Great!! He must have been referring to the popes.
Jerome knew Scripture. Hence he knew that Mary was not sinless.
Jerome
Jerome apparently didn't believe in the sinlessness of Mary. What is quoted is from a treatise he wrote against Pelagianism. It is not suggesting that Roman Catholicism agrees with all of the arguments used by Pelagians. Rather that some of what Jerome said against the Pelagians is relevant to the RCC's claim that Mary was sinless from conception onward. For example, Jerome repeatedly refers to the universality of sin among men (Jesus being exempted, since He's God, not just man), and he repeatedly asks the Pelagians for an example of a person who has lived without sin. Apparently, Jerome didn't think they'd be able to cite Mary as an example.
One portion of the quote below mentions Mary. It's important to understand the context. Jerome is arguing that a person can be relatively righteous, in comparison with other people, yet still be a sinner. He gives numerous examples to that effect. After mentioning Mary, he mentions John the Baptist. I've included the sentence in which John the Baptist is mentioned, so that it will be clear that Jerome is including Mary among other people. The implication is that though Mary is more righteous than some people, such as Elizabeth and Zacharias, she's only relatively righteous. She, too, is a sinner.
"Medical skill, craftsmanship, and so on, are found in many persons; but to be always without sin is a characteristic of the Divine power only. Therefore, either give me an instance of those who were for ever without sin; or, if you cannot find one, confess your impotence, lay aside bombast, and do not mock the ears of fools with this being and possibility of being of yours. For who will grant that a man can do what no man was ever able to do?.....For if a man can be without sin, and it is clear the Apostles were not without sin, a man can be higher than the Apostles: to say nothing of patriarchs and prophets whose righteousness under the law was not perfect, as the Apostle says, 'For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God: being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God set forth to be a propitiator.'...For it is just my own view that no creature can be perfect in respect of true and finished righteousness. But that one differs from another, and that one man's righteousness is not the same as another's, no one doubts; nor again that one may be greater or less than another, and yet that, relatively to their own status and capacity, men may be called righteous who are not righteous when compared with others....Elizabeth and Zacharias, whom you adduce and with whom you cover yourself as with an impenetrable shield, may teach us how far they are beneath the holiness of blessed Mary, the Lord's Mother, who, conscious that God was dwelling in her, proclaims without reserve, 'Behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For He that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is His name. And His mercy is unto generations and generations of them that fear Him: He hath showed strength with His arm.' Where, observe, she says she is blessed not by her own merit and virtue, but by the mercy of God dwelling in her. And John himself, a greater than whom has not arisen among the sons of men, is better than his parents....And again, he in comparison with whom you are inferior will be a sinner in respect of some other virtue, relatively to you or to another person; and thus it happens that whoever is thought to be first, is inferior to him who is his superior in some other particular....We are not told that a man can be without sin, which is your view, but that God, if He chooses, can keep a man free from sin, and of His mercy guard him so that he may be without blemish. And I say that all things are possible with God; but that everything which a man desires is not possible to him, and especially, an attribute which belongs to no created thing you ever read of....And although he professes to imitate, or rather complete the work of the blessed martyr Cyprian in the treatise which the latter wrote to Quirinus, he does not perceive that he has said just the opposite in the work under discussion. Cyprian, in the fifty-fourth heading of the third book, lays it down that no one is free from stain and without sin, and he immediately gives proofs" (Against the Pelagians, 1:9, 1:14, 1:16, 1:23-24, 1:32)
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So Jerome votes: NO, Mary was NOT sinless!
8-) 8-)