Cardinal says Immaculate Conception important doctrine for today’s culture

Madrid, Spain, May 19, 2004 / 22:00 pm

Cardinal Carlos Amigo Vallejo, Archbishop of Seville, Spain, said this week that the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception of Mary provides an excellent opportunity to refocus on the Incarnation of Christ, in the midst of increasing secularization which seeks to exclude religion.

Cardinal Vallejo underscored the importance of this dogma “when a radical, and sometimes exasperated, secularism seeks to erase all signs of religion in the life of a society and a culture.”

In this context, he added, “it is very important to show what the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word has meant for history.  In this mystery the person of Mary Immaculate is essential.”

The Cardinal made his comments during the inauguration of the 15^th Symposium on the History of the Church in Spain and America, which this year is focusing on the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.  The meeting is being organized by the Academy for Ecclesiastical History of Seville.

The inaugural event was attended by the Apostolic Nuncio to Spain, Archbishop Manuel Monteiro de Castro.

In his comments, the Cardinal emphasized the “singular importance” of the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, and he thanked the organizers of the Symposium for “not letting this anniversary go by without stopping to consider what the truth of the Immaculate Conception of Mary has meant for the history of Seville, and in turn, what that meant for the spreading and developing of devotion to Mary Immaculate in the evangelization of America.”