Pope John XXII (1234-1344) and the Immaculate Conception

 

Pope John XXII

I wrote an article a while back on how Pope Gregory the Great seems to have indirectly denied the immaculate conception of Mary, a Roman Catholic dogma. 

In a similar way, there does seem to be evidence that Pope John XXII also denied the immaculate conception. However, he is more explicit in this than Gregory the Great was. 

Here is the quotation from his "Sermon on the Assumption":

"She (the Virgin) passed, first, from a state of original sin, second, from a state of childhood to maternal honor, third, from misery to glory." (http://books.google.com/books?id=0xQPAAAAIAAJ&pg=RA1-PA31#v=onepage&q&f=false)

I had to do some research into this quote to be sure if it was authentic or not. There does seem to be some evidence from two older sources that this was indeed the case. First, is from an 18th century writer named Benedetto Plazza in his work entitled Causa Immaculatae Conceptionis B.V. Mariae propugnata (Cause of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary). He has a section where he goes through papal denials of the immaculate conception. Here is the entry on John XXII:

page 226

Plazza points to a manuscript known as Codex 4163 in the Royal Gallic Library, which apparently has many sermons of Pope John XXII. It has the quotation here:

An ancient codex of Pope John XXII's sermons

All of this information alone furnishes a strong proof for the authenticity of the above quote which contains a clear denial of the dogma of the immaculate conception.

Here is what church historian Philip Schaff (in turn citing Launoy) says in his series on The Creeds of Christendom:

"The other Popes, who taught that Mary was conceived in sin, are Gelasius I., Innocent V., John XXII., and Clement VI. (d. 1352). The proof is furnished by the Jansenist Launoy, Prœscriptions, Opera I. pp. 17 sqq., who also shows that the early Franciscans, and even Loyola and the early Jesuits, denied the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Perrone calls him an 'irreligious innovator' (p. 34), and an 'impudent liar' (p. 161), but does not refute his arguments, and evades the force of his quotations from Leo, Gelasius, and Gregory by the futile remark that they would prove too much, viz., that Mary was even born in sin, and not purified before the Incarnation, which would be impious!" (https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds1.vi.viii.html)

On this manuscript, there is a bit of dispute (from Launoy himself) as to whether the attribution to John XXII is indeed correct. Two things show that the attribution is most likely correct:

1) The original hand of the manuscript attributes it to John XXII

2) Noel Valois, in a paper titled "Jacques Duèse, pape sous le nom de Jean XXII" concludes that the attribution is correct and that this codex does indeed contain the sermons of Pope John XXII.