Brother if you don't believe what scripture clearly teaches than how about what other"Popes" have said since they are suppose to be the "spokes person for God on earth.
I apologize, but if you don't accept what Scripture clearly teaches us and what sacred tradition has said in complimentary to it, then either you are cherry picking without researching the full encyclicals (whether in or out of original Latin), or you are doing simple searches online and finding quotes, again without doing the research. I don't say that facetiously, but that is my sincere response to your sincere point.
Pope Leo 1 (440 a.d.) “The Lord Jesus Christ alone among the sons of men was born immaculate”(sermon 24 in Nativ. Dom.).
I'm not sure if you had a chance to read all of Nativ. Dom., but Pope Leo 1 made it clear that he was addressing the sons and not the daughters of Zion.
Pope innocent the third (1216 a.d.) “She (Eve) was produced without sin, but she brought forth in sin, she (Mary) was produced in sin, but she brought forth without sin.
Do you have the full version of this one? This one I have never seen before. I'd love to read it all in context -- ideally both the Latin and English translations. How can I address it as valid if I don't even know it is valid?
The fact this doctrine is fairly new not an apostolic tradition. It was in 1547, at the council of Trent that the Catholic Church announced the sinlessness of Mary enabling her to avoid venial sins. In 1620 Pope Paul the 5thforbade anything contrary to the teaching of Mary's immaculate conception to be said publicly under threat of excommunication.
There has been "seven" Popes who have said Mary was not sinless.
No, CCW. It was much LATER that the Church announced the Immaculate Conception of Mary to be dogmatic. I wasn't until Pope Pius X. That's how much later it was. However, prior to this official announcement, it had ALWAYS been understood doctrinally (not dogmatically) of Mary's sinnlessness. The first council that addressed it was in the 5th century at the Council of Ephesus.
You said "seven" popes (not sure why seven was in quotations) taught Mary's not being without sin. Personally, I though it was about ten actually who expressed this consideration. However, not one of them taught this as official dogma or even doctrine. It wasn't presented so until so much later. It was only brought to discussion, which is precisely why it was brought up at multiple councils, not just one, to get to the bottom of it. But it was widely understood by the majority of clergy, laity, and of course popes, that Mary was without sin.
Before that, Augustine wrote in the 4th century: "We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful...We must except the Holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom I wish to raise no question when it touches the subject of sins, out of honour to the Lord; for from Him we know what abundance of grace for overcoming sin in every particular was conferred upon her who had the merit to conceive and bear Him who undoubtedly had no sin."
In the 200s, Hippolytus wrote about Mary in Orat. Inillud, Dominus pascit me: "He (Jesus) was the ark formed of incorruptible wood. For by this is signified that His tabernacle was exempt from putridity and corruption."
Justin Martyr in 155 AD wrote in Dialogue with Trypho: "[Jesus] became man by the Virgin so that the course that was taken by disobedience in the beginning through the agency of the serpent might be also the very course by which it would be put down. Eve, a virgin and undefiled, conceived the word of the serpent and bore disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy when the angel Gabriel announced to her the glad tidings that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her and the power of the Most High would overshadow her, for which reason the Holy One being born of her is the Son of God. And she replied, "Be it done unto me according to your word (Luke 1:38)"
Origen in 244 AD wrote in his homily: "This Virgin Mother of the Only-begotten of God is called Mary, worthy of God, immaculate of the immaculate, one of the one"
Theodotus of Ancrya wrote in the 400's in his homily 6 "A virgin, innocent, spotless, free of all defect, untouched, unsullied, holy in soul and body, like a lily sprouting among thorns"
Gregory Nazianzen in 390 AD wrote: "He was conceived by the virgin, who had been first purified by the Spirit in soul and body; for, as it was fitting that childbearing should receive its share of honor, so it was necessary that virginity should receive even greater honor"
What about the reformers? What did they have to say about Mary?
Martin Luther wrote: "[She is the] highest woman and the noblest gem in Christianity after Christ . . . She is nobility, wisdom, and holiness personified. We can never honor her enough. Still honor and praise must be given to her in such a way as to injure neither Christ nor the Scriptures [...] No woman is like you. You are more than Eve or Sarah, blessed above all nobility, wisdom, and sanctity [...] She is full of grace, proclaimed to be entirely without sin- something exceedingly great. For God's grace fills her with everything good and makes her devoid of all evil."
John Calvin: "It cannot be denied that God in choosing and destining Mary to be the Mother of his Son, granted her the highest honor."15 "To this day we cannot enjoy the blessing brought to us in Christ without thinking at the same time of that which God gave as adornment and honour to Mary, in willing her to be the mother of his only-begotten Son [...] Elizabeth called Mary Mother of the Lord, because the unity of the person in the two natures of Christ was such that she could have said that the mortal man engendered in the womb of Mary was at the same time the eternal God"
Zwingli: "It was fitting that such a holy Son should have a holy Mother [...] I esteem immensely the Mother of God, the ever chaste, immaculate Virgin Mary. Christ was born of a most undefiled Virgin."
Even the reformers couldn't deny apostolic succession in regards to Mary's unstained soul. It wasn't until around the 1700's that you began to see more mainline thought of Mary being conceived with sin -- this came from the Unitarian school of thought.
Again, I don't mean this in a harsh way, so if I offend you, forgive me...but just wondering if it is only convenient that you found four quotes of the seven (I still think it was 10) popes and took what they said as true but disregarded all the other hundreds of popes, even earlier in fact, who spoke in favor of this concept of Mary's sinlessness?
Shouldn't we have equal consideration of those who would be for or against each of our positions in order to figure out what is what? Even the disciples of the original Apostles of Jesus suggested Mary's sinlessness. This has always been regarded as ancient Christian material.
