A "Footloose Footnote"; or "A Step Out of TIME"?
In my postings from the TIME magazine article "Catholic Freedom vs Heirarchy" (Nov 22, 1968), I inadvertantly omitted the following footnote. There are some things that just have to be read to be believed, and then there are others that are even unbelievable when you read them. This is one of the latter.
The prestige of the papacy reached its peak during the lengthy reign of the learned, ascetic Pius XII, who issued the only ex cathedra statement of the century that was clearly labeled infallible: his 1950 decree that Mary was assumed bodily into heaven after her death.*Of all the predictions in this astounding article, this one perhaps takes the cake for being the most wide of the mark.
* Although it is still an article of faith, the dogma has little bearing on the lives of Catholics; many theologians take for granted that it will wither away, especially since it remains a strong barrier to ecumenism.
posted by Schütz @ 1:06 pm
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2 Comments:
Also 'wide of the mark' is the journalist's inclusion of "after her death" in the definition of the Assumption of Our Lady (cf. Munificentissimus Deus, para. 44).
Not that wide. While Munificentissimus Deus talks only of the Virgin "having completed the course of her earthly life", but the antecedent tradition leans very much to the view that she was assumed into heaven after death, and this is how the teaching is always presented in liturgy, sacred art, etc. Time may have conflated Munificentissimus Deus and the wider tradition, but I do not think they misrepresented the Catholic position.
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