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If that were the only verse, I might be swayed. However, the entire thrust of scripture is that ALL have sinned, and ALL need a Savior.

As Paul rebuked Peter: “14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

15 “We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ 16 know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified. 19 For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

If Mary could be without sin, and not need a Savior, then truly Christ died for nothing! If God could skip the sentence of Adam for her, and she could do right things and be justified before God, then Jesus died for no reason.

Look at the whole passage from Romans 3:

9 What shall we conclude then? Are we [Jews] any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. 10 As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”
13 “Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.”
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 ruin and misery mark their ways,
17 and the way of peace they do not know.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. 28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. 29 Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30 since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.

I mean no offense to you, but I fail to see how it is possible to read that passage, and respond that it means all sorts of folks have sinned, but some have not.

I’ve read that when Paul quotes the Old Testament as saying “There is no one righteous, not even one;”, he used the Greek translation, which added the words ‘not even one’ to the translation from the Hebrew. That additional emphasis would seem to rule out interpreting this passage as ‘most have sinned, but Mary has not’.

Indeed, I cannot think of a single passage anywhere that indicates anyone was sinless, except Jesus.

Mary herself knew she needed saving, for in Luke we read, “46 And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior...”

Nor did Jesus indicate Mary was in any way sinless.

In Matthew 12 we find,

“46 While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. 47 Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”

48 He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

And in Luke 11 we read, “27 As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.”

28 He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

The Good News of Jesus is that, while ALL have sinned, ALL can be saved by grace through faith. I have no doubt but that Mary has indeed been saved, by grace, through faith, and her sins have been forgiven. By the sacrifice Jesus offered, “he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” - including Mary.

But there is no reading of scripture that would lead one to believe Mary was sinless. That tradition is in flagrant contradiction to virtually ever passage in the entire New Testament.

If what you say is true, then the line of argumentation you make would extend as well to Christ, who also would have to be within sin. Yet Scripture tells us that He was without sin. To the extent that Christ can be without sin, so can Mary be without sin, by God's special grace.

Why is Mary special? Well, obviously she is playing a key role in salvation history, giving birth to the Savior. As the Early Church Fathers taught us, in the early centuries of the Church, the special role of Mary is prophecied in Genesis 3:15 -- the Protoevangelium. This is the scene in Genesis in which God curses the serpent for causing mankind's fall into original sin. And God says:

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall crush your head, and you shall strike at His heel."

The Church Fathers unequivocably understood this to be a prophecy of the coming Christ and the defeat of Satan. On that I am sure we can agree. But ALSO the Church Fathers unequivocably understood the WOMAN in this passage to be the Virgin Mary, the "New Eve."

For example, around the A.D. 155, St. Justin Martyr wrote in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew that the Holy Scriptures teach us concerning Christ,

"'that He became Man by the Virgin so that the course which was taken by disobedience in the beginning through the agency of the serpent, might be also the very course by which it would be put down. For Eve, a virgin and undefiled, conceived the word of the serpent, and bore disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy when the angel Gabriel announced to her the glad tidings that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her and the powers of the Most High would overshadow her, for which reason the Holy One being born of her would be called the Son of God. And she replied: 'Be it done unto me according to thy word.'" BR> St. Justin Martyr therefore parallels the Virgin Mary with the Virgin Eve. Just as the word of the serpent bore fruit through the Virgin Eve, so the word of God came into the world through the Virgin Mary. Eve believed the word of an evil angel and death was brought into the world, while Mary believed the word of a good angel and Life Himself was brought into the world.

Also, around the A.D. 190, St. Ireneus, in his masterwork, Against Heresies, writes,

"Consequently, then, Mary the Virgin is found to be obedient, saying: "Behold, O Lord, your handmaid; be it done to me according to your word." Eve, however, was disobedient; and when yet a virgin, she did not obey.... having become disobedient, was made the cause of death for herself and for the whole human race; so also Mary, betrothed to a man but nevertheless still a virgin, being obedient, was made the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race.... Thus, the knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. What the virgin Eve had bound in unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosed through faith."

So again we see the second century fathers contrasting Mary and Eve, saying that the evil done through Eve was undone through Mary.

Around the A.D. 210, the Catholic Tertullian wrote in his treatise, On The Flesh of Christ, that

"...it was while Eve was still a virgin that the word of the devil crept in to erect an edifice of death. Likewise, though a Virgin, the Word of God was introduced to set up a structure of life. Thus, what had been laid waste in ruin by this sex, was by the same sex re-established in salvation. Eve had believed the serpent; Mary believed Gabriel. That which the one destroyed by believing, the other, by believing, set straight." As a result, we see three of the most important fathers of the second and third century bearing witness to the implication of the Genesis 3:15 prophecy, that after the woman of Genesis 3 there will come a second woman, a second Eve, who will give birth to Christ while still a virgin. Thus Mary helps rectify what Eve brought about. Eve brought sin and death into the world by her relationship with the first Adam, from whom we inherit Original Sin, while Mary brought helped bring holiness and life into the world by her relationship to the Second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice that in both cases it is the Adams who do the actual work. It was the first Adam who was responsible for us inheriting Original Sin. St. Paul indicates that it is our unity with the First Adam which produces sin and death in us, while it is our unity with the Second Adam that produces righteousness and life in us. The Adams are the key players, the ones who do all the work, but their work happens to be brought about through the agency of the two Eves, the first one who believed an evil angel and the second one who believed a good angel.

This distinction is reflected in the saying of the Church fathers: "Death through Eve, life through Mary." Even though Eve and Mary were not the ultimate causes of death and life, it was through their actions that death and new life entered the world.

Put within this Biblical context, both the New Adam, Christ, and now His Mother, the New Eve, are without sin just as the original Adam and Eve, because the Lord has placed them within salvation history to redeem Mankind as a whole.

This week I am reading Han Urs Von Balthasar and Pope Benedict's Mary, The Church at the Source, so perhaps that will give me more insight into the Church's teachings on these matters. I'm not exactly a Doctor of the Church. Far from it -- but I try to take and learn from the best of them, as much as I can.

God bless.