An Honest Question:
“Did the Catholic Church just jump the shark by electing Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger? This is an honest question… not a slam.”
— Anonymous user at an online forum on April 19, 2005
A Munificent Answer:
No. That leap of faith was taken long before, on November 1, 1950. See the note below.
“The Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 15 August….
…has a double object: (1) the happy departure of Mary from this life; (2) the assumption of her body into heaven. It is the principal feast of the Blessed Virgin….
Note: By promulgating the Bull Munificentissimus Deus, 1 November, 1950, Pope Pius XII declared infallibly that the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was a dogma of the Catholic Faith.”
Also on today’s date (AP, Today in History)–
“In 1998, 29 people were killed by a car bomb that tore apart the center of Omagh, Northern Ireland; a splinter group calling itself the Real IRA claimed responsibility.”
On the same day in 1998, The New York Times published Sarah Boxer’s century-end summary: