LATELY, there has been constant mention of “tradition,” particularly in relation to the insistence of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) to proceed with episcopal ordinations without the canonically required mandate of the Holy See — bishops who will not owe their exercise of the episcopal office to the supreme authority of the Catholic Church. This group that persists in its nebulous status within the Catholic Church has repeatedly argued that because of Vatican II and the post-conciliar teaching of the Popes — and the bishops too, since they also find fault with such concepts as synodality — there has been a break with the “Tradition” that is normative on the Church of which they believe they are the sole guardians and defenders. So, what is Tradition?
Before Vatican II, to counter the Protestant, really Luther’s, insistence on “Scripture alone” (sola scriptura), Catholics maintained: Scripture and Tradition. That gave the impression that Catholics drew from two sources — one, the Bible and second an amorphous reserve of beliefs and practices called Tradition. The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation of Vatican II puts things in perspective.
The life and ministry of Jesus, culminating in his passion, death and Resurrection, had, for its privileged witnesses, the apostles who, for the first decades of the Church’s existence, taught and preached by word of mouth. The life of the Church therefore did not start with the written Scriptures — although the community of Christ’s disciples, in fidelity to the Lord’s own ways and teaching, continue to draw from the richness of the Old Testament. In fact, it was because of this earlier layer of oral tradition (i.e., handing over) and ecclesial practice that we have the New Testament. It was not then the New Testament that brought about the Church. Rather, it was the Church’s collective memory, doctrine and practice that found its way into the Pauline corpus, the Gospels, the Johannine literary complex and the letters of Peter, James and Jude.
All writing is engendered within a given tradition and understood within that same tradition. This is a hermeneutic fact, against which there is no argument. It is simply the way human understanding proceeds. And this tradition — essential to understanding any written text — is part of Sacred Tradition. One facet therefore of the Tradition that is normative for the Church is the way Scripture has been formed, transmitted, received and understood through the ages.
There are other works, not part of the canonical Scripture, that nevertheless bear witness to what the early Church believed. These will include the Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas as well as the letters of the Fathers of the Church among whom are Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna, Clement of Rome and others. To these must be added the early liturgical formularies found in the Leonianum, the Gelasianum and the Gregorianum in accordance with the axiom “Lex orandi, lex credendi” that makes us find in the prayers of the Church, particularly her official (liturgical) prayers the faith the believing community professes.
Precisely because Tradition is tradition, it is living. One theologian so aptly put it by calling Tradition “the life of the Spirit within the Church.” Indeed, aside from the concept of the Magisterium, or the Teaching Office of the Church, the office exercised primarily by bishops in communion with the Pope and by priests as cooperators with the bishops, there are also related the concepts of “sensus fidelium” — the “sense of the faithful,” their persuasions, convictions and the realization that the signs of the times are a genuine “locus theologicus” — a site for theological reflection.
Just as legal tradition is shaped by jurisprudence and jurisprudence responds both to the text of the law as well as to concrete life situations (lebenswelt), so does Tradition in the Church. The Scriptures will remain the highest norm, but Scriptures as interpreted in the life of the Church and by those entrusted with the ministry of preaching the Word. After all, the eternal fount of Revelation is not a book, but the living and glorious Lord who has sent his Spirit into his Church and promised it the Spirit’s unfailing guidance. And, at all times, it will be the discernment of an organized community — not a motley assembly that, by a show of hands, determines what the current doctrine will be, but by the Pope and the bishops in communion with him, assisted by priests and actively involving lay persons who respond to the prompting of the same Spirit.
rannie_aquino@sanbeda.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@csu.edu.ph
