Many speak of the Tradition of the Church without truly understanding what Tradition means. Others are confused about its true meaning and composition. So then: What is the Tradition of the Church? To understand what the Tradition of the Church is, and what it is not, is a matter of vital importance.
As part of Revelation we all know that Tradition is everything that, by oral transmission and not through the Sacred Scriptures, forms part of the Deposit of Faith. On this point there is no difficulty. But from the theological point of view, to define “Tradition” proves problematic and very confusing for many.
Tradition from the theological point of view
The Tradition of the Church, from the theological point of view, is a combination of elements that come together to create an inseparable whole; this is the very essence of the Church founded by Christ. These elements can be considered in two groups: the immutable ones, which never change and always remain identical, and those which can change or are modifiable. It is of the utmost importance to understand this difference, for if it is not well understood one can fall into most grave errors: those who wish to change what cannot be changed in Tradition fall into the most grave error of modernism or progressivism, an error condemned by the Magisterium in the Syllabus and in so many other official documents. Those who do not understand that Tradition is likewise composed of elements that can change follow a mistaken, limited and incomplete notion of Tradition.
The elements that do not change and always remain identical in Tradition are dogma and morals. The dogma and morals of the Church—what we must believe and what we must do or not do in order to be saved—are immutable and remain identical throughout all the ages. That dogma and those morals are an element of Tradition but are not the totality of Tradition. In great error are those who confuse immutable dogma and morals as synonyms of, or as the whole of, Tradition. This is not so, for dogma and morals are not the totality of Tradition but only elements of it.
It is like this: Paris is not the whole of France but only a part of it. And while it is true that Paris is an essential and principal part of France, it is also true that France is greater than Paris. There are other areas, cities and provinces in France besides Paris. The same happens with Tradition. Immutable dogma and morals are an essential and principal part of Tradition but are not its totality, for Tradition embraces more than dogma and morals. The Tradition of the Church contains more elements; it is greater than immutable dogma and morals alone. To say or to believe that Tradition is composed solely and only of dogma and morals is a great error and a limited vision of it.
Dogma, Morals, Liturgy, Discipline and Pastoral Action, elements of Tradition
Tradition is not composed only of the dogma and morals that cannot change and remain identical throughout all the ages, but is also composed of liturgy, discipline, and the pastoral action of the Magisterium. The sum of all these elements—immutable dogma and morals, liturgy, discipline, and pastoral action—forms what is known as the Tradition of the Church.
–Catechism of the Catholic Church (78): “This living transmission, accomplished in the Holy Spirit, is called Tradition inasmuch as it is distinct from Sacred Scripture, though closely bound up with it. Through it, ‘the Church, in her teaching, her life and her worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes’ (DV 8). ‘The words of the holy Fathers bear witness to the living presence of this Tradition, whose riches pass into the practice and life of the Church that believes and prays’ (DV 8).”
Thus, if Apostolic Tradition is the part of Revelation not contained in the Bible, in the theological sense the Tradition of the Church as such is a combination of elements: some immutable and unchangeable, others changeable. The immutable ones are dogma and morals, and the mutable ones, which adapt to the times and circumstances, are the liturgy, the discipline, and the pastoral action. Thus does Pope Benedict XVI define Tradition from the theological perspective:
–Pope Benedict XVI (26 April 2006): “This permanent making present of the active presence of our Lord Jesus Christ in his people, brought about by the Holy Spirit and expressed in the Church through the apostolic ministry and fraternal communion, is what in the theological sense is understood by the term Tradition: it is not the mere material transmission of what was given at the beginning to the Apostles, but the effective presence of the Lord Jesus, crucified and risen, who accompanies and guides through the Holy Spirit the community gathered by him.
Tradition is the communion of the faithful around their legitimate pastors throughout history, a communion that the Holy Spirit nourishes, securing the link between the experience of the apostolic faith, lived in the original community of the disciples, and the present experience of Christ in his Church… And so, concluding and summing up, we can say that Tradition is not the transmission of things or of words, a collection of dead things. Tradition is the living river that goes back to the origins, the living river in which the origins are always present.”
Tradition, then, is the total sum of immutable dogma and morals, discipline, liturgy and pastoral activity. And while it is true that dogma and morals can never ever change and remain identical for ever, the other elements that complete what Tradition is can indeed change. So, for example, the liturgy can change according to the times and circumstances, as the Council of Trent demonstrates. This Council tells us that it is a right of the Magisterium of the Church to change or modify its liturgy whenever it wishes, for the reasons it deems most appropriate.
Thus the Council of Trent confirms it for us:
–Council of Trent (Session 21): “In the Church there has always been this power, that in the administration of the sacraments…she may modify or change what she judges more expedient for the benefit of those who receive them or for the reverence due to the sacraments themselves, according to varying circumstances, times or places.”
