Let me see if I understand this. Somehow the proposition that Mary needed to be immaculate is somehow dependent upon the time in which it is published in an encyclical?
Why would the proposition be dependent upon being published in a Romanist encyclical? Wouldn't the proposition be either true or false irregardless of when Romanists decided to publish a ruling?
I never realized how seriously you guys took the "bind on earth...bind in heaven" such that it could change the nature of a proposition.
It seems to be a license to do anything at all, doesn't it?
What I did say was that it was not de Fide until the definition. Assent to it was not required.
Currently it is not decided whether Mary was assumed before or after her death. Clearly, if we grant the Assumption, one or the other must be true. But it has net been declared one way or the other. The Church may (and presumably does) discuss it.
Before Nicea it was okay to argue Arianism. Now it's not. Before Chalcedon one could argue monophysitism or monothelitism. I was just made aware of a monothelite movement arising among some Catholics. Because of Chalcedon, as I read their stuff, I can see right away that whatever the relationship between God's will and man's IS, THEIR version is certainly erroneous.
There still is this notion that the Church runs the flock with a tight rein. That's just not true. It's only when an issue comes to a kind of boiling point that definitions are made.
And once they're made they're settled (in theory at least) and we can move on.
Definitions do not make something true. We may be jerks, even Big jerks, but not THAT big.
One more stab at it. If you wanted to become a Catholic in 1953 you would not have to give assent to the idea that Mary was immaculately conceived. But now, when we instruct people who want to come into full communion, we try to lay out both the big Marian Dogmata, to explain them, to say why we think they are worthy of belief. And we say if you cannot assent to this, you really shouldn't be coming into full communion.