During the Medieval period, there was a great debate within Catholic circles between those who believed that Mary was exempted from Original Sin (the position that would become the defined, dogmatic position in 1854) and those who, while holding Mary was free from personal sin, contracted original sin, at least during the first moment of her conception.
During this time, too, there were conflicting visions and revelations between saints and theologians who held conflicting opinions. While reading a volume on the Immaculate Conception today, I encountered the following discussion and text of a vision of St. Bridget who held to the “Immaculaist” position:
At the time when this mystery was most questioned, St. Bridget was writing her revelations, than which none since the apostles, none that are not of divine faith, have received more striking testimonies of authenticity. In these revelations the Blessed Virgin is introduced as speaking to the saint:
“Know that my Conception has not been known to all, for God so willed it, that as the natural law and the voluntary election of good and evil preceded the written law, and afterwards came the written law, which restrained every inordinate emotion; so has it pleased God that even my friends should have pious doubts concerning my Conception, and that each should display his zeal, until at the preordained time the truth shall shine forth” (Book vi, 55). (William Bernard Ullathorne, The Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God [Westminster, UK: Art and Book Company, 1904], 157)
In other words, according to the theology of Bridget’s vision, the Immaculate Conception, which would later become a de fide dogma of the faith, one that would result in one being condemned by God if one rejected it, even just mentally, was not revealed, even to close friends and associates of Mary, which would the disciples of Jesus(!)--a classic instance of "divine deception." If anything, such is further proof that the Immaculate Conception of Mary is not an apostolic tradition; instead, it is a man-made dogma that falls under the anathema of Gal 1:6-9. Latter-day Saints and others are on sound footing, biblical and historically, in rejecting such.
I have two chapters on the Immaculate Conception in my book, Behold the Mother of My Lord: Towards a Mormon Mariology (pp.35-81). For an online resource, see, for e.g.:
