Patrick Madrid - Why Is That in Tradition?

Why Is That in Tradition?

Why Is That in Tradition?

Patrick Madrid

Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division

Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.

Huntington, Indiana 46750

The majority of Scripture quotations in this book are taken from two main sources: (1) the Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible, Catholic Edition, copyright 1965, 1966 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America; used by permission of the copyright holder; all rights reserved; (2) the New American Bible with Revised New Testament, copyright 1986, 1970 by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, D.C.; used with permission, all rights reserved. Attributions are designated by RSV (for Revised Standard Version) and NAB (for New American Bible). The author and publisher are grateful to those publishers and others whose materials, whether in the public domain or protected by copyright laws, have been used in one form or another in this volume. Among them is the United States Catholic Conference, Inc. Libreria Editrice Vaticana for the use of excerpts from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for the United States of America, copyright 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. Libreria Editrice Vaticana. English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Modifications from the Editio Typica, copyright 1997, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Attributions are designated by CCC. For other acknowledgments, please see Sources at the back of this book. Every reasonable effort has been made to determine copyright holders of excerpted materials and to secure permissions as needed. If any copyrighted materials have been inadvertently used in this work without proper credit being given in one form or another, please notify Our Sunday Visitor in writing so that future printings of this work may be corrected accordingly.

Copyright 2002 by Patrick Madrid

All rights reserved. With the exception of short excerpts for critical reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from the publisher. Write:
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ISBN: 1-931709-06-8 (Inventory No.T10)
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_______________

For my son Timothy Killian, with love.

Heresies and certain tenets of perversity, ensnaring souls and hurling them into the deep, do not spring up except when the true Scriptures are not rightly understood and when what is not rightly understood in them is rashly and boldly asserted.

St. Augustine of Hippo
Tractate 18 on the Gospel of John

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Several years ago, I was engaged in a public debate with a Protestant minister. The event was held at a Protestant church before a mixed audience of Catholics and Protestants. At one point in the debate, during the cross-examination section, my Protestant opponent posed this question to me:

Can you give me one example of a tradition thats outside the Bible and is necessary for Christians? He sat back with a smile, confident that I would not be able to answer his question.

Yes, I can, I said. Its right here. At that I dropped my Bible on the table in front of him with a thump.

No one in the audience moved.

My opponent blinked, apparently unsure what to say in response.

I explained: The canon of the New Testament is a tradition, a Catholic tradition, that you as a Protestant follow. I continued, The books that belong in the Bible, and in particular the New Testament, are part of Tradition. And you accept that Tradition and follow it, otherwise you would have no Bible you simply would have no way of knowing what the Bible is unless you accepted the Tradition of the canon. Then it was my turn to sit back with a smile.

My Protestant debate opponent was no longer smiling. And for good reason. He had been caught in his own trap. His aim had been to trap me into offering an example of Catholic Tradition, something such as purgatory or Marys Immaculate Conception, that he could easily dismiss as, at the very least, not essential for a Christian believer to hold. Thats what he expected me to offer as an example. What he didnt expect was an example that he simply couldnt argue with. And even though, for the next few minutes, he did attempt to talk his way out of the jam he was in, the audience, and I (and, most of all, he himself, I think) realized with complete clarity that he had shot himself in the foot with that question: Can you give me one example of a tradition thats outside the Bible and is necessary for Christians?

The fact is, the canon of the New Testament is part of Gods revelation to the Church. But that revelation didnt come to the Church in the pages of Scripture, the Written Word of God. Rather, this all-important information was gradually revealed by God to the Church completely outside of Scripture itself (after all, as I point out to non-Catholics, there is no inspired table of contents in the Bible telling us which books belong).

This revelation was preserved and faithfully taught by the Catholic Church, transmitted in its integrity from one generation to the next. Thats why you and I have the same twenty-seven books in our copies of the New Testament from Matthew to Revelation that our Protestant, Mormon, and Jehovahs Witness friends have in theirs. They have these books in their Bibles because, like it or not, whether they are aware of it or not (very few of them are aware of it), they are accepting and adhering to a Catholic Tradition. And thats what made the question my debate opponent leveled at me so powerful. He was forced to see in front of a large audience of Catholics and Protestants, no less the reality of Catholic Tradition. He didnt admit that he recognized this fact, but everyone in the room did, and it was evident that he did too. It was a powerful moment.

You can take a cue from that episode and apply it to your own discussions with non-Catholics when the subject of Tradition comes up. Non-Catholics, especially Protestants, are conditioned to regard Catholic Tradition with deep suspicion. Tradition is a red flag word for many Protestants. They reject an appeal to Tradition because they believe Tradition equals man-made doctrinal aberrations that have been added on to Scripture.

Lets touch on the subject of debates again briefly. Over the years, Ive engaged in many public debates about religion with Protestants, Mormons, and others. Their arguments invariably include a strong condemnation of Catholic tradition beliefs and practices they think are incompatible with Scripture.

How can you Catholics believe in purgatory or the Immaculate Conception? they ask with a roll of their eyes. Those teachings are nowhere taught in the Bible. Worse yet, theyre traditions of men (cf. Matthew 15:1-9; Mark 7:1-13; Colossians 2:8; Ephesians 4:14), unbiblical teachings that go against what God says in the Bible. This attitude is common among Protestants, and youre likely to run into it, so its important that you know what to say about Tradition: what it is, what it isnt, what it does, and why we need it.

For most Protestants, the word Tradition connotes the worst sort of man-made traditions, the kind Christ warned against in Mark 7:1-13 and Matthew 15:1-9, where he condemned those traditions of men which nullify the Word of God.

Protestants see Catholic Traditions, such as the Eucharist, Marian doctrines, purgatory, and the like, as prime examples of man-made doctrines that conflict with biblical teachings. And since Protestants follow the Reformation principle of