The definition was
controversial for a number of reasons. It raised the question of the
relationship between the magisterium and history, and of tradition and
scripture. It was the first (and possibly last) exercise of infallibility as
defined by Vatican I, and even then did not meet the Council’s implicit
conditions: whereas Vatican I thought that a definition could be used to put an
end to controversy and crisis in the church, in this instance bishops from all over
the world were said to be ‘almost unanimous’ (D-S, 3902), which made the
definition redundant. It set up an additional barrier to ecumenism. It was an
act of defiance of the world. This last aspect was well brought out by Cardinal
Giuseppe Siri, who was close enough to Pius XII to be considered his dauphin.
Siri explained that the definition of the Assumption ‘was an act of courage
because Pius XII challenged directly with an infallible definition a world that
did not like teachers’ (Siri, on the 25th anniversary of Pius XII’s death,
October 8, 1983, p. 4). This made it wound like an act of ecclesiastical machismo.
French theologians, still reeling from Humani Generis, saw it as a loyalty
test. (Peter Hebblethwaite, John XXIII: Pope of the Council [London:
Geoffrey Chapman, 1984], 230)
Further Reading
Chapter 5: The Bodily Assumption of Mary,
pp. 139-56 of Behold
the Mother of My Lord: Towards a Mormon Mariology (2017)
