Topic: Sacred Tradition
Question:
What exactly do Catholics mean by Sacred Tradition?
Answer:
The Word of God forms one sacred deposit of divine revelation. This one sacred deposit is ‘passed down’ to us in two ways (Cf. 2 Thess 2:15): the Written Tradition of the Word of God (Sacred Scripture) and the Oral Tradition of the Word of God (Sacred Tradition).
Sacred Tradition comprises of the teachings, decrees, and definitions of the fathers, theologians, councils and popes. In short, it is the collection of the development of Christian teaching throughout the centuries. By the divine power vested in it by God, the Church can, if necessary, ‘call to mind’ teachings which were committed to the successors of the Apostles in order to give an explicit confirmation of a theological or moral truth (Cf. John 15:26, 16:12). This definition is then added to the pedigree of definitive Church teaching, otherwise known as Sacred Tradition.
The way that such definitions and decrees are added to Sacred Tradition may involve the Church, guided by her Spouse (the Holy Spirit), examining Sacred Scripture in order to form a judgment on a particular question. Alternatively, in order to determine if a particular belief is indeed an article of faith, the Church may examine a certain ancient belief from various historical sources such as the writings of the Fathers or past Popes in complement with the Scriptural evidence.
John Pacheco
The Catholic Legate
April 20, 2001