What the Council of Trent decrees for us regarding the liturgy is summarized by the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1907 (Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur).
–Catholic Encyclopedia (Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur, 1907): “Closely connected with the papal rights regarding the office of teaching are those concerning divine worship. For the law of prayer is what fixes the law of faith. In this field much is reserved exclusively to be regulated by the Holy See. Only the pope can determine the liturgical rites used in the Church. Should any doubt arise regarding the ceremonial of the liturgy, the local bishop cannot decide by his own authority alone; he must have recourse to Rome. In the same way, the Pope has full authority to interpret, alter and abrogate his own laws and those established by his predecessors. He has the same fullness of power as they, and stands in the same relation to the laws they established as he does to those promulgated by himself.”
In the same way that the Council of Trent and the Catholic Encyclopedia tell us that the liturgy changes according to varying circumstances, times and places,” in that same way the discipline of the Church likewise changes whenever the Church wishes. The Baltimore Catechism of 1891 (Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur) reminds us of the full power of the Church to change and modify its discipline just as it does the liturgy.
– Baltimore Catechism 126: There are two things we must clearly understand and about which there can be no confusion, namely the two kinds of laws in the Church—those which Christ gave us and those which the Church has herself made. For example, the Church cannot abolish one of the sacraments, leaving only six; nor can she add one, making eight. But, for example, when the Church declares that on a certain day meat may not be eaten, that is a law the Church has made and which she can change whenever she wishes. Our Lord left his Church free to make certain laws as they were needed. The Church has always exercised this power and has made laws that fit thecircumstances of place or time. Even today the Church sets aside some old laws that are no longer necessary and makes others that are more necessary. But the doctrines, the truths of Faith and Morals, the things we must believe and do to save our souls, can never be changed: the Church may regulate certain things in the application of the divine laws, but the laws in themselves can never be changed in their substance. (Baltimore Catechism, Rev. Father Thomas L. Kinkead, Nihil Obstat: D. J. McMahon, Censor Librorum, Imprimatur: *Michael Augustine, Archbishop of New York, September 1891)
Here, then, it is clearly seen that, together with the elements that never ever change in Tradition, namely dogma and morals, other elements of that same Tradition, such as liturgy, discipline and pastoral action, can indeed change and in fact do change according to time and circumstances.
Pastoral Action and the Development of Dogma
Another key element in Tradition, from the theological point of view, is pastoral action, that is, the relationship between the legitimate pastors of the Church and their flock. This pastoral action is an integral part of Tradition and is itself composed of various elements that make up this pastor–flock relationship, or, what is the same, the Magisterium of the Church with its faithful.
A most important element of pastoral action is the way in which the pastor, that is, the Magisterium, explains to the faithful the unchangeable and immutable doctrine. That is, the Magisterium of the Church decides or chooses the manner in which a dogma is explained; how an unchangeable and immutable doctrine is applied to the specific circumstances of each age and place. For one thing is the dogma in itself, which is immutable and remains identical for ever, and another different thing is the manner in which this dogma is explained. The manner in which an unchangeable or immutable dogma is explained or developed is an important part of that Pastoral action of the Magisterium, and that particular manner of explaining the immutable dogma is something that likewise adjusts or adapts to circumstances, time and place.
Thus Saint Gregory the Great explains it to us (In Ezechielem, lib. 2, hom. 4, 12):
«With the passing of time the knowledge of the patriarchs increased; for Moses received greater enlightenment concerning the knowledge of God Almighty than Abraham, and the prophets received greater than Moses, and the apostles, in their turn, greater than the prophets.»
Blessed Pope John XXIII also speaks to us of the most important distinction between the content or substance of dogma and the manner of expressing it. The substance and meaning of the dogma never ever changes, but the manner in which the Magisterium explains or develops that dogma can be adapted to age and place. One thing is the dogma in itself and another the manner of explaining or making that dogma understood. The Blessed tells us that these are two different things and that they must not be confused with one another.
–Holy Father Blessed John XXIII (11 October 1962): “The supreme concern of the Ecumenical Council is that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine be guarded and taught in an ever more effective way…above all it is necessary that the Church not turn away from the sacred patrimony of truth received from the Fathers; but, at the same time, she must look to the present, to the new conditions and forms of life introduced into the modern world, which have opened new avenues for the Catholic apostolate…the Twenty-first Ecumenical Council wishes to transmit pure and whole, without attenuations or distortions, the doctrine which throughout twenty centuries, in spite of difficulties and struggles, has become the common patrimony of men… Yet, from the renewed, serene and tranquil adherence to all the teachings of the Church, in their integrity and precision, as they shine forth principally in the conciliar acts of Trent and of the First Vatican Council …it is to be hoped that a step forward will be taken toward a doctrinal penetration and a formation of consciences in ever more perfect correspondence with fidelity to authentic doctrine, studying it and expounding it through the forms of research and the literary formulas of modern thought. One thing is the substance of the ancient doctrine, of the ‘depositum fidei’, and another is the manner of formulating its expression…”
What Blessed John XXIII explains here is that one thing is the substance of the doctrine and another thing is the manner of formulating or expressing that doctrine. That manner of explaining the doctrine or developing it is a most important element of the pastoral action of the Magisterium of the Church. According to the times and circumstances, the Church adapts that manner of expressing the immutable dogma. Thus the dogma remains identical and unchangeable for ever, but the manner of explaining it changes according to the pastoral action of the Church, which explains those dogmas in a more effective way according to the times and circumstances.
