A report to be presented to the Church of Ireland general synod in Armagh tomorrow afternoon will say that there is neither biblical nor historical basis for the Catholic Church doctrines of the Assumption or the Immaculate Conception and that both are justified by the doctrine of papal infallibility, which it also rejects.
In a response to the document Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ, agreed by the Anglican and Roman Catholic International Commission and published last May, the standing committee of the Church of Ireland also says that "at times it is difficult to avoid an impression of lack of balance and even some 'special pleading" ' in the document.
The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, ie that she was born without original sin, was promulgated as a dogma of Catholic faith by Pope Pius IX on December 8th, 1854, and is celebrated on that date each year.
The doctrine of the Assumption, ie that Mary was assumed bodily into heaven, was promulgated as a dogma of Catholic faith by Pope Pius XII on November 1st, 1950, and is celebrated on August 15th each year.
"That Mary was 'assumed body and soul' into heaven when the course of her earthly life was over is not to be found in scripture, the last glimpse of her being that in the first chapter in the Acts of the Apostles", the standing committee report says.
It continues: "Similarly with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, it has to be said that the conception of Mary is not mentioned in scripture." It says that "the process by which this doctrine came to prevail in the Roman Catholic tradition is itself problematic as it appears to have involved, not a genuine discussion, but the gradual suppression of dissent."
It is also a doctrine "which appears not to be in accordance with the teaching of three of the greatest 'doctors' of the faith recognised in the Roman Catholic Church itself, St Augustine, St Bernard of Clairvaux, and, above all, St Thomas Aquinas."
It says of "the two Marian dogmas" that "they do appear, in biblical terms, to be new doctrines" which depend for their validity "upon the presumed authority of the Pope as Bishop of Rome to make a definitive decision on what the doctrine of the Church is".
The effect of so doing is "to call in question the validity of 'infallibility'."
At the First Vatican Council in 1870 Pope Pius IX promulgated the doctrine of infallibility, whereby in certain circumstances it is Catholic belief that the Pope cannot err.
"Papal infallibility, insofar as it may be deemed to rest on the authority of the declaration of a General Council (Vatican I), is not thereby established, not being itself based on scripture; and the exercise of papal authority in relation to the two (Marian) dogmas does not, in the mind of the Church of Ireland, thereby establish them either," the report says.
