True, the dogma was defined in 1854, but it involved an old doctrine, one that was certainly implicitly held in the Church from the beginning, and one that became more and more explicitly acknowledged as the Church deepened its understanding of the singular sanctity of the Mother of God. (James Likoudis, “Is the Catholic Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God to Be Rejected?,” in Mary: Star of the New Evangelization, ed. Andrew Likoudis [Baltimore, Md.: Likoudis Legacy Foundation, 2024], 150)
