Mary's Bodily Assumption

In short, Pelikan helps us to see that the theologically primary issue is not the pope’s exercise of infallibility in the proclamation of Mary’s Assumption but rather the whole basis of the Church’s teaching authority.27 Pelikan’s view of the “mature Roman Catholic” requires that each believer evaluate which doctrines of the Church (and/or of the Bible) are true.28 This view of revelation and reason, which Newman termed “private judgment,” involves a range of problems, as Pelikan came to realize later in his career.