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Pied Piper of Atheism: Philip Pullman and Children's Fantasy | Pete Vere and Sandra Miesel

God Is No Delusion: A Refutation of Richard Dawkins | Thomas Crean, O.P.

Socrates Meets Descartes | Peter Kreeft

Sermon in a Sentence: Saint Thomas Aquinas | John McClernon

New Outpourings of the Spirit | Joseph Ratzinger

Meet Henri De Lubac | Rudolf Voderholzer

Marian Devotion in the Domestic Church | Catherine & Peter Fournier

Joseph Ratzinger: Life in the Church and Living Theology | Maximilian Heinrich Heim

The Greek Fathers: Their Lives and Adventures | Adrian Fortescue

Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: The Letter to the Hebrews | Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch

Chastity, Poverty and Obedience | Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C.

The Blessing of Christmas | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

Chance or Purpose?: Creation, Evolution, and a Rational Faith | Chrisoph Cardinal Schšnborn

Island of the World: A Novel | Michael O'Brien

The Order of Things | James V. Schall, S.J.

The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Top Hand | Paul Kengor & Patricia Clark Doerner

Seek that Which is Above | Pope Benedict XVI

Jesus, the Apostles and the Early Church | Pope Benedict XVI

God and His Image: An Outline of Biblical Theology | Dominique Barthelemey

An Invitation to Faith: An A to Z Primer on the Thought of Pope Benedict XVI | Pope Benedict XVI

Mother Benedict: Foundress of the Abbey of Regina Laudis | Antoinette Bosco

Pope Benedict XVI: The Conscience of Our Age | Vincent Twomey

Ronald Knox as Apologist: Wit, Laughter and the Popish Creed | Fr. Milton Walsh

Christians in China: A.D. 600-2000 | Jean Charbonnier

 



Some Christians claim to reject Tradition in preference to a supposedly "Bible only" Christianity. Catholics, on the other hand, venerate Tradition, yet often without adequately understanding it.

In his masterful book, The Meaning of Tradition, the great theologian Yves Congar explains why Tradition is an inescapable aspect of a fully biblical Christian faith. He explores the various forms of Tradition and discusses the relationship between Scripture and Tradition, as well as the role of the Magisterium of the Church.

The Meaning of Tradition clears up misconceptions held by many Evangelical Christians and even some Catholics on this important subject. Congar’s study of Tradition greatly contributed to the teaching of Vatican II and to a deeper appreciation of the Church Fathers.

Here is the foreword—written by Avery Cardinal Dulles—to Congar's book, followed by Congar's own introduction.

Foreword to Yves Congar's
The Meaning of Tradition

by Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.


As the twentieth century recedes into history, the profiles of its theological giants loom ever larger. Yves Congar was one of those giants. Born at Sedan in 1904, he became a seminarian in Paris in 192 1, entered the Dominican novitiate in 1925 and received priestly orders in 1930. In 1937 he published Chrétiens désunis, a study of the ecumenical movement, as the first volume of a series that he himself edited: Unam Sanctam. In the following two decades, he became chiefly known for his work on ecclesiology. Regarded in some circles as a dangerous innovator, he was treated with suspicion and had to endure suspension from teaching and occasional banishment from France during the 1950s.

In 1959 Pope John XXIII restored Congar’s good name by appointing him a theological consultant to the preparatory commission for the Second Vatican Council. At the Council itself, Congar’s influence was equal to, and perhaps greater than, that of any other Catholic theologian. His influence is manifest in the Council’s teaching on Revelation, on the Church, on the laity, on ecumenism, on missiology and on many other topics.

After the Council, Congar’s health was affected by a degenerative sclerosis, but he remained extremely productive almost until his death in 1995. His last major work was a three volume study of the Holy Spirit. In recognition of his achievements, Pope John Paul II made him a cardinal in 1994.

While working for the Council, Congar collaborated in the study on "Tradition and Traditions" conducted under

the auspices of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches. In 1960 and 1963 he published the two volumes of his Tradition and Traditions, which many consider to be his most important publication.

The Second Vatican Council set forth the Catholic doctrine of tradition in the second chapter of its Constitution on Divine Revelation. That chapter stands among the principal accomplishments of the Council. Robert Imbelli once wrote: "Were I asked to state briefly the major theological achievement of the Second Vatican Council, I would unhesitatingly reply: the recovery of tradition." [1] And, as Joseph Ratzinger has observed, it is "not difficult ... to recognize the pen of Y Congar" in the ideas and language of the text. [2]

Four centuries earlier, the Council of Trent had formulated the Catholic theology of tradition in opposition to the Protestant idea of "Scripture alone". In upholding irreversible apostolic traditions, the authors of that decree evidently had in mind beliefs such as the perpetual virginity of Mary and practices such as infant baptism and the sign of the cross, which were not attested in Scripture but seemed to go back to the very beginnings of Christianity. Catholic theologians in the post-Tridentine period came to view tradition as a second source, parallel to Scripture, transmitting truths explicitly revealed to the apostles but not consigned to writing in the canonical Scriptures.