This development of dogma must never ever be confused with the heresy of modernism.
The heresy of modernism seeks to change the meaning and essence of the dogma and to adapt it to the fashionable philosophical current. The Catholic development of dogma only unfolds the manner of explaining the dogma, leaving intact its meaning, essence and substance. Whereas the heresy of modernism seeks to change the sense and essence of the immutable dogma, the Catholic development of dogma only makes explicit truths previously contained in the dogma in an implicit manner.
The development of the dogma of pastoral action never ever changes the meaning of the dogma, but only the manner of explaining it. Thus is this development of dogma defined in theological terms:
–Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma: The evolution of dogma in the Catholic sense. With respect to theform of the dogma, that is, to the knowledge and proposition by the Church of the revealed truths, and consequently to the public faith in the same, there has indeed been progress (accidentalevolution of dogma), and such progress takes place in the following ways: a) Truths which until a given moment were believed only implicitly come to be known explicitly and are proposed to the faithful for their belief in them; cf. S.th. II-II 1, 7: «as to the explanation, the number of articles [of faith] grew, because certain things which were not explicitly known by the ancients came to be explicitly known by others later.» b) Material dogmas become formal dogmas. c) For clearer understanding on the part of all and to avoid misunderstandings and false interpretations, the ancient truths, believed from ever, are proposed by means of new and well-defined concepts. So it happened, for example, with the concept of the hypostatic union, of transubstantiation. d) Questions debated until a given moment are afterward clarified and defined, the heretical propositions being condemned; cf. SAINT AUGUSTINE, De civ. Dei xvi 2, 1: «ab adversario mota quaestio discendi existit occasio» (a question raised by an adversary becomes an occasion for acquiring new teachings).
The evolution of dogma in the sense indicated is preceded by a scientific theological labour, and is practically taught by the ordinary Magisterium of the Church with the assistance of the Holy Spirit (John 14:26). This formation is promoted, on the one hand, by the natural desire man has to deepen his knowledge of the truth already acquired and, on the other, by external influences, such as the attacks of heretics or unbelievers, theological controversies, the progress of philosophical ideas andhistorical research, the liturgy and the universal conviction of beliefs that is manifested in it. The holy Fathers already stressed the necessity of deepening the knowledge of the revealed truths, of dispelling obscurities and advancing the doctrine of revelation. (Dr. Ludwig Ott, Nihil Obstat: Jeremiah J. O’Sullivan. Imprimatur: + Cornelius, 7 October 1954)
The saints too bear witness to the necessity of explaining or developing the dogmas in a manner more updated to the times while at the same time keeping their content and substance in complete integrity. The great Saint Vincent of Lérins clarifies for us this point of the development of dogma, an essential point of pastoral action.
–Saint Vincent of Lérins: «But perhaps someone will say: Shall there then be no progress of religion in the Church of Christ? Certainly there is such progress, and very great progress… But it must be a true progress in the faith, not an alteration of it. For it belongs to progress that a thing grow within itself, whereas it belongs to alteration to transform one thing into another.» (Commonitorium 23; cf. Dz 1800.)
Here we see that the development of dogma is possible in the manner in which the Church explains and deepens them according to the age and circumstances. The essence and substance of the dogma remains identical and is immutable throughout all the ages, but the manner of explaining it changes and adapts. That is an important part of the pastoral element of Tradition.
Perhaps the most brilliant of the theologians and Thomists of Spanish America, the doctor in logic and theology, Rev. Father Rafael Faria, explains the Catholic development of dogma thus in 1956:
–Higher Course of Religion (1956): The indefectibility of the Church consists in her having preserved and in her preserving unchanged the treasure she received from Christ, namely: Dogma, Morals, the Sacraments and the internal organization. There has, without doubt, been development and perfection in Catholic Dogma. But that development consists, not in new truths being taught that are not contained in Sacred Scripture or in Tradition, but in truths that were there contained in a general, obscure or imprecise form being declared and taught in a perfectly clear and explicit form. For example, Scripture teaches that in God there are Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Dogma went on developing until it found the precise formula: in God there are three persons in one single Nature. And so it has happened with other truths. The infallibility of the Church consists in her not being able to err in matters pertaining to Faith and Morals. Infallibility is necessary to the Church because God bound all men under pain of condemnation to belong to her. “He that believeth not shall be condemned.” (Mark 16:16). But if the Church could err, God would be obliging men to accept error, which is repugnant to his wisdom. (Rev. Father Dr. Rafael Faria, Santa Fe de Bogotá, 1956, Book I, Dogma, p. 135, Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur.)
