Traditional Genetics

Tradition is, in a sense, like our genes or genetic material; it is given to us from our predecessors, it helps to determine who we are and what we do, and we pass it on to our offspring.  There are, of course, limitations to this analogy, but I think it captures something very important about how we understand Tradition. Tradition is the lived experience and world-view of community, so we cannot help but be born into a tradition. But what of Christian Tradition? With any lived experience and world-view, we can make the distinction between practices and beliefs. Christian Tradition, then, is the practices and beliefs that have been lived and passed on from one generation to another since the time of the Apostles. The beliefs we receive govern how we see the world and assign value, and the practices help us to manifest these beliefs in our everyday lives. Tradition, we can see, is not something static and vehemently forced upon us, but is something living and life-giving. We take tradition from our ancestors, we live it in our own time and place, and then pass it on to our children. We cannot abandon tradition just as we cannot abandon the fact that X is my mother and Y is my father. But, at the same time, in order for tradition to be alive, it must be lived within our own time, and must be expressed in our own culture. Traditionalism, then, is dangerous since it prevents the life of faith to continue. As Jaroslav Pelikan writes, "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living."

What about change? Can we change tradition? Many people today are upset with the Church because it condemns sexual immorality (sodomy, contraception, cohabitation, fornication, masturbation, etc.) , and it doesn't allow women to be priests. Since these things are acceptable in the secular world, why can't the Church simply change its beliefs and adapt itself to the desires of society?

In a sense we cannot change tradition because by its nature, it is meant to be continuity in human experience. However, in the Church, we know that we can develop and define tradition. The early Christians spent centuries trying to explain the humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ. The celebration of the Eucharist has undergone many developments in both the East and the West. But still, in whatever we do, we must check ourselves with the original authorities of our faith: Sacred Scripture and Apostolic teaching. Our guarantee that we are authentic Christians comes from the fact that our practices and our believes are concomitant with the Scriptures and with the Apostolic traditions that are handed on by another very important part of tradition: the Magisterium.

We can turn to the Vatican II document Dei Verbum to learn more of this:

"Both scripture and tradition must be accepted and honored with equal devotion and reverence." #9

"The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This magisterium is not superior to the word of God, but rather its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it." #10

Yves Congar O.P., in his book The Meaning of Tradition writes,

"All Christians are collectively responsible for Christianity, just as, collectively, they all form a holy priesthood and spiritual fabric. They carry and transmit Christianity and the Gospel from generation to generation.  Within the body of Christians, that is, the Church, the hierarchy, following the apostles, have received the mandate, authority and corresponding power to keep the apostolic deposit and Gospel and to explain them authentically. The mere transmission is one thing; at least in a certain way it concerns everyone; keeping, judging, and defining it with the authority of the Magisterium is another: it is the function of the hierarchy, comprising the college of bishops united to the Pope, who is the head of this college as Peter was head of the apostolic college. Collectively and organically the faithful and hierarchy form the subject of tradition."

We cannot change tradition because it is not up to use to change it. We cannot abandon tradition because it is not ours to abandon. We receive what has been handed down and we hand it on with our lives. The Church does not have the authority to change tradition, because tradition has as its origin Jesus Christ and his teachings, who the Apostles saw with their own eyes and lived with, and spread that good news, the Gospel, that they experienced in the person of Christ, to all people. We are therefore responsible not only to know tradition, but to live in accordance with it, in our own times, and pass it on, since it is the authentic faith that comes to us from those who ate, prayed, and traveled with Jesus Christ.

We cannot allow sexual immorality, in any of its forms, we cannot ordain women to the priesthood, and we cannot succumb to the passing ideological whims of the majority (the dictatorship of relativism that Pope Benedict is fighting), because like Peter clinging to Christ while falling into the water, we must cling to the authentic Christian beliefs and practices, handed down from generation to generation, that allow us to claim the dignified title of "Christian".