Munificentissimus Deus

The Munificentissimus Deus is an apostolic constitution with which Pope Pius XII, on November 1, 1950, defined the Catholic dogma of the Assumption of Mary in body and soul to heaven. His promulgation was preceded by a consultation of all Catholic bishops: with the encyclical Deiparae Virginis Mariae (May 1, 1946) the Pontiff asked the other bishops about the opportunity of defining the dogma. The positive response was almost unanimous.

The text contains the biblical passages (implicit or allusive) and the statements of some theologians and doctors of the Church (John Damascene, Antonio de Padua, Albertus Magnus) that can be used as a support of the dogma. However, as the document expresses, it is rather based on the living and constant faith of the people of God that constitutes the motivation of the proposition of the Assumption of the Virgin. The document shows the Christological dimension of the truth of the Assumption (as a close collaborator of Christ in his salvific mission, Mary was associated with the Son in glory), the mariological dimension (the Assumption is seen as the crowning of the privileges granted by God to the Virgin) and the ecclesiological (the whole Church can contemplate in the Assunta its future). Bibliography

wiki