For hundreds of years, Catholics have observed the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, celebrating Mary's being taken bodily to Heaven after her death. On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII solemnly declared:
By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.