Thus we see that the Tradition of the Church is composed of elements that never ever change, such as dogma and morals, and of elements that do change with the times, such as the liturgy, the discipline and the pastoral action. To explain that immutable and unchangeable dogma in a better way or in a more developed way is a most important part of pastoral action.
The Magisterium of the Church, Invincible Guardian of Tradition
According to the plan of Christ, the apostles and their successors are to be, until the end of time, the invincible guardians of Tradition. It was to the Magisterium alone that Christ entrusted the mission of guarding Tradition, defining it and setting it before the faithful. Only the Magisterium can interpret the deposit of Faith so as to tell us what Tradition is and is not, and only the Magisterium has the divine promise of Christ that it can never ever be unfaithful to Tradition or stray from it.
It is therefore most important to understand that, in order to comprehend what Tradition is from age to age, we can only listen to the living Magisterium of the Church; that is, to the Pope and the Bishops in full communion with him. Only this living Magisterium can tell us, from age to age, what Tradition “is” according to the times and circumstances. Thus the great Leo XIII explains it to us in his immortal Satis Cognitum:
—Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum (1896): It is, then, incontestable, after what we have just said, that Jesus Christ instituted in the Church a living, authentic and moreover perpetual Magisterium, invested with his own authority, clothed with the spirit of truth, confirmed by miracles; and he willed, and most severely commanded, that the doctrinal teachings of that Magisterium be received as his own. As often, therefore, as the word of that Magisterium declares that this or that truth forms part of the body of divinely revealed doctrine, each one must believe with certainty that it is true; for if it could in any way be false, it would follow—which is evidently absurd—that God himself would be the author of the error of men. «Lord, if we are in error, thou thyself hast deceived us.»
What Leo XIII tells us is what the doctrine of the Church repeats to us without ceasing: only the Magisterium of the Church can define for us what the Tradition of the Church is from age to age, and no one else: thus do the holy Fathers, the Catechism and the manuals of dogmatic theology repeat it again and again.
–Pope Saint Pius X (10 May 1909): “The first and greatest criterion of the faith, the supreme and unshakable rule of orthodoxy, is obedience to the ever-living and infallible Magisterium of the Church, established by Christ as ‘the pillar and ground of the truth’.”
–Pope Paul VI (letter to Archbishop Lefebvre, October 1976): “This is the essential matter…Christ gave the supreme authority of his Church to Peter and to the apostolic College, that is, to the Pope and to the college of Bishops una cum Capite. By its nature ‘the charge of teaching and governing cannot be exercised except in hierarchical communion with the head of the College and with its members’ (Constitution Lumen Gentium, 21; cf. also 25). A fortiori, a single bishop without canonical mission does not have in actu expedito ad agendum the faculty to decide in general what is the rule of faith or to determine what is Tradition.”
–Catechism of the Catholic Church: 85 “The task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted only to the living Magisterium of the Church, which exercises it in the name of Jesus Christ” (DV 10), that is, to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the bishop of Rome.
–The Religion Demonstrated: “No one is free to explain in his own way the Sacred Scripture and the Tradition; we must submit to the teaching Church, established to tell us what we must believe and what we must do. … Moreover, reason itself demonstrates the necessity of a living rule to give the faithful the notion of the truths that must be believed and of the duties that must be practised…There was therefore need of a living judge, an authentic interpreter, to fix the sense of divine revelation and to condemn errors. For this reason the Supreme Governor of the Church and the bishops in communion with him are the only legitimate and infallible interpreters of the Scriptures and of the Tradition, the sole rule of faith and of morals.” (The Religion Demonstrated, p. 449, P. A. Hillaire, edition of Msgr. Agustín Piaggo, 1944, Barcelona, Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur.)
–Dictionary of Dogmatic Theology: “According to Catholic doctrine, Sacred Scripture and Tradition are no more than the source and the remote rule of faith, while the proximate rule is the living Magisterium of the Church, which resides in the Roman Pontiff and in the Bishops insofar as they are subject to and united with him.” (Dictionary of Dogmatic Theology, p. 206, Rev. Father Pietro Parente, Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur, 1955)
Thus we see that only the Pope and the Bishops in full communion with him can tell us what Tradition is and is not. No one who is not this authentic living Magisterium of the Church, namely the Pope and the bishops in full communion with him, can tell us what Tradition is and is not at a given historical moment.
