On 171st anniversary of Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Leo XIV will honor Mary Immaculate at Piazza di Spagna, continuing a papal tradition that began with Pius IX.
Newsroom (08/12/2025 Gaudium Press ) As the Church marks the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, Catholics worldwide recall the historic moment 171 years ago when Pope Pius IX solemnly defined one of the most cherished Marian dogmas. On 8 December 1854, in the Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus, the Pontiff proclaimed that the Blessed Virgin Mary, “in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved immune from every stain of original sin.” The document declared this truth “revealed by God” and therefore to be “firmly and inviolably believed by all the faithful.”
Three years later, in 1857, Pius IX personally blessed and inaugurated the Column of the Immaculate Conception in Rome’s Piazza di Spagna, near the Spanish Steps. The towering monument, topped by a bronze statue of Mary, has since become the focal point of an unbroken papal tradition.
Fifty years after Ineffabilis Deus, Pope St Pius X reaffirmed the dogma in his 1904 encyclical Ad diem illum laetissimum, underscoring that belief in Mary’s preservation from original sin necessarily implies acknowledgment of original sin itself, the redemptive work of Christ, the Gospel, the Church, and even the reality of human suffering.
The dogma of the Immaculate Conception is intimately linked to the Assumption. In 1950, Pope Pius XII defined in Munificentissimus Deus that Mary, precisely because she “conquered sin by her Immaculate Conception,” was not subject to bodily corruption and was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory—a truth celebrated each 15 August.
The Roman tradition of papal homage at Piazza di Spagna has been enriched by every successor of Peter. Pope John XXIII began the custom of offering flowers; in 1958 he laid white roses at the column’s base, and in 1960 hailed Mary Immaculate as the “morning star” that scatters the darkness. Pope Paul VI, on the first anniversary of Vatican II’s closing, described the Immaculate Conception as the “mystery of privilege, uniqueness, and perfection” of the Mother of God, and urged the faithful to renew their devotion according to the Council’s Christological and ecclesiological criteria.
Pope St John Paul II, at the start of his pontificate in 1978, taught that Christ’s generosity toward his Mother began at the very first instant of her existence—an act of divine love called the Immaculate Conception. Pope Benedict XVI, in 2008, explained that Mary Immaculate reveals two fundamental truths: the reality of original sin and Christ’s decisive victory over it, a victory that “shines in a sublime way” in the Virgin who is “wholly pure, humble, free from every pride and presumption.”
Pope Francis, on 8 December 2015 while opening the Jubilee of Mercy, prayed in thanksgiving before the same column: “We thank you, Immaculate Mother, because… you do not let us walk alone, but accompany us; you stay close to us and support us in every difficulty.”
This afternoon at 4 p.m., Pope Leo XIV will continue the centuries-old tradition, pausing in prayer at the foot of the statue of the Immaculate Virgin. In a recent homily for the Jubilee of Marian Spirituality, the Holy Father reflected that “Mary’s path is behind Jesus, and Jesus’ path leads toward every human being,” and that authentic devotion to the Mother of Nazareth forms us as true disciples who learn, with her, to recognize the Risen Lord in the events of daily life.
In the words of the ancient liturgical hymn, Mary is Tota pulchra—“You are altogether beautiful.” In her Immaculate Conception, humanity contemplates the reflection of the beauty that saves the world: the beauty of God shining on the face of Christ and, through him, radiating fully in his Mother.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Vatican News
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