Today I read the book Theotokos: A Theological Encyclopedia of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Michael O’Carroll, a Catholic scholar and priest. One has to appreciate a lot of the intellectual integrity of the volume, including the following comments about the dogmatising of the Bodily Assumption:
The dogma was part of a programme planned by Pius XII, as he confided to Mgr. (later Cardinal) Tardini shortly after he had become Pope. It came as a climax to a movement of piety and theology centred on Our Lady, and prompted continuity and expansion of this movement. Literature on the subject had increased in the present century; in the decade prior to the definition . . . Due largely to Fr. Jugie’s expertise and influence, the question of Mary’s death was removed from the scope of the dogma. The idea of tracing a historical tradition from apostolic times was abandoned. It was thought better to concentrate on the whole of divine revelation so as to bring to an explicit stage what it contained implicitly. (Michael O’Carroll, Theotokos: A Theological Encyclopedia of the Blessed Virgin Mary [Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1982], 55)
