The meaning of fidelity to tradition: more from Moyra Doorly and Aidan Nichols

Rorate Caeli reports (December 30, 2009) that The Catholic Herald has published another installment of Moyra Doorly and Fr. Aidan Nichols' continuing discussion of the meaning of fidelity to Catholic Tradition. This chapter of their discussion was published on Christmas Day of 2009 under the title, "We remain the Church of Tradition". I would like to present some excerpts:

From Moyra Doorly:

According to Archbishop Lefebvre in his 1986 Open Letter to Confused Catholics: "Tradition does not consist of the customs inherited from the past and preserved out of loyalty to the past even where there are no clear reasons for them. Tradition is defined as the Deposit of Faith transmitted by the Magisterium down through the centuries. This deposit is what has been given to us by Revelation; that is to say, the Word of God entrusted to the Apostles and transmitted unfailingly by their successors."

As SSPX Bishop Tissier de Mallerais explained in his discourse "The True Notion of Tradition", given at Versailles (May 19, 1995), Tradition is immutable just as God is, because God and the saints who adore Him exist in eternity which, unlike time, does not change. Thus, new teachings are not added to the Deposit of Faith, or derived by assimilating elements foreign to it. Instead they are formulated through progress in precision, as the qualities inherent in a rough diamond are revealed by the gem-cutter, and through development in explanation, as the truths contained in the revealed deposit unfold like a bud which blossoms but remains, in essence, the same flower.

By this development, truths already contained in the deposit pass from being implicitly believed to explicitly stated. Eventually a point which cannot be surpassed is reached, the point at which truth is defined ex cathedra by a pope, as was the Immaculate Conception by Pope Pius IX, or the Assumption of the Most Holy Virgin by Pope Pius XII. Defined truths are therefore irrevocable and no longer susceptible to development.

Thus the Mass codified by Pope St Pius V in his 1570 bull Quo Primum, represents this unsurpassable summit according to Bishop de Mallerais. The result of centuries of liturgical development, it is the full expression of the dogmas of the Mass. In contrast, the new Mass is a regression rather than a development, since the dogmas are less clearly manifested, the Real Presence less affirmed, the propitiatory sacrifice sidelined and the sacrificing character of the priesthood played down.

Immutable Tradition has an admirable capacity for application to all contingent circumstances, Bishop de Mallerais also points out. Catholic application involves no change, no mutation of the principles, but instead allows for the development of different applications of the same principles. Tradition is living because it is lived by the faithful, and alive because it applies the eternal and unchanging principles to the problems and necessities of each century. "But Vatican II let the principles fall, under the pretext of adaptation to the thinking of the modern world," Bishop de Mallerais claims.

Therefore Tradition is "living", is alive, as long as the Deposit of Faith is accurately transmitted. But the new theology adopted by Vatican II has falsified, adulterated and disarmed Tradition, so that sterility and not fecundity is the mark of the Conciliar Church, as evidenced in the dearth of vocations, the widescale abandonment of the Faith, and empty churches.... (emphasis by Rorate Caeli)

From Fr. Aidan Nichols:

There must be unceasing vigilance to ensure that "traditions" (lower-case "t") - whether ancient and inherited, or emerging and thus relatively novel - genuinely permit "Tradition" (upper-case "T") to make its appearance, really allow Tradition to enter minds and hearts. The tail must not wag the dog, the medium control the message. And this is where Archbishop Lefebvre was exactly right. If Tradition is Revelation itself as transmitted in the Church (and in that sense it may be said to include Scripture, just as in another sense it can be described as complementing it), then the continuance of Christian truth turns crucially on the authenticity of the manner in which this process of transmission is carried out. That is why the Pope and bishops, as, by Christ's will and determination, the chief witnesses to Tradition have a duty to "guard the deposit".

Was the deposit guarded at the Second Vatican Council? This will need to be the subject, Moyra, of another exchange. For the moment, it will have to suffice to say that the doctrinal Modernism combated by Pope St Pius X seems to me to play no role at all in the documents of the Second Vatican Council. The place to find it, were it to exist, would undoubtedly be the Council's Dogmatic Constitution on Revelation, Dei Verbum. In speaking of how "the tradition which comes from the apostles develops in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit", Dei Verbum explains such development (para. 8) as "a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down". There is here accretion in understanding through - we are told - contemplative study (on the model of Our Lady at Nazareth) and mystical insight, and this finds sanction in the preaching of those who have received the "sure gift of truth" (a quotation from the second century St Irenaeus) in episcopal consecration. There is no suggestion in this text of accretion in the deposit itself. I see nothing here remotely reminiscent of Pascendi, no bubbling up from the depths of the collective subconscious, no insinuation that doctrines are only symbols of truth rather than triumphant acquisitions of truth. I find no spirit of accommodation to what Jones, or the man on the Clapham omnibus, can swallow.

That in the situation of anomie in the still not fully resolved crisis in our Church episcopal guardianship has often been lacking, I have no doubt. Nor do I think Neo-Modernism is merely a chimera. But I am equally convinced that the Church of the post-conciliar popes remains the Church of Tradition. What we need now is to recover, for the sake of their great serviceableness, many of the venerable traditions - conceptual, liturgical, and the rest - in which Tradition has been presented. I am speaking of their serviceableness to a Gospel which must, by ever-new inventiveness, be preached to unbelievers in the world of today. This was what was done by the scribe of the Gospels whom the Lord commended for bringing from his treasure chest things both old and new. (emphasis by Rorate Caeli)

Previous exchanges between Fr. Aidan Nichols and Moyra Doorly can be found here:

• Rome and the SSPX: a very puzzling dialogue (Moyra Doorly)
• Letter from a confused Catholic: Could the liturgical crisis stem from the Council itself? (Moyra Doorly)
• Reply a confused Catholic: The contrasts you draw are unnecessarily sharp (Fr. Aidan Nichols OP)
• Is the SSPX right about the liturgy? (Moyra Doorly and Fr. Aidan Nichols)

[Hat tip to New Catholic]