Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Tradition vs. Traditionalism

From Rorate Caeli:

As it is seen, Irenaeus does not limit himself to the definition of the concept of Tradition. His tradition, the uninterrupted Tradition, is not traditionalism, because this Tradition is always internally vivified by the Holy Spirit, who makes it live again, who makes it interpreted and included in the vitality of the Church.
Benedict XVI
General Audience, March 28, 2007
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know! I liked this too - I almost posted it.
Terry of Abbey

elena maria vidal said...

Yes! We were talking about this on your blog.....

Aristotle said...

We shouldn't jump to the conclusion that the Pope had in mind traditionalism as is present in many traditional societys in the Church today. He more likely was talking about the condemned philosophical system of traditionalism.

Pope Benedict has always been friendly to tradionalism in the Church, but what he seems to be talking about in reference to Iraneaus is that tradition is a living thing in the Church and accessible to all, which runs contrary to the heresy of traditionalism which states that tradition (in general) is the sole rule of certainty and that human reason is too weak to attain certainty about anything apart from it. Catholic teaching is that tradition must be authentic and legitimate to have authority (and public as the Pope pointed out in his audience) and that the reason is capable of coming to know things with certainty by individual experience.

This makes sense when considering that the Pope was talking about the Gnostic heresy, which taught that there was a select few to whom tradition had been passed down, which was beyond the understanding of the common man.

It pays to keep in mind that Pope Benedict is a theologian and he uses theological and philosophical terms in a very precise way.

elena maria vidal said...

Thanks, Aristotle, I was hoping for such a comment.