Rufus,
First of all, I want to state that, upon further reflectoin, your cry foul about my earlier post in which I expounded upon the Biblical discussion of Mary's assumption was misguided. While it did not go along with the title of your thread. It spoke to issues raised in your original post. We are not just answering titles on this board but posts. Therefore you in my view were out of line.
It saddens me when non-catholics think they know enough about Catholic theology to make such emphatic statements and posts such as you have done above and say "catholic you don't know what you beleive or what your church teaches so I will tell you.". Note these phrases in your very own post:
"defined as a dogma of faith,"
"was preparing to dogmatically define"
"declare, and define it lo be a divinely revealed dogma"
Notice anything in common. hint: it is the word dogma. Now prior to anything being dogmatically defined it has to be recognized as doctrine. Popes do not create doctrine. They dogmatize it. The article you posted only says that the actual evenT was not recorded in the Bible and that there was no written tradition of it external to Biblical writings in the earliest centuries. So, did Pius XII create doctrine. Nope, he dogmatized doctrine. The assuption is a doctrine that I can prove was in existence long before Pius walked the face of this earth. Please read from the CAtholic Encyclopedia:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02006b.htm
It says that the first evidence of the feast of the Assumption was in the Sixth Century (500's) in Gaul. Now that is a long time before Pius XII lived. You tell me, can there be a feast of the assumption without a belief in the Assumption? I don't see how.
So how could Pius possibly have created it? Therefore I repeat myself Pius XII could not possibly have "CREATED IT OUT OF THIN AIR" as you boldy proclaim. That's like saying that Cessna created the Airplane out of thin air. Your claim just does not hold water if you want us to stick solely to that claim.
Further I think you have a complete misunderstanding of the purpose of a Pope. We are not waiting at our computers and phones and listening to Radio free vatican for the next new doctrine to believe. Rather, all I have ever seen out of this Pope is strict adherence to already understood doctrines. He is not running around defining doctrines all the time. He rarely dogmatizes anything. Generally his decrees are not dogmatic but disciplinary, relating to practices of the faithful. Further, it seems you think that nobody believes a doctrine until the Pope dogmatizes it. This is simply not the case. There are many doctrines that have not been dogmatically stated by a pope or council and yet are still believed by the Church. A person in good conscience can dissent from a doctrine, not dogmatically defined but not in a public scandalous manner. I know of no instance in which something that was ever declared as official doctrine was recanted later.
This of course is very much unlike the Protestant denominations which have all sorts of newly defined doctrines according to what they THINK the Bible says.
Further I think it you look at the reformation, you will find that Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide are doctrines created out of "THIN AIR" by the reformers. There is no indication of them in the early writings of the Church either, unless you take snippets of a particular Church Father's quotes to suite you beliefs in retrospect. A global view of any father will not produce such "doctrines".
Now if you want to start another thread in which you accuse someone else of doctrinizing the Assumption, by all means feel free as it would be inappropriate of you to do that on this thread with the dogmatic stand you have taken on sticking to topics. I feel like I am beating a dead horse with you. Perhaps if I say it enough times in enough different ways you will understand.
Blessings.
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