Victor R. Claveau, MJ
Answer: The Catholic Church has consistently declared that Christ’s birth did not violate Mary’s virginal integrity. Logically, since the birth of Our Lord was miraculous, and Mary’s virginity remained intact, she could not have experience labor pains.
The documents of the magisterium leave no room for doubt as to the official belief of the Church from the very beginning. Thus, for example, the Apostles’ Creed states that Our Lord “was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.” Again, Pope St. Siriciuus, in his letter to Bishop Anysisus (written in 392) condemns what he calls “the Jewish perfidy which holds that He (Christ) could not be born of a virgin. Pope St. Leo, in his dogmatic letter to Flavian, patriarch of Constantinople (written in 449) unequivocally states: “She (Mary) BROUGHT Him forth without the loss of virginity, even as she conceived Him without its loss.” Finally, Pope St. Martin I, at the Lateran Council (649) again condemned those who refused to believe in the virgin birth.
While the account of Christ’s birth, as recorded in the gospel of St. Luke (2:5ff.), does not specify whether Christ was born in a miraculous (virginal) way or not, we do have, nevertheless, a biblical passage in the Old Testament which sufficiently establishes the Catholic teaching on this point. Thus, in the prophecy of Isaiah (7:14) we are told that “a virgin shall conceive and bear a son…” The original Hebrew text has it: “Behold, the virgin conceiving and bearing a son.” In other words, the prophetic vision represents Our Blessed Lady as giving birth, and simultaneously remaining a virgin.
There are few Catholic dogmas which can claim the unanimous support of Tradition with as much right as the dogma under discussion. The fact that not one single Father of the Church can be quoted as bearing witness against it. It is true that Tertullian (and perhaps Origin) held false views on this point, but they are not Fathers of the Church, nor do they represent (at least on this specific case) the mind of their contemporaries. On the other hand, we find clear testimonies in favour of the virgin birth in the writings of St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, St. Ephrem, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Augustine and a host of others.
“It is an article of faith that Mary bore her Son without violation of her virginal integrity.
“The dogma merely asserts the fact of the continuance of Mary’s physical virginity without determining more closely how this is to be physiologically explained. In general, the Fathers and the Schoolmen conceived it as non-injury to the hymen, and accordingly taught that Mary gave birth in miraculous fashion without opening the womb and injury to the hymen, and consequently also without pains” [cf. S. th. III 28, 2.] See enclosure. (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Ludwig Ott, p. 205).
“This union of the Mother with the Son in the work of salvation is made manifest from the time of Christ’s virginal conception up to His death it is shown first of all when Mary, arising in haste to go to visit Elizabeth, is greeted by her as blessed because of her belief in the promise of salvation and the precursor leaped with joy in the womb of his mother.(288) This union is manifest also at the birth of Our Lord, who did not diminish His mother’s virginal integrity but sanctified it,(10*) when the Mother of God joyfully showed her firstborn Son to the shepherds and Magi” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Vatican Council II, LUMEN GENTIUM, Chapter VIII, The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God in the Mystery of Christ and the Church, II. The Role of the Blessed Mother in the Economy of Salvation, 57).
“The deepening of faith in the virginal motherhood led the Church to confess Mary’s real and perpetual virginity even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made man. In fact, Christ’s birth “did not diminish his mother’s virginal integrity but sanctified it.” And so the liturgy of the Church celebrates Mary as Aeiparthenos, the “Ever-virgin.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, §499).