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To: Mrs. Don-o; ansel12; metmom; boatbums; Iscool; Resettozero; Elsie; Gamecock; ...
One thing for sure can be found in there. The Catholic Church has declared "infallibly" that Mary died.

"These words are found in this volume: "Venerable to us, O Lord, is the festivity of this day on which the holy Mother of God suffered temporal death, but still could not be kept down by the bonds of death, who has begotten your Son our Lord incarnate from herself." [http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-xii_apc_19501101_munificentissimus-deus.html]

So why do Catholics keep claiming that the Catholic Church doesn't say whether Mary died or not?

98 posted on 03/06/2015 3:20:16 PM PST by CynicalBear (For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus)
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To: metmom; boatbums; Iscool; Resettozero; Elsie; Gamecock
The question has been raised as to whether the Catholic Church teaches that Mary died beore her body was taken up to heaven. The answer is that most Catholics believe that she did die, and very ancient sources attest to it, but this was not part of the infallible definition. In other words, the particular part about her dying is solidly founded, but not presented as infallible.

Pope Pius XII, in Munificentissimus Deus (1950), cites ancient liturgical texts from both East and West, as well as the writings of the Church Fathers, all indicating that the Blessed Virgin had died before her body was assumed into Heaven. Still, the dogma, as Pius XII defined it, leaves the question of whether the Virgin Mary died open. What Catholics must believe to be infallibly taught is "that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory."

The underlined phrase is ambiguous; it allows for the possibility that Mary may not have died before her Assumption. In other words, while most Christians East and West believer that Mary did die, Catholics are not bound, at least by the definition of the dogma, to believe it.

This well illustrates the difference between "infallible" and "solidly founded" or "authoritative." Generally speaking, the infallible part of a declaration will be very narrowly worded ---minimalist, if you will -- so that it encompasses nothing more than what is absolutely essential.

The entire text of an encyclical or a Ecumenical Council document is never infallibly proclaimed. Only a sentence or two of such a document is presented as infallible.

112 posted on 03/06/2015 8:14:33 PM PST by Mrs. Don-o ("The trouble ain't what people don't know: it's what they DO know that ain't so." - Will Rogers)
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