[aruanan]

"By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: 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" [+Pius XII, 1950]

And notice that it doesn't say "testimony" because there was none given on this matter by either Jesus, Peter, or Paul. So the "authority" is invoked simply as a way of saying, "This is so because we say it's so. We're asserting we have the same authority as Jesus, Peter, and Paul and since you can't win in going up against them, you can't win in going up against us. Since they're unimpeachable and since we assert that we are of the same class as they, we, therefore, are unimpeachable in whatever we say, and this is what we're saying about Mary's assumption. Besides, it's divinely revealed and the proof of that is that because on our authority we say it's divinely revealed. So if you deny what we're asserting on our authority, you're going up against God, Jesus, Peter, and Paul. Why? Because they've ever said anything about us or vouched for us? No, because we invoke their authority as our authority and if you question it and don't repent of it, we'll cast you into outer darkness."

[kosta50]

So the "authority" is invoked simply as a way of saying, "This is so because we say it's so

And how is that different from you saying the Bible is true because I say it's true, or because the HS tells me it's true, or because the voices in my head say it's true, or because I spent the night in Holiday Inn?