Lexicon of the Crisis: “Tradition”

By Fr. Paul Robinson, SSPX

Introduction

In his landmark encyclical on Modernism, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Pope St. Pius X identifies several traditional terms that are used by Modernists, but in a completely different sense from that of Catholic teaching. After the publication of the encyclical, Modernism went underground for some time, but then resurfaced in a subtler and more dangerous form, that of Neo-Modernism. Like its grandfather in anti-faith, Neo-Modernism employs traditional terms with different meanings. Those who are not aware of the change of meaning are likely either to judge the writings of Neo-Modernists to be ambiguous but innocuous or quite simply orthodox. The purpose of this lexicon is to take the terms identified by St. Pius X as being reinterpreted by Modernists and try to show the difference between their traditional meaning and how they have been employed by the documents of Vatican II and the Conciliar Popes. We hope that this will assist those reading post-Conciliar documents and statements to detect the Modernism that is latent in them but which is not often immediately apparent if one does not understand the sense in which the words are being used.

Old Meaning

New Meaning

What is Tradition? Tradition is the deposit of the Faith confided by Our Lord to the Apostles and the Church, embodied in oral Tradition and written Tradition, and transmitted to future generations by the Magisterium of the Church infallibly guided by the Holy Ghost

What is Tradition? “Tradition is the history of the Spirit who acts in the Church’s history through the mediation of the Apostles and their successors, in faithful continuity with the experience of the origins [of the Church]”1

What are the elements of Tradition?

Its elements are the following:

  • Its contents are the unchanging truths that must be believed to save one’s soul.
  • Its action is the transmission of those same truths to all generations until the end of time.
  • Its composition is two sources of Revelation, oral or ecclesiastical Tradition, and Scripture, whose contents are different.
  • Its role is a remote rule of faith for Catholics, which the living Magisterium, the proximate rule, makes explicit.
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    What are the elements of Tradition?

    Its elements are the following:

  • Its contents is the experience of the faith common to all Catholics throughout the ages.
  • Its action is to transmit to each Catholic throughout the ages an experience of all that the Church is and believes.
  • Its composition is the mass of Catholics throughout the ages sharing a common faith experience with the Apostles and bearing witness to the beliefs and identity of the Church.
  • Its role is to make the reality of the faith accessible to believers, providing them experiences from which they can construct their faith.
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    So Tradition is living?

    No. The Magisterium or teaching office of the Church is living, in that it is present at all times to present to Catholics the same truths in different ways, adapted to circumstances, and to make clear what Tradition contains, i.e. what has been believed by Catholics “everywhere, always, and by all.”

    So Tradition is living?2

    Yes. Over the course of the history of the Church, believers attain a deeper awareness of the realities that the Apostles experienced through their own faith experiences. Thus, the pilgrim Church progresses in its journey throughout the course of history.

    So Tradition changes?

    No. The dogmas that Tradition contains never change. The way in which they are presented changes according to each time. Their understanding by the faithful becomes clearer over time through definitions of the Magisterium.

    So Tradition changes?3

    Yes. Tradition is not “a collection of things or words, like a box of dead things” but “rather a river of new life.”4 It is passed on by one man to another by a living exchange, such that it imposes itself with continual innovation according to the needs of the times, while at the same time progressing toward plenitude.

    So Tradition is subordinate to the Magisterium?

    Yes. The Magisterium is the proximate rule of faith for Catholics, telling them what is contained in Tradition with the authority of Jesus Christ and binding them to believe it.

    So Tradition is subordinate to the Magisterium?3

    Yes and no. The Magisterium determines the objective faith of Catholics, but with the assistance of living Tradition. The Holy Ghost places the realities of the faith in the faithful through their faith experiences. This in turn gives them a collective consciousness and makes them active witnesses of Tradition. By this, they provide the Church with Her intuition about who She is and what She has received.

    Which is more important, ecclesiastical or written Tradition? 

    Ecclesiastical Tradition is more important than Scripture by its contents (it contains truths not found in Scripture), its antiquity (the Apostles preached before writing the New Testament), its plenitude (it contains of itself all revealed truths), and its sufficiency (it does not need Scripture, but Scripture needs it).
    Ecclesiastical Tradition both establishes truths of the Faith that are not in Scripture and helps interpret the meaning of Scripture.

    Which is more important, ecclesiastical or written Tradition?5

    Written Tradition or Scripture is more important in that it contains all revealed truths while Tradition merely interprets them. Scripture is inspired, while oral Tradition is assisted by the Holy Ghost. Scripture is fixed, while oral Tradition is living, a means of penetrating the realities of Scripture.

    What quotations support this notion of Tradition?

