God willed that Jesus Christ should have a true human mother but only God himself as his Father, because he wanted to make a new beginning that could be credited to him alone and not to earthly forces.

Mary’s virginity is not some outdated mythological notion but rather fundamental to the life of Jesus. He was born of a woman but had no human father. Jesus Christ is a new beginning in the world that has been instituted from on high. In the Gospel of Luke, Mary asks the angel, “How can this be, since I have no husband?” (= do not sleep with a man, Lk 1:34); the angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you” (Lk 1:35). Although the Church from the earliest days was mocked on account of her belief in Mary’s virginity, she has always believed that her virginity is real and not merely symbolic.

No. Anyone who calls Mary the Mother of God thereby professes that her Son is God.

As early Christianity was debating who Jesus was, the title Theotokos (“God-bearer”) became the hallmark for the orthodox interpretation of Sacred Scripture: Mary did not give birth merely to a man who then after his birth “became” God; rather, even in her womb her child is the true Son of God. This debate is not about Mary in the first place; rather, it is again the question of whether Jesus is true man and true God at the same time. 

The Church believes that “the most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin” 

Belief in the Immaculate Conception has existed since the beginning of the Church. The expression is misunderstood today. It is saying that God preserved Mary from original sin from the very beginning. It says nothing about the conception of Jesus in Mary’s womb. By no means is it a devaluation of sexuality in Christianity, as though a husband and wife would be “stained” if they conceived a child.

In God’s sight every individual matters in the first place as a person and only then as a social being.

Society can never be more important than the individual person. Men may never be means to a societal end. Nevertheless, social institutions such as the State and the family are necessary for the individual; they even correspond to his nature.

The individual can develop freely in society if the “principle of subsidiarity” is observed. 

The principle of subsidiarity, which was developed as part of CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING, states: What individuals can accomplish by their own initiative and efforts should not be taken from them by a higher authority. A greater and higher social institution must not take over the duties of a subordinate organization and deprive it of its competence. Its purpose, rather, is to intervene in a subsidiary fashion (thus offering help) when individuals or smaller institutions find that a task is beyond them.

Every society builds on a hierarchy of values that is put into practice through justice and love.

No society can last unless it is based on a clear orientation toward values that are reflected in a just ordering of relationships and an active implementation of this justice. Thus man may never be made into a means to an end of societal action. Every society needs constant conversion from unjust structures. Ultimately this is accomplished only by love, the greatest social commandment. It respects others. It demands justice. It makes conversion from inequitable conditions possible.

The COMMON GOOD follows wherever the fundamental rights of the person are respected and men can freely develop their intellectual and religious potential. The common good implies that men can live in society with freedom, peace, and security. In an age of globalization, the common good must also acquire a worldwide scope and allow for the rights and duties of all mankind.

The COMMON GOOD is best served where the good of the individual person and of the smaller units of society (for instance, the family) is central. The individual and the smaller social unit need to be protected and promoted by the stronger power of State institutions.

Social justice comes about where the inalienable dignity of every person is respected and the resulting rights are safeguarded and championed without reservation. Among these is also the right to active participation in the political, economic, and cultural life of the society.

The basis of all justice is respect for the inalienable dignity of the human person, “whose defense and promotion have been entrusted to us by the Creator, and to whom the men and women at every moment of history are strictly and responsibly in debt” (Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis, published 1987). Human rights are an immediate consequence of human dignity, and no State can abolish or change them. States and authorities that trample these rights underfoot are unjust regimes and lose their authority. A society is not perfected by laws, however, but rather by love of neighbor, which makes it possible for everyone to “look upon his neighbor (without any exception) as ‘another self’ ” (GS 27, 1).