We all know the elements that make up the Tradition of the Church: dogma, morals, liturgy, discipline, pastoral action; but their exact definition in each given age can be determined and transmitted to us only by the authentic Magisterium of the Church and by no one else. Only the Pope and the bishops in communion with him can tell us what Tradition is and is not in each given age.
In this same way we can appreciate that this Magisterium can never be unfaithful to the deposit of Faith, that is, that the Magisterium can never be unfaithful to Tradition. The promise of Christ to help and protect his Church “all days, even to the consummation of the world” gives us the absolute and categorical guarantee that the Magisterium of the Church will never be unfaithful to Tradition. Thus the Magisterium can never change the unchangeable of Tradition, the dogma and the morals, nor cease to be faithful to it. Thus does Cardinal Ratzinger, today Pope Benedict XVI, explain it to us:
—Cardinal Ratzinger (letter to Archbishop Lefebvre, 28 July 1987): “Divinely instituted, the Church has the promise of the assistance of Christ until the end of time. To break her unity by an act of full disobedience on one’s part would cause incalculable harm and would destroy the very future of one’s work, because outside of unity with Peter there can be no future but only the ruin of all that one desires and aspires to…In fact, it is to Peter that the Lord has entrusted the government of his Church; therefore it is the Pope who is the principal artisan of her unity. Assured in the promise of Christ, the Pope will never be able to oppose the Holy Tradition or the authentic Magisterium.”
Thus we can see, as Cardinal Ratzinger (today Pope Benedict XVI) says, that the Pope never will be able to be unfaithful to Tradition. This is founded upon the prayer of Christ who prayed for the Faith of Peter and his successors. Thus it is divinely revealed dogma that the Pope, Vicar of Christ on Earth, will never ever be able to oppose or to be unfaithful to Tradition and the immutable elements that never ever change in it, namely doctrine and morals. Christ himself assures us with his divine promise that the Pope will never ever be able to be unfaithful to the Holy Tradition. Thus does the First Vatican Council assure it to us:
–First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus (18 July 1870): So the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter, not that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance, they might guard as holy and expound faithfully the revelation transmitted by the Apostles, that is, the deposit of faith. Indeed, their apostolic doctrine was embraced by all the venerable Fathers and revered and followed by the holy and orthodox doctors, since they knew very well that this See of Saint Peter always remains free from all error, according to the divine promise of our Lord and Saviour to the prince of his disciples: «I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not; and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren.» This charism of a true and never-failing faith was therefore divinely conferred upon Peter and his successors in this chair, so that they might exercise their exalted office for the salvation of all, and so that the whole flock of Christ might be kept by them away from the poisonous food of error and be nourished with the sustenance of heavenly doctrine.
The Tradition of the Church is also called “living” Tradition
The Holy Tradition of the Church is also called living Tradition because, as we have seen, this Tradition, from the theological point of view, is composed of elements that can never ever change and always remain identical, dogma and morals, but likewise of elements that do change or adapt with the times and circumstances. Precisely because of these elements that do change or adapt, namely the liturgy, the pastoral action and the discipline, and which are an integral part of Tradition, Tradition is also called “living tradition.” This name of living Tradition is used to denote that there exist elements that change and are modifiable in Tradition (pastoral action, liturgy, discipline) alongside the elements that never ever change and are immutable throughout all the ages (dogma and morals).
A beautiful and learned vision of Tradition, its composition and definition, was given by the Holy Father Benedict XVI in May of 2006. Here His Holiness explains the true meaning of what the Tradition of the Church is:
–Pope Benedict XVI (3 May 2006): Dear brothers and sisters: In this catechesis we wish to understand a little of what the Church is. Last time we meditated on the theme of the apostolic Tradition. We saw that it is not a collection of things, of words, like a box of dead things. Tradition is the river of new life, which comes from the origins, from Christ, down to us, and inserts us into the history of God with humanity…The Church transmits all that she is and all that she believes; she transmits it with worship, with life and with teaching. And so, Tradition is the living Gospel, proclaimed by the Apostles in its integrity, according to the fullness of their unique and unrepeatable experience: by their work the faith is communicated to others, down to us, to the end of the world.
Consequently, Tradition is the history of the Spirit who acts in the history of the Church through the mediation of the Apostles and of their successors, in faithful continuity with the experience of the origins…This chain of service continues until today and will continue to the end of the world. Indeed, the mandate that Jesus gave to the Apostles was transmitted by them to their successors. ..Thus, though in a manner different from that of the Apostles, we too have a true personal experience of the presence of the risen Lord. Through the apostolic ministry Christ himself thus reaches those who are called to the faith. The distance of the centuries is overcome and the Risen One presents himself alive and operative for us, in the today of the Church and of the world. This is our great joy. In the living river of Tradition Christ is not distant by two thousand years, but is really present among us and gives us the Truth, gives us the light that allows us to live and to find the way toward the future.”
