A televised Catholic Mass in Spain has drawn sharp criticism after a priest appeared to question the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary while celebrating the very feast dedicated to the dogma.
The controversy occurred at La Asunción parish in Torrelavega, Spain, during a Mass marking the parish’s 125th anniversary on the Feast of the Assumption. According to LifeSiteNews, Father Juan Carlos Rodríguez del Pozo used his homily to offer an interpretation of the Assumption that critics say directly contradicts defined Catholic teaching.
“Today we celebrate Mary ascending to heaven, body and soul,” Rodríguez said before adding, “Obviously, we should not take this literally. No human being ascends to heaven, body and soul.”
“Heaven is not a physical place; it is a state of the soul — a state of fulfillment and happiness,” he continued, according to LifeSiteNews.
The remarks concern one of the Catholic Church’s solemnly defined Marian dogmas. In 1950, Pope Pius XII formally defined the Assumption in the apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus, declaring that Mary, “having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”
Pius XII further stated that the bodily Assumption is “a truth that has been revealed by God” and therefore must be “firmly and faithfully believed by all children of the Church.”
Rodríguez reportedly went further during the homily by describing the development of Marian titles and honors using the term “mythology.”
According to LifeSiteNews, the priest said that “mythology has shaped her and exalted her to such an extent,” referring to the “necklaces, crowns, privileges, and titles” associated with Marian devotion.
“Sometimes we must turn to mythology to speak of realities that are earthly,” he said.
The remarks prompted a forceful response from Universitarios Católicos, a Catholic organization in Spain.
“Don Juan Carlos, the Assumption of Mary is NOT something ‘symbolic’ or ‘mythological,’” the organization stated, according to LifeSiteNews. It pointed directly to Pius XII’s 1950 definition that Mary “was assumed in body and soul to heavenly glory.”
“To deny it is to desert the Catholic faith,” the group said, citing Munificentissimus Deus.
The papal document itself contains an unusually explicit warning concerning rejection of the dogma. After defining the Assumption, Pius XII declared that anyone who would “willfully deny or to call into doubt” what had been defined had “fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.”
The Church has continued to teach the bodily nature of Mary’s Assumption in the decades since the dogma was formally defined. St. John Paul II explained in a 1997 general audience that Mary “was taken up into the glory of heaven with her body,” emphasizing that the Assumption concerns the glorification of Mary’s body and not merely the survival or heavenly happiness of her soul.
The controversial Mass also included an unusual liturgical performance around the altar.
According to LifeSiteNews, Rodríguez introduced a “contemplative dance group” whose members wore brightly colored hoop skirts and danced in a circle inside the church.
“The circle represents perfection,” Rodríguez said while introducing the performance. “Around the Eucharistic table, there is a place for everyone.”
Following the dance, the priest reportedly told the congregation that it had “enveloped us in that circle of love and solidarity.”
The combination of the performance and the priest’s statements concerning the Assumption prompted criticism online, but the doctrinal questions raised by the homily remain particularly serious because the Assumption is not presented by the Catholic Church as a metaphor or optional theological interpretation.
Pius XII defined it as a “divinely revealed dogma” using the Church’s supreme teaching authority.
For Catholics, therefore, the Feast of the Assumption celebrates the extraordinary privilege granted to the Mother of God: that at the completion of her earthly life, Mary was taken into heavenly glory not only in soul, but in body and soul.
As Pope Benedict XVI explained while celebrating the feast in 2010, the meaning of the Assumption is contained precisely in Pius XII’s definition that Mary “was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”
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