What does it mean to say that, just as God preserved the Virgin Mary from the stain of original sin, so also He preserves the Church’s faith from the corruption of error?
How are the two dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and papal infallibility, defined just years apart under Pope Pius IX, related to one another, and how do they differ? What is their ongoing significance for Christian believers? This lecture by Fr. Evan Koop, Saint Paul Seminary formator and instructor of dogmatic theology, presents insights from an untranslated essay of Matthias Scheeben, one of the greatest Catholic theologians of the 19th century.
About Fr. Koop
A native of Woodbury, Minnesota, Fr. Evan Koop is the youngest of four children born to Deacon Steven and Debbie Koop. He attended St. Thomas Academy and Washington University in St. Louis, after which he spent two years as a missionary with FOCUS (the Fellowship of Catholic University Students). He was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis on May 26, 2012. He spent four years as a parochial vicar ministering to the Hispanic community in several archdiocesan parishes, while also serving as a spiritual director at St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.
In 2016, Koop was assigned by Archbishop Bernard Hebda to pursue further studies in dogmatic theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Koop obtained his Licentiate in Sacred Theology in 2018, and in March 2023 he successfully defended his doctoral dissertation (summa cum laude) on the Mariology of Matthias Joseph Scheeben.
He is currently assigned to the faculty of The Saint Paul Seminary, where he serves as a formation director for seminarians and as an instructor of dogmatic theology. He is also the director of formation for the Companions of Christ, an association of diocesan priests living in community in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. On the weekends, Koop serves as a sacramental minister at two Hispanic parishes, St. Stephen’s and Holy Rosary in Minneapolis.