{"id":61835,"date":"2025-08-15T23:42:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T21:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/eng\/?p=61835"},"modified":"2025-08-16T02:05:48","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T00:05:48","slug":"the-boy-who-helped-pius-xii-proclaim-the-assumption-of-mary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/eng\/2025\/08\/15\/the-boy-who-helped-pius-xii-proclaim-the-assumption-of-mary\/","title":{"rendered":"The Boy Who \u201cHelped\u201d Pius XII Proclaim the Assumption of Mary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-127774\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/bambino_assunzione_maria.webp\" alt=\"child assumption mary\" width=\"605\" height=\"313\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>Confirmation of the correctness of the <strong>dogma of the Assumption of Mary<\/strong> came to Pius XII from the little boy <strong>Gilles Bouhours<\/strong>. A short but significant story.<\/i><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">On today\u2019s feast of the <strong>Assumption of Mary<\/strong> we recall a story that few know.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">It is the story of <strong><mark>Gilles Bouhours<\/strong><\/mark>, a French boy whose unusual encounter with Pope Pius XII <strong>led<\/strong> to the dogmatic definition of the Assumption of the Virgin, proclaimed on November 1, 1950.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>The boy and the Assumption of Mary<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Born in 1944 in the Mayenne region, <strong>Gilles<\/strong> had a childhood marked by illness. A few months after birth, he contracted meningitis and encephalitis, diseases that could have led to his death. Against all odds, he recovered.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Shortly afterward, he began telling people that he had seen the Virgin Mary and had <strong>received a precise message<\/strong> to deliver directly to the Pope.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In 1949, Gilles and his father left for Rome, but the attempt to meet <strong>Pius XII<\/strong> failed; they succeeded the following year.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">On <strong>May 1, 1950<\/strong> in a private audience. It was then that little Bouhours spoke for the first time about the message and personally told the Pontiff the sentence he believed came from the Virgin: Mary, at the end of her earthly life, did not know the corruption of the tomb, but was assumed into heaven in body and soul.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Pius XII listened attentively and with emotion. It is known \u2013<strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/ec.aciprensa.com\/wiki\/Breve_historia_del_dogmna_de_la_Asunci%C3%B3n\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">as explained<\/a><\/em><\/strong> by the online Catholic Encyclopedia\u2013 that he <strong>asked the Virgin<\/strong> for a sign to confirm that the dogmatic definition of her glorious Assumption into heaven, in body and soul, was pleasing to Her.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">There is no <strong>direct evidence<\/strong> that Gilles Bouhours\u2019 message determined the papal decision; it is likely that <strong>the theological and pastoral process<\/strong> had already been underway for some time. But, coincidentally, the meeting took place on May 1, 1950, and <strong>exactly six months later<\/strong>, on November 1, 1950, the apostolic constitution <i>Munificentissimus Deus<\/i> declared the Assumption a dogma of faith.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Gilles\u2019 life was short. He died ten years later, in <strong>1960<\/strong>, at only fifteen years old and in sudden circumstances.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The figure of little Gilles remained linked to that decisive encounter with the Pope, so much so that in <strong>2014<\/strong> in the Diocese of Laval, a preliminary investigation was opened for a possible cause of beatification.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Theological foundation of the Assumption of Mary<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As always, the Church establishes <strong>a dogma of faith<\/strong> when it is already a centuries-old conviction of the people. <strong>It invents nothing new<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">And that of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary has always been <strong>a constant belief<\/strong> among Catholics, documented at least since the <strong>5th century<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A great boost was provided by the studies that arose on the occasion of the proclamation of the <strong>Immaculate Conception<\/strong> in 1854 by Pius IX, which inaugurated <strong>the era of \u201cMariology\u201d<\/strong>, a discipline of systematic and autonomous study on the figure of Mary.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">From that moment, important <strong>biblical studies<\/strong> also developed in favor of the Assumption, in which <strong>Saint Anthony Mary Claret<\/strong>, confessor to Queen Isabella II in 1863, also took part.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A decisive contribution came from the treatise of the Franciscan <strong>Carlos Balic<\/strong> in 1946, in which he re-evaluated the testimony of the <strong>apocryphal gospels<\/strong> on the Assumption, admitting their lateness and the fantasy they contained, but also a core of truth transmitted by tradition. Moreover, he explained, it is not possible to imagine a sudden explosion of faith in the Assumption of Mary without a preceding tradition to support it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In the dogmatic definition, Pius XII spoke of an <strong>\u201cimplicit revelation\u201d<\/strong> in the <i>sensus fidelium<\/i>, in the testimony of the sacred liturgy, and in that of some Church Fathers, particularly Saint John Damascene and Saint Germanus of Constantinople, as well as ancient scholastic theologians who demonstrated the truth of the Assumption.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Pope, however, did not intervene in the <strong>circumstances<\/strong> in which it occurred, infallibly proclaiming that Mary was taken up into heaven in body and soul <i>\u201cafter having completed the course of her earthly life\u201d<\/i>, <strong>without specifying<\/strong> how that course ended.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">It is also worth remembering that Pope Pacelli requested an opinion on the appropriateness of a dogmatic definition of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. The response was <strong>overwhelmingly positive<\/strong>: only 6 of the 1,181 consulted expressed reservations.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Even though the dogma of the Assumption is based on centuries of theological reflection in the Church, G<strong>od can also use the innocence of a child<\/strong> as an instrument to confirm the truth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Confirmation of the correctness of the dogma of the Assumption of Mary came to Pius XII from little Gilles Bouhours. A significant story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":107,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1735,1739,1738,1737,1736],"class_list":["post-61835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-assumption-of-mary","tag-catholic-dogma-catholic-dogma","tag-dogma","tag-gilles-bouhours","tag-pius-xii"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Boy Who \u201cHelped\u201d Pius XII Proclaim the Assumption of Mary - UCCR<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Confirmation of the correctness of the dogma of the Assumption of Mary came to Pius XII from little Gilles Bouhours. 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