The heresy of Modernism: an attack on Tradition
One of the greatest and most tragic errors against the Tradition of the Church is modernism or progressivism. While it is true that modernism as a philosophical school has many variations, from the theological point of view and in relation to Tradition, the principal error of modernism is to want to change the unchangeable of it. Thus the heresy of modernism upholds the most grave error that the unchangeable and immutable of Tradition, namely dogma and morals, can change with time, place or circumstances. This tragic error upholds that, just as the elements that do change in Tradition (discipline, liturgy, pastoral action) can be changed, in the same way the unchangeable and immutable elements of it (dogma and morals) can also be changed, or that these should adapt according to the current or fashion of the age.
The heresy of modernism seeks to break with the unbreakable past of Tradition and to change what, being eternal truth, cannot change. In attempting to change the unchangeable of Tradition—the dogma that must be believed to be saved and the morals that govern one’s acts, likewise for salvation—modernism strikes at the fundamental basis of the Deposit of Faith.
The most grave modernist error is, unlike the Catholic development of dogma which always leaves intact and without contradiction the essence and substance of the dogma, the contradictory change of a doctrine; the modernist heresy seeks to change the meaning and substance of the doctrine, wishing to make error out of what is truth and truth out of what is error, and to change the unchangeable of Tradition according to the taste or fashion of an age. The error of modernism has been condemned very many times by the Magisterium of the Church, especially in the Syllabus, by Saint Pius X, Paul VI and by John Paul II.
Thus Saint Pius X speaks of the heresy of modernism in Pascendi:
–Saint Pius X (Pascendi, 8 September 1907): “In turn, man, in believing, may be in conditions that can be very diverse. Therefore, the formulas which we call dogma will be found exposed to these same vicissitudes and, consequently, subject to mutation. Thus the way lies open to the intimate evolution of dogma. An accumulation, in truth, of infinite sophisms, by which the whole of religion is shattered and destroyed! Not only can dogma develop and change, but it must; such is the fundamental thesis of the modernists, which, moreover, flows from their principles.”
Pope Paul VI also speaks to us of the impossibility of applying the modernist heresy in the Church and of changing the unchangeable of Tradition. No matter the pressure and the current or fashion of the times, the Church can never ever, by the promise of Christ himself, change the unchangeable of Tradition, namely the dogma and morals that make up the Deposit of Faith. Paul VI explains to us on 19 January 1972 that the Church can never ever change or mutate the immutable element of Tradition. Thus Pope Paul VI explains that the Church can never ever fall victim to the heresy of modernism:
–Pope Paul VI (19 January 1972): “Thus, dear sons, and in affirming this, we repudiate these errors that were already in circulation in the past, and that circulate rampant once again in the spiritual life of our time, and that can destroy our Christian understanding of life and of history. Modernism was the characteristic expression of those false doctrines; which, under other names, are influential today.
We can understand today why the Catholic Church, now as in the past, attaches such importance to the strict preservation of authentic revelation and considers it an inviolable treasure, and why she has a strict notion of her fundamental mission of defending the doctrine of the Faith and transmitting it in an unequivocal manner. Orthodoxy is her greatest concern, and the pastoral office is her most important and divine mission.
The teaching of the Apostles in fact determines the canon of her proclamation. The instructions of the Apostle Paul, “Keep what has been entrusted to you” (1 Tim. 6:20; 2 Tim. 1:14), set before her a duty it would be treason not to observe. The Church as Teacher does not invent her doctrine; she bears witness, preserves, mediates. It is a matter of the Truth of the Gospel message that the Church can be characterized as conservative and inexorable. To those who wish to induce the Church to simplify her Faith and mould it to the taste of the changeable spirit of the age, she answers with the “non possumus” (we cannot) of the Apostles. (Acts 4:20)”
Thus modernism, the heresy that wishes to change the unchangeable of Tradition and to modify the essence and substance of the dogmas according to the current or fashion of the ages, remains one of the gravest errors against Tradition.
John Paul II defines the errors against the Holy Tradition
Blessed Pope John Paul II defined in 1988 the most grave errors that strike against Tradition. In a letter to the then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (today Pope Benedict XVI), Blessed John Paul II defined the most grave error of modernism, namely wishing to change the unchangeable of Tradition, and also the most grave error of integrism, namely not understanding that Tradition embraces more than only unchangeable elements but also elements that do change with time, such as the liturgy, the pastoral action and the discipline. Thus Blessed John Paul II masterfully explains it to us:
–Blessed John Paul II (8 April 1988): “…the words with which Christ promised the Apostles the coming of the Holy Spirit have for us a special relevance: “I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth… whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you. “(John 14:16-17, 26.) In all times and at every moment, the Church has been guided by faith in the words of her Master and Lord, in the certainty that, with the help and the assistance of the Holy Spirit, the Church always will remain in the truth divine, maintaining the apostolic succession with the Bishops in communion with the successor of Peter.
