Vita gazette – Italy today celebrates the feast of the Immaculate Conception with a national holiday. This afternoon Pope Francis will make a public visit to Piazza Mignanelli in Rome for the first time in two years.

On 8 December 1854 the feast of the Immaculate Conception was proclaimed. Italy today celebrates the Feast of the Immaculate Conception with a national holiday. This afternoon Pope Francis will make a public visit to Piazza Mignanelli in Rome for the first time in two years.

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception was promulgated in the Sistine Chapel by Blessed Pius IX on December 8, 1854. Based on this principle, fundamental and indisputable for believers, the Virgin Mary, who was full of grace and blessed among all women, in view of the saving birth and death of the Son of God, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular privilege of God, she was preserved free from every stain of original sin. The Immaculate Conception means precisely the birth of Mary without original sin.

December 8 is therefore the feast of the Immaculate Conception for the Catholic faithful. Already celebrated since the 11th century, the solemnity calls for the cult of the mother of the Lord. According to dogma, the Virgin Mary, despite having been conceived by her parents, Saints Anna, and Joachim, as all human creatures are conceived, has never been touched by original sin from the first instant of her conception. According to tradition, on this day the Pope goes to Piazza Mignanelli, adjacent to Piazza di Spagna in Rome, under the column of the Immaculate Conception to pay homage to the Madonna when her feast. As has been the case since 1923, the Fire Brigade with the ladder truck carry the crown of flowers, a gift from the pope, to the top of the monument. Pope Pius IX, in 1870, also proclaimed the dogma of papal infallibility, during the First Vatican Ecumenical Council.