Religion: Dogma in Dispute

The division between Roman Catholics and other Christians was widened last week—by a split hair's breadth. A secret consistory was called to meet in Rome Oct. 30 to hear the Pope proclaim as official Roman Catholic dogma that the Virgin Mary was taken bodily into heaven at her death. The decision drew a prompt and strongly worded attack from the Church of England.

"We must at once state publicly," read a statement signed by the archbishops of Canterbury and York, "that the Church of England does not and cannot hold this doctrine to be a necessary part of the Catholic faith, belief in which may be required by members of the church

"The Church of England renders honor and reverence to the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ. But there is not the smallest evidence in the Scriptures or in the teaching of the early church of belief in the doctrine of her bodily assumption . . . We profoundly regret that the Roman Catholic Church has chosen by this act to increase dogmatic differences in Christendom and has thereby gravely injured the growth of understanding between Christians . . ."

In the U.S., the Protestant Episcopal Church's Presiding Bishop Henry Knox Sherrill heartily concurred with his British spiritual brothers. But Roman Catholics were quick to discount any divisive effect of the new dogma. The Assumption would be no impediment "to our separated brothers," wrote the Rev. Giuseppe Filograssi in the authoritative Jesuit fornightly Civiltà Catholica. "The true and crucial point of dissension rests in the primacy and infallibility of the Pope."

Actually the proclamation of the dogma of Mary's Assumption has been under intensive consideration by the Roman Catholic hierarchy since 1946, when Pius XII sent a circular letter to his bishops asking their advice. (The reply was overwhelmingly in favor of a papal pronouncement —TIME, Nov. 22, 1948.) And though there is no reference to the belief in the canonical Scriptures, the Assumption has been celebrated as a regular feast day since as early as the 7th Century. The new dogma would make only one difference. For Roman Catholics to doubt the truth of the doctrine today would be merely sinful, or, as the church puts it, "temerarious or rash." After Pope Pius XII pronounces it a dogma, disbelief in the Assumption will be considered formal heresy.