The Church has also expressed this conviction of faith in the last Council that met to confirm and reinforce the teaching that the Church inherited from Tradition, existing for nearly twenty centuries as a living reality that advances in relation to the problems and needs of each age, and deepens our understanding of what is already contained in the faith handed on once and for all (cf. Jude 3).
We are profoundly convinced that “the Spirit of truth who speaks to the Church” (cf. Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, et al.) spoke—in a particularly solemn and authoritative way—in the Second Vatican Council, preparing the Church to enter the third millennium after Christ. Since the work of the Council as a whole is a confirmation of the same truth, lived by the Church from the beginning, it is also a “renewal” of that same truth (an “aggiornamento,” as the famous phrase of Pope John XXIII puts it), in order to bring the great human family in the contemporary world closer both to the manner of teaching the faith and morals and to the apostolic and pastoral activities of the Church.
In the post-conciliar period we have seen a great effort on the part of the Church to ensure that this novum constituted by Vatican II correctly penetrated the mind and conduct of the individual communities of the People of God. However, alongside this effort, tendencies have arisen that have created a certain difficulty in putting the Council into practice.
One of those tendencies is characterized by the desire for changes that are not always in harmony with the teachings and the spirit of Vatican II, even though appeal is made to the Council. These changes invoke and express a progress, and so this tendency is designated by the name of “progressivism.” Progress, in this case, is an orientation toward a future that breaks with the past, without reckoning with the function of Tradition, which is fundamental for the mission of the Church, that she may continue in the truth that was transmitted to her by Christ the Lord and by the Apostles, and which is diligently guarded by the Magisterium.
The opposite tendency, however, defined as ‘conservatism’ or ‘integrism,’ stops at the past itself, without taking into account the just aspiration toward the future as it is properly manifested in the work of Vatican II… It sees the right only in that which is “ancient,” retaining it as synonymous with tradition.
However, it is not the “ancient” as such, nor the “new” by itself, that corresponds to the just concept of tradition in the life of the Church. Such a concept, in effect, signifies the faithful permanence of the Church in the truth received from God, through the changeable vicissitudes of history. The Church, like that householder of the Gospel, draws forth with wisdom ‘from her treasure things new and things old,’ remaining absolutely obedient to the Spirit of truth whom Christ has given to the Church as a divine guide. And the Church fulfils this delicate work of discernment through the authentic Magisterium.”
Integrism, an error against Tradition just as Modernism
Just as the heresy of modernism wishes to change the unchangeable elements of Tradition (the deposit of Faith), another most grave error against Tradition is schismatic integrism. This integrism can occur in two ways: the first, when the person understands by Tradition a synonym of dogma and morals and does not realize that Tradition embraces other elements besides that immutable dogma and morals. The second way in which integrism occurs is when the person does understand that Tradition is composed of other elements besides dogma and morals, and therefore recognizes that liturgy, discipline and pastoral action are an integral part of Tradition, but the person likewise does not recognize that those other elements can change or be modified according to time or circumstance.
Integrism is a most grave error that can lead to other doctrinal errors, such as de facto denying the infallibility and indefectibility promised by Christ to his Church, and it can even lead to schisms contrary to the Divine Constitution of the Church as solemnly decreed by Pastor Aeternus in the First Vatican Council. To fail to understand that Tradition contains other elements besides dogma and morals, or to fail to recognize that those other elements (pastoral action, discipline, liturgy) can change with time, is the error of integrism, which constitutes a grave attack against the Holy Tradition.
The Holy Father Paul VI speaks to us of how this schismatic integrism can lead, just as modernism does, to most grave errors regarding the understanding of the Holy Tradition. Thus the Holy Father Paul VI speaks to us of the most grave error of integrism and of how it leads to a false and mistaken understanding of the Holy Tradition:
–Pope Paul VI (11 October 1976, letter to Archbishop Lefebvre): “You say that you are faithful to the Church and to Tradition by the simple fact of obeying certain norms of the past that were decreed by the predecessor of him to whom God today gives the powers conferred on Peter. On this point too the concept of Tradition that you invoke is erroneous. Tradition is not a fixed or dead datum, a static fact, which would in a certain way block, at a given moment of history, the life of this active organism which is the Church, the mystical body of Christ.
