remarkable letter of St. Bernard to refute some monks of Lyons who were preaching this new doctrine.