Although the Immaculate Conception had been a popular belief among many Western Christians many centuries before the dogma was officially proclaimed, there had always been those in the West who opposed the doctrine, such as Thomas Aquinas, Anselm of Canterbury, and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.

Bernard of Clairvaux was concerned that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception made it seem as though Mary had no need of a savior herself. His reasoning went something like this: if she was born without the stain of sin and if she never sinned during her earthy life, why would she be in need of a redeemer?

Those who were uncomfortable with the idea of the Immaculate Conception had two major objections. Some objected to the Augustinian idea that all conception was evil, based on Psalm 51, which reads “In sin did my mother conceive me.” Some simply objected to this seemingly negative view of sexual intercourse. Still others felt uncomfortable with the way this dogma seemed to separate Mary from the rest of humanity.

When the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was proclaimed, many of these old objections resurfaced, along with some new ones. In particular, Anglicans and Eastern Orthodox expressed concerns about how the dogma was proclaimed. These churches felt that the pope seemed to be acting too much in isolation. Perhaps they sensed what was to come: later that same century at the First Vatican Council in 1869–70, the doctrine of Papal Infallibility was officially proclaimed. This doctrine is quite foreign to the understanding of papal primacy and church authority that developed in the Christian East.

In her book In Search of Mary, Sally Cunneen highlights a fascinating aspect of the proclamation of this dogma: the proclamation was both preceded and followed by apparitions that seemed to echo the underlying themes of this teaching.

Four years after Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, a young girl named Bernadette Soubirous experienced several apparitions of the Virgin Mary. When Bernadette asked the woman who she was, the woman spread her arms in a way that would have been recognizable to Bernadette as her pose upon the Miraculous Medal. The Virgin Mary responded, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”