It belongs to the pope and to the councils to exercise a judgment in order to discern, among the traditions of the Church, that which cannot be renounced without infidelity to the Lord and to the Holy Spirit—the deposit of faith—and that which, on the contrary, can and must be brought up to date, in order to facilitate the mission of the Church across the variety of the times and of the places, so as to translate the divine message into the human language of today and communicate it better, without compromise of principles, undoubtedly. Thus Tradition is inseparable from the living Magisterium of the Church just as it is inseparable from the sacred Scriptures. Thus do the popes and the ecumenical councils act, with the special assistance of the Holy Spirit.
That was precisely what Vatican II did. Nothing decreed in that Council, or in the reforms that We have decided to carry out, is opposed to what the two-thousand-year-old Tradition of the Church considers fundamental and immutable. Of all this We are the guarantors, by virtue, not of our personal qualities, but of the task the Lord has entrusted to Us as legitimate successor of Peter and of the special assistance he has promised Us, as to Peter: “I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.” (Luke 22:32). With Us the universal episcopate is guarantor of this. Once again, you cannot distinguish what is pastoral from what is dogmatic so as to accept some texts of the council and reject others.”
Blessed John Paul II too warns us of the most grave theological error of integrism. To fail to recognize that the Holy Tradition has other elements besides dogma and morals, and that these elements (liturgy, pastoral action, discipline) can and must change with the times as the Council of Trent decrees, is the most grave error and mistaken understanding of Tradition that we call integrism. This integrism leads to other errors, such as schism, the denial of the indefectibility and infallibility of the Church, and a new version of the Lutheran error of free interpretation in which the schismatic gives his own interpretation to Tradition, independently and separately from the Pope and the authentic Magisterium. Thus Blessed John Paul II tells us in 1988:
–Blessed John Paul II (Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei, 1988): The root of this schismatic act 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, which … springs originally from the Apostles, “progresses in the Church under the assistance of the Holy Spirit; that is, it grows in the understanding of the things and of the words handed down, when the faithful contemplate and study them …when the bishops, successors of the Apostles in the charism of truth, proclaim them.“ But above all it is a contradictory notion of Tradition that opposes the universal Magisterium of the Church, which belongs to the Bishop of Rome and to the College of Bishops. No one can remain faithful to Tradition if he breaks the bonds and ties with him to whom Christ himself, in the person of the Apostle Peter, entrusted the ministry of unity in his Church.”
The Holy Tradition Ever present in the Authentic Magisterium
To keep ourselves faithful to the Holy Tradition of the Church, there remains only the way of following the authentic Magisterium of the Church. Only the authentic Magisterium can lead us safely along the path of the Holy Tradition. Only the Magisterium has the divine promise of Christ never ever to stray from the deposit of Faith, and it was only the authentic Magisterium that Christ authorized to preach the truth. The only way of remaining firm in the Faith against the errors of modernism and integrism is perseverance in complete adherence to the Magisterium of the Church.
Concerning the absolute necessity of being united to the Vicar of Christ, the great Leo XIII warns us in his masterful Satis Cognitum of 1896:
— Pope Leo XIII (Satis Cognitum, 1896): “Therefore it is necessary here to make an important warning. Nothing was conferred on the apostles independently of Peter; many things were conferred on Peter apart from and independently of the apostles…Whereby it is clearly seen that the bishops would lose the right and the power to govern if they were to separate themselves from Peter or from his successors. By this separation they tear themselves from the foundation upon which the whole edifice must rest, and place themselves outside the edifice itself; for the same reason they are excluded from the flock governed by the Supreme Shepherd and are banished from the kingdom whose keys God gave to Peter alone.
These considerations make one understand the plan and the design of God in the constitution of Christian society. This plan is the following: the divine Author of the Church, in decreeing to give her unity of faith, of government and of communion, chose Peter and his successors in order to establish in them the principle and, as it were, the centre of unity…Hence also this sentence of the same Saint Cyprian, according to which heresy and schism are produced and are born from the fact of refusing to the supreme power the obedience that is due to it: «The one source from which heresies have sprung and schisms have been born is that the Pontiff of God is not obeyed, and men will not acknowledge in the Church one Pontiff and one judge, who holds the place of Christ.» No one, then, can have a part in authority unless he is united to Peter, for it would be absurd to pretend that a man excluded from the Church could have authority in the Church.”
In order to be faithful to the Holy Tradition, let us remain united with absolute firmness to the Vicar of Christ in humility and obedience. Let us bear in mind the divine promise of Christ of the indefectibility of the one true Church, and let us bear in mind the words of the Council of Trent on how integral elements of Tradition, such as the liturgy, can and must be changed according to time and circumstances:
–Council of Trent (Session 21): In the Church there has always been this power, that in the administration of the sacraments…she may modify or change what she judges more expedient for the benefit of those who receive them or for the reverence due to the sacraments themselves, according to varying circumstances, times or places.”
Amen.
Author: Courtesy of a reader
