"We do not wish, dearly beloved brethren, to await the end of the year which begins to-day, and which we dare regard as one fruitful in all manner of spiritual blessings, ere announcing to you the new favor we have just received from the Holy Apostolic See, so much have we loved to persuade ourselves that the joy of your hearts will equal our own, so confident are we that this favor is for us, the presage of multiplied graces, and that it becomes henceforth for our diocese an abundant source of sanctification and salvation. "Let us hasten to proclaim this favor: it treats of devotion to our august Queen, Mother and Mistress, the Most Holy and Immaculate Virgin Mary, honored especially in the mystery of her most pure Conception. "Mary was conceived without sin: Behold what the Catholic Church, what the infallible Church, what the true and only Church of Jesus Christ authorizes us to teach, without, however, declaring it an article of Faith,[15] what she prevents us denying publicly, what she instils into all the faithful, when in her general council, she declares, she proclaims, that in the decree treating of original sin, her intention is not to include therein the Blessed and Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God.[16] Behold! what the Sovereign Pontiffs permit us to say, that always, and with a view of nourishing the piety of Mary's servants, who invoke her by recalling the first of her privileges, that which approaches nearest the sanctity of God, always do they deign to second these prayers, and zealously open the treasure of indulgences of which they are the supreme dispensers, in favor of a devotion so legitimate. [Footnote 15: The Immaculate Conception had not then been defined. (Note by translator.)] [Footnote 16: Conc. Trid. sess. V. _Decret. de peccato originali_.] "Mary was conceived without sin. Behold! what the Church of Paris glories in professing and maintaining; what her Doctors hold it an honor to teach and defend; what her children are jealous of preserving as one of their dearest possessions after the sacred dogmas of faith; what they do not hesitate to regard as an immediate consequence of their faith, not believing it possible to separate in Mary, the title of Immaculate Virgin from that of Virgin Mother of God, and not considering it possible to refuse the privilege of a Conception without spot, to her who was to receive and who indeed did receive, that of the divine Maternity. Behold! what respect and love for the Word made Flesh, inspire for the chaste bosom the Most High sanctified, because He was to descend there, and there clothe Himself with our nature, there become man by the operation of the Holy Ghost.