Actually, the RCC teaches that Mary didn’t die but was what they call *assumed* up into heaven; like the Ascension but she was taken up unlike Jesus who took Himself up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assumption_of_Mary
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02006b.htm
Regarding the day, year, and manner of Our Lady’s death, nothing certain is known. The earliest known literary reference to the Assumption is found in the Greek work De Obitu S. Dominae. Catholic faith, however, has always derived our knowledge of the mystery from Apostolic Tradition. Epiphanius (d. 403) acknowledged that he knew nothing definite about it (Haer., lxxix, 11). The dates assigned for it vary between three and fifteen years after Christ’s Ascension. Two cities claim to be the place of her departure: Jerusalem and Ephesus. Common consent favours Jerusalem, where her tomb is shown; but some argue in favour of Ephesus. The first six centuries did not know of the tomb of Mary at Jerusalem.
The belief in the corporeal assumption of Mary is founded on the apocryphal treatise De Obitu S. Dominae, bearing the name of St. John, which belongs however to the fourth or fifth century. It is also found in the book De Transitu Virginis, falsely ascribed to St. Melito of Sardis, and in a spurious letter attributed to St. Denis the Areopagite. If we consult genuine writings in the East, it is mentioned in the sermons of St. Andrew of Crete, St. John Damascene, St. Modestus of Jerusalem and others. In the West, St. Gregory of Tours (De gloria mart., I, iv) mentions it first. The sermons of St. Jerome and St. Augustine for this feast, however, are spurious. St. John of Damascus (P.G., I, 96) thus formulates the tradition of the Church of Jerusalem:
was taken up unlike Jesus who took Himself up.
Good. The two additions I would make are (1) that it is not de fide (so I understand) to think she did not die. She could have been assumed after dying; (2)The assumption is, I think, best understood (whether or not one agrees with the dogma) in eschatological terms. That is, she is and enjoys what all the blessed will be and enjoy 'on that day.'
I care nothing of what the papist church teaches, but what God’s word clearly states.
.