This concept of tradition. However, was not adequate to deal with dogmas such as the Immaculate Conception, which emerged as a popular Catholic belief only in the second millennium and was first defined as Catholic dogma in 1854. Some Catholic theologians, perceiving this insufficiency in the accepted Catholic theology of tradition, began co grope for a more open and dynamic concept.

Carrying the new tendency to an extrerne, the Modernists devised an evolutionary theory of doctrine in which tradition functioned as a principle of transformation. But in this theory Christ became a mere point of departure for a revelatory process that went far beyond him and the apostles. Not surprisingly, Modernism was condemned as a heresy.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Maurice Blondel sought to carve out a middle path between post-Tridentine and Modernist theories of tradition. The true theory, he maintained, should be neither pure flux nor static permanence, neither Procrustean nor Protean, neither "veterist" nor modernist. To his lasting credit, he rediscovered the capacity of tradition to transmit what was already known in an implicit way but not yet formulated in conceptual terms.

Yves Congar revisited tile whole problem of tradition in the light of his vast knowledge of the Church Fathers, the medieval Doctors and modern ecumenical literature. While standing in the footsteps of Blondel, he greatly enriches the theological dimensions.

For Congar, tradition is a real, living self-communication of God. Its content is the whole Christian reality disclosed in Jesus Christ, including the implicit contents of that disclosure. The Holy Spirit is the transcendent subject of tradition; the whole Church is its bearer. Thus tradition is an essentially social and ecclesial reality; its locus is the Church as a communion. It is transmitted not only by written and spoken words but equally by prayer, sacramental worship and participation in the Church’s life. Tradition, while consisting primarily in the process of transmission, is not sheer process.

Its content is expressed to a greater or lesser degree in a variety of documents and other "monuments", as Congar calls them. Interacting with the consciousness of those who receive it, tradition develops and is enriched in the course of centuries. Continual meditation on the inspired Scriptures on the part of those who obey the Gospel gives rise to new insights as to what was tacitly communicated in the original Revelation. The Church’s teaching office, or Magisterium, has the commission to supervise the process of transmission, to stigmatize errors and to define revealed truths as they become clear to the believing Church.

These and similar ideas, developed at length in Congar’s masterly two-volume work, are concisely summarized in the present volume, The Meaning of Tradition. Published shortly after the completion of the two-volume work, it is more orderly and concise and preferable as an introduction to the theme. The earlier work can profitably be consulted to fill in the historical background and explain the debated questions.

When I have taught material on tradition to seminarians and graduate students, I have regularly used this book as my primary text. But, being out of print, the book has been difficult to obtain. The present reprint will be welcomed by many who turn to Congar as perhaps the greatest master of the theology of tradition who has ever lived.

Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.

Fordham University, New York City


Endnotes:

[1] Robert P. Imbelli, "Vatican II–Twenty Years Later", Commonweal 109 (October 8, 1982): 78.

[2] Joseph Ratzinger. "Commentary on Dei Verbum", chap. 2, in Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, ed. Herbert Vorgrimler (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), 3:184.


Read Congar's own introduction to The Meaning of Tradition.



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G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was one of the finest Christian authors and apologists of the past two hundred years. Raised as an agnostic, he embraced Christianity as a young man, ultimately entering the Catholic Church in 1922. He wrote hundreds of essays, as well as novels, short stories, poetry, apologetics, literary criticism, and nearly everything else imaginable. Dale Ahlquist, president and co-founder of the American Chesterton Society and author of G.K Chesterton: Apostle of Common Sense, writes, "Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology. His style is unmistakable, always marked by humility, consistency, paradox, wit, and wonder. His writing remains as timely and as timeless today as when it first appeared, even though much of it was published in throw away paper." Read more about the life and work of this remarkable thinker, author, and apologist.




The Quest For Shakespeare: The Bard of Avon and the Church of Rome
by Joseph Pearce


Highly regarded and best-selling literary writer and teacher, Joseph Pearce presents a stimulating and vivid biography of the world's most revered writer that is sure to be controversial. Unabashedly provocative, with scholarship, insight and keen observation, Pearce strives to separate historical fact from fiction about the beloved Bard. Shakespeare is not only one of the greatest figures in human history, he is also one of the most controversial and one of the most elusive. He is famous and yet almost unknown. Who was he? What were his beliefs? Can we really understand his plays and his poetry if we don't know the man who wrote them? These are some of the questions that are asked and answered in this gripping and engaging study of the world's greatest ever poet. The Quest for Shakespeare claims that books about the Bard have got him totally wrong. They misread the man and misread the work. The true Shakespeare has eluded the grasp of the critics. Dealing with the facts of Shakespeare's life and times, Pearce's quest leads to the inescapable conclusion that Shakespeare was a believing Catholic living in very anti-Catholic times.

Read more about The Quest for Shakspeare, an interview with Joseph Pearce, or Chapter One from the book.










 
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