The Immaculate Misconception.

My cousin Laura, a practicing Catholic, reminded us all at dinner tonight that tomorrow is a holy day of obligation.

"Are you going?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said, defensively, almost as if I was attacking her for even considering not going to church on a Monday.

"I mean, who really goes to all of those?" I asked.

"I do."

"Really? All of them?" My tone was extremely skeptical. I really don't know anyone, not even The Bob, who goes to all of them. "You really go to every single one?"

"Yeah."

"Do you know why they're all holy days of obligation?"

No. And she doesn't care. Not that she should. Laura, along with 95 percent of the rest of the practicing Catholics out there in this country, just know that you're supposed to go. I should know; I used to be a practicing Catholic. And after 11 years of papist schooling, seven at St. Vincents and four at Strake Jesuit, I still couldn't tell you for which feast days we're "obliged" to attend mass. As a matter of fact, I couldn't even estimate within a range of five how many holy days of obligation there even are. All I know is that there are far too many, and that the Vatican says you have to go.

It's like voting for president, every year, multiple times a year. You know you're "supposed to," but most people just don't.

Does it matter why a certain feast day carries the obligatory mass tag? No. Do most Catholics even realize one is coming up unless a cousin mentions it at dinner? No. Do most Catholics even realize that that Immaculate Conception is tomorrow? Probably not.

The real question, though, is whether or not most Catholics realize what the Immaculate Conception is.

The Vatican should go ahead and rename it the Immaculate Misconception. That's how misinformed the laity is on this issue.


Question: What is the Immaculate Conception?

Answer you're most likely to hear in response from a baptized Catholic: Isn't it when Mary became pregnant with Jesus?


This, my brothers and sisters in Christ, is the Immaculate Misconception. The real answer to that question -- the one I'm sure I was asked for on at least one test at Strake, and that I can't believe I forgot -- is that it is a celebration of the moment when St. Anne became pregnant with Mary.

The Immaculate Conception has nothing to do with Jesus. It is a commemoration of Jesus' grandmother getting pregnant with his mother.

I went to Catholic school for 11 years, and somehow made it all the way through without knowing this fact.

Here is my question, though: This is a holy day of obligation? How far down the worm hole does the Vatican want to go, exactly? At what point do these conceptions cease to be immaculate? And the bigger question, in my mind, is how any conception could be more immaculate than the one that allegedly occurred without sexual intercourse ever taking place?!?!

Of course, I felt compelled to voice this concern out loud at the dinner table tonight, in front of two cousins under the age of 10.

"Come on, they're old enough," I said when the reaction of the older parties present indicated I maybe shouldn't have mentioned the S word out loud in front of the children.

"Actually, they're not," someone said.

"I mean, we're talking about God at least," I tried.

(What I didn't mention, as it would have only served to dig my hole deeper, was that they are old enough, seeing as my mother told me how babies were made when I was in kindergarten, and how gay sex worked by the time I had finished first grade. But she wasn't Catholic, so yeah.)