As Ratzinger states,
Before Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven was defined, all theological faculties in the world were consulted for their opinion. Our teachers' answer was emphatically negative . What here became evident was the one-sidedness, not only of the historical, but of the historicist method in theology. “Tradition” was identified with what could be proved on the basis of texts. Altaner , the patrologist from Wurzburg…had proven in a scientifically persuasive manner that the doctrine of Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven was unknown before the 5C ; this doctrine, therefore, he argued, could not belong to the “apostolic tradition. And this was his conclusion, which my teachers at Munich shared . This argument is compelling if you understand “tradition” strictly as the handing down of fixed formulas and texts [meaning having actual substance in history]…But if you conceive of “tradition” as the living process whereby the Holy Spirit introduces us to the fullness of truth and teaches us how to understand what previously we could still not grasp (cf. Jn 16:12-13), then subsequent “remembering” (cf. Jn 16:4, for instance) can come to recognize what it has not caught sight of [even bcz there was nothing to see] previously and was already handed down [invisibly, without evidence] in the original Word,” J. Ratzinger, Milestones (Ignatius, n.d.), 58-59. Therefore Rome can claim to "remember" a fable that only is evidenced as being a later development and make what at best warranted only speculation into a binding doctrine approx. 1800 years after the event allegedly occurred.
Would love to hear the catholic position on this.
IOW, anything goes.
They just have to want to believe something, no matter how far fetched and lacking in or even outright contradicting Scriptural support, and voila`, suddenly it’s *remembered*.
How convenient.
And then we’re condemned for wanting to believe only things that can be shown from Scripture to be taught in the early church, and *WE* are the *heretics*???????