In Today's Catholic World News Blog

*We can, therefore, easily imagine with what delight he [Ven. John Neumann] received in October 1854, a formal invitation from Pius IX to take part in the deliberations on the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This was for him the manifestation of God’s will. He immediately set about making preparations, and these included his magnificent Pastoral Letter on our Blessed Mother. "Never, Christian brethren,’’ he wrote, ‘‘never can we admit that she was for one moment the slave of the devil....Purer than heaven’s purest angel, brighter than its brightest seraph, Mary, —after God her Creator, Who made her what she is and gave her all — is the most perfect of beings, the masterpiece of Infinite Wisdom, Almighty Power, and Eternal Love....May the day soon dawn upon the world....when with one mind and heart Christendom will acknowledge and proclaim this her most honorable privilege!”’

He left America on the 20th of October, and after a rough passage of seventeen days (at sea) arrived at Havre [city in France, then went to Rome]. ... His Holiness received him frequently, conversed long with him, and granted him many favors for his diocese. The reunions of the Bishops were full of interest and delight to him. To see Prelates of every degree and from every clime, and to hear them with one voice professing their faith and the faith of their people in the absolute sinlessness of Mary, and then to be *present when Pius the Great declared to the whole world, as a dogma of faith, that Mary through prevision of the merits of her Divine Son was conceived IMMACULATE, that no breath of sin ever sullied her most pure soul; these were for him a joy beyond description; to be there was paradise."

*An amazing fact... Ven. John Neumann, Bishop of Philadelphia, standing next to the Pope, in St. Peter's Basilica, on Dec. 8th, 1854, held the book from which Pius IX read the formal declaration, proclaming the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception!  -TCW