    There are many Catholic texts that support this notion:

  • Vatican I – “The doctrine of faith which God revealed … has been entrusted as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ, to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence, also, that understanding of its sacred dogmas must be perpetually retained, which Holy Mother Church has once declared; and there must never be recession from that meaning under the specious name of a deeper understanding [can. 3]. …
    ‘Therefore . . . let the understanding, the knowledge, and wisdom of individuals as of all, of one man as of the whole Church, grow and progress strongly with the passage of the ages and the centuries; but let it be solely in its own genus, namely in the same dogma, with the same sense and the same understanding’ (St. Vincent of Lerins).” Dei Filius, ch. 4 (Dz 1800)
  • Pope Pius IX – “The Church of Christ, watchful guardian that she is, and defender of the dogmas deposited with her, never changes anything, never diminishes anything, never adds anything to them.” Ineffabilis Deus
  • Pope St. Pius X – “Tradition, as understood by the Modernists, is a communication with others of an original experience, through preaching by means of the intellectual formula. To this formula, in addition to its representative value they attribute a species of suggestive efficacy which acts firstly in the believer by stimulating the religious sense … and secondly, in those who do not yet believe by awakening in them for the first time the religious sense and producing the experience. In this way is religious experience spread abroad among the nations.” Pascendi, §15 (Dz 2083)
  • Pope Pius XII – “Fictions of evolution, by which whatever is absolute, firm, and immutable, is repudiated, have paved the way for a new erroneous philosophy which … has obtained the name of ‘existentialism,’ since it is concerned only with the ‘existence’ of individual things, and neglects the immutable essence of things.
    There is also a kind of false ‘historicism,’ which attends only to events of human life, and razes the foundations of all truth and absolute law, not only insofar as it pertains to the philosophical matters, but to Christian teachings as well.” Humani Generis, Dz 2306
  • Pope St. Pius X – “Fourthly, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same explanation. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another, different from the one which the Church held previously.” Anti-Modernist Oath
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    What quotations support this notion of Tradition?

    There are many Catholic texts that support this notion:

  • Vatican II – “The Tradition that comes from the apostles makes progress in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on. This comes … through the contemplation and study of believers, who ponder these things in their hearts. It comes from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience. And it comes from the preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth.” Dei Verbum, §8.
  • Pope Francis – “Christian doctrine is not a closed system incapable of generating questions, doubts, queries, but it’s alive, and able to unsettle, animate. Doctrine has a face that isn’t rigid, a body that moves and develops, it has tender flesh: that of Jesus Christ.” (Discourse in Florence, Nov. 10, 2015)
  • Pope Francis – “Tradition is a living reality and only a partial vision regards the ‘deposit of faith’ as something static… The word of God is a dynamic and living reality that develops and grows because it is aimed at a fulfillment that none can halt… Doctrine cannot be preserved without allowing it to develop, nor can it be tied to an interpretation that is rigid and immutable without demeaning the working of the Holy Spirit.”6 (Oct. 11, 2017, address on changing the catechism’s teaching on the death penalty)
  • Pope Benedict XVI – “Thanks to the Paraclete, it will always be possible for subsequent generations to have the same experience of the Risen One that was lived by the apostolic community at the origin of the Church… Tradition is not the transmission of things or words, a collection of dead things. Tradition is the living river that links us to the origins, the living river in which the origins are ever present.” General Audience, April 26, 2006
  • Pope Benedict XVI – “It is clear that this commitment to expressing a specific truth in a new way demands new thinking on this truth and a new and vital relationship with it.”
    “The Second Vatican Council, with its new definition of the relationship between the faith of the Church and certain essential elements of modern thought, has reviewed or even corrected certain historical decisions, but in this apparent discontinuity it has actually preserved and deepened her inmost nature and true identity.” December 22, 2005
  • Pope John Paul II – “The root of this schismatic act [the consecrations of 1988] can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory notion of Tradition. Incomplete, because it does not take sufficiently into account the living character of Tradition.”
    “The extent and depth of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council call for a renewed commitment to deeper study in order to reveal clearly the Council’s continuity with Tradition, especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps because they are new, have not yet been well understood by some sections of the Church.” Ecclesia Dei Adflicta, §§4, 6
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    What does this notion of Tradition serve?

    It serves reality, the divine order, and divine revelation.

    What does this notion of Tradition serve?

    It serves modern man, by making his experiences the determinant of truth, modern philosophy and evolution, by the idea of progressive truth, and ecumenism by holding Scripture as the only source of objective Revelation.

    What are the major differences between these two notions of Tradition?

    The one on the left considers Tradition as fixed, while the one on the right considers it as changing. In the one on the left, Tradition is objective (dogmas), while for the notion on the right, it is subjective (experiences). On the left, man believes what he is told, while on the right, he tells what he believes.

    Endnotes

    1 Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, May 3, 2006 (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20060503_en.html)

    2 Cf. Gleize, Fr. Jean-Michel, “Du Magistère Vivant et de la Tradition – pour une ‘Réception Thomiste’ de Vatican II ?” Courrier de Rome, July-August 2009.

    3 cf. Emmanuel-Marie, Fr., “Dei Verbum: Les notions conciliaires de Révélation et de Tradition vivante,” in La Religion de Vatican II (Avrillé:2004), First Paris Symposium, Oct. 2002.

    4 Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, April 26, 2006 (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20060426_en.html)

    5 Cf. Brandler, Fr. Christopher, “De Dei Filius à Dei Verbum: un progrès ?”, Le Sel de la Terre, no. 7, Winter 1993.

    6 https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2017/october/documents/papa-francesco_20171011_convegno-nuova-evangelizzazione.html