Editor’s Note: David Rodríguez gave an excellent course explaining Marian doctrines from Scripture, Tradition, magisterial teaching, reason, and Christian spirituality. If you are interested in this topic, we encourage you to get his talks: Mary, Mother of God and The Immaculate Conception. You can also order an enhanced set of talks on Mariology (MP3 format) by contacting info@svfonline.org
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DESIRING THE SALVATION OF ALL
Holy Mother Church has a mission of evangelization: that all might be saved through faith in Jesus. And all Christians pray that we all might be one, as Jesus prayed the night before He died.[1] Being one in Christ must mean practicing the one true Faith; and that one true Faith, which Catholics profess, includes a true knowledge of, and love for, the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Although Protestants generally have a limited knowledge of Mary, many are interested to learn about Her, even from a Catholic perspective. Because Protestants look for biblical foundations for Christian doctrines, in discussions with them, the best starting point to evangelize about Mary is in fact Sacred Scripture.[2]
The most recent Fatima Crusader (Issue 136, Summer 2026) includes an article on basic “Apologetics for Marian Dogmas,” in which I explain Her role as our Spiritual Mother and other authors defend the truths of Her Perpetual Virginity and Immaculate Conception from Scripture and reason. In this article, I simply present a few other points to complement the presentations in that article.
AN IMMACULATE VIRGIN
The virginity of Mary is foundational and will always generate a discussion. In addition to citing the Bible in support of Marian doctrine, it is generally more successful to begin from a point of great importance and one of agreement. Therefore, a good place to begin this discussion is that Jesus is both perfect God and perfect man.[3]
Your non-Catholic questioner believes that Jesus was the Son of God and therefore sinless, and that He had to remain sinless in order to be a sacrificial substitute for our sins. Thus, His sinless state had to be present at every moment of His human existence, even from the moment of His conception. Since He received His body and His entire humanity from His Mother, then She also had to be sinless; otherwise, Jesus would have been touched by sin, formed in the womb surrounded by sin, and could not have escaped contact with sin.
Therefore, in order for Jesus not to have even the appearance of contagion with sin, His human Mother had to be protected from sin Herself. Any infusion of sin is impossible to be part of Jesus, since anything divine cannot commix with sin. Mary needed to be protected from sin in order for Jesus to be untouched by sin.
Most Protestants believe in Original Sin, which is passed down from Adam and Eve to all their descendants. In order for Jesus not to have inherited Original Sin, it was in God’s plan that His Mother would be born without Original Sin. This explains Her Immaculate Conception in the womb of Her mother, St. Anne. Since Mary was protected from Original Sin, Jesus could not inherit Original Sin.
What is the argument that Mary remained a virgin all Her life? The argument is tied into the belief that She never sinned….and where is the proof for that?
We again begin with the Bible: “The wages of sin is death.”[4] Keeping that in mind, we now look at history.
In every generation, the Church has venerated the tombs and even the bodies of her saints. There are basilicas built over the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul. The great pilgrimage shrines throughout the world enshrine the bones of the saints: Canterbury Cathedral (St. Thomas Beckett) and Assisi (St. Francis) are just two out of hundreds of examples.
NO TOMB OF MARY
If Mary would have died, then Her grave would have been another popular pilgrimage site. But there has never been a site venerated as the tomb of Mary.
As an interesting piece of history: in the years 381-384 A.D., a woman from Iberia named Evigia made a 3-year-long pilgrimage to the Holy Land. She wrote a diary that still exists today. In it, she details all of the holy places she visited, especially in Jerusalem and Galilee. She travelled to many tombs of saints, even the Old Testament tombs of Job and Haram, the brother of Moses. It seems she went to every tomb of a renowned person. But she never mentions a tomb of Mary.
If Mary had no tomb, She had no body to leave behind. If She had no body to entomb, Her body had to have been taken out of this world to Heaven. Since Her body was taken to Heaven, it was sinless on earth…the wages of Her life did not merit death. Mary’s body did not merit to see corruption since She was sinless Her whole life. The wages of sinlessness are: no grave, no tomb; but instead, a seat in Heaven. The Ascension and the Assumption are based on this holy fact.
Mary’s lack of a tomb is proof that Her body is in Heaven, and therefore She lived a life without sin. This must mean that She did not succumb to the most common sin: concupiscence. She overcame the temptation of all human desires, including carnal desires. This means that She lived Her entire life devoted to virginity, in imitation of Her Son. She was the most perfect follower and imitator of Jesus, and virginity is the hallmark of Her sinlessness.
END NOTES
[1] John 17:20-21
[2] At the outset, one difference will be which translation of Sacred Scripture you use. Some versions have an intentional anti-Marian basis. It is good to memorize a couple of passages and check them in any Bible. It is better if Genesis 3:15 reads, “she shall crush thy head”; and it is an absolute must that Isaias 7:14 states, “a virgin shall conceive and bear a son” because the entire context of the passage is that God will work a great miracle. If it says a maiden (or some other word for young woman) then it destroys the miraculous aspect of the prophecy and indicates a grossly negligent (at best) or heretical (more likely) translation.
[3] Note: Unitarians, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, Christian Scientists, inter alia, do not believe in Jesus’ divinity. Given this false belief it is hard to see why anyone would consider members of these groups to be “Christians.”
[4] Romans 6:23