“Tradition Devoured by the Magisterium”

This essay appeared at the Spanish