Msg Base:  AREA 5  - ASK FATHER            CIN ECHO   AMDG
  Msg No: 145.  Thu 10-03-91 17:49
    From: Father Mateo
      To: Richard Epps
 Subject: Sacred Tradition

³        I hope that you can clear this up for me.  I understand that the
³ chrurch recognizes Sacred Tradition, as part of the gospel or as Pedro talks
³ about it, the oral part of the gospel that is handed down. There are so many
³ things that Catholics do as a matter of tradition.  Could you give me a
³ measure of how to distinguish between Sacred Tradition and the traditions of
³ men that are disputed in the bible.
 
Dear Richard,
 
Christ Himself left no written record of His gospel.  The first converts
were made and the first local churches formed by the preaching of the
Apostles and their followers.  Everything in the beginning was by oral
tradition of Christ's teaching and by Old Testament scriptures.
 
Moved by the Holy Spirit, some Apostles (and perhaps other first-century
Christian leaders) wrote gospels, letters, and treatises to already formed
churches.  These writings are not, either in part or as a whole, a systematic
presentation of all Christian doctrine.  In other words, not every doctrine
was fully set down nor completely developed by the time of the death of the
last Apostle.
 
The complete doctrine of Christ was and is entrusted to the Church, which
St. Paul calls "the pillar and foundation of the truth" (1st Tim 3:15).
The Church recognizes written tradition (Old and New Testament scripture) and
oral tradition, as Paul suggests in 2nd Thess 2:15.
 
Regarding oral tradition, the Second Vatican Council writes:  "The sayings of
the Holy Fathers are a witness to ... this Tradition ... its riches are poured
out in the practice and life of the Church, in her belief and her prayer.  By
means of the same (oral, Church-directed) Tradition, the full canon of the
sacred books is known to the Church and the holy Scriptures themselves are more
thoroughly understood....  Sacred Tradition and sacred Scripture, then, are
bound closely together, and communicate one with the other....  Both of them
come together to form one thing....  Sacred Scripture is the speech of God put
down in writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  Tradition transmits
in its entirety the Word of God entrusted to the Apostles by Christ and the Holy

Spirit, that they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their

preaching....  The Church does not draw her certainty about all revealed truths
from the holy Scriptures alone.  Hence both Scripture and Tradition must be
accepted and honored with equal devotion and reverence.  (Divine Revelation,
chap. I, nos. 8-9.)
 
In Matthew 15 and Mark 7, Christ rebukes the Pharisees for placing human
traditions on a level with or even above the Scriptures.  Some of these
pharisaic interpretations went contrary to the teaching of Scripture.  St.
Paul warns the Colossians (2:8) against certain teachings of pagan (probably
gnostic) philosophy.  Such traditions contradict the Christian doctrine and are
of themselves wrong and unChristian (and even unJewish, because most Jews were
not Pharisees).  They must be distinguished from a) divine Tradition, of which
the Council wrote, which is part of Christian revelation; and b) customs, usages
,
practices which form part of our ordinary exercise of our religion, such as sign
s
of the Cross, blessings, holy water, vestments, candles, and the like, which com
e
and go and change over the centuries and differ from one part of the Catholic wo
rld
to another.
 
                                     Sincerely in Christ,
                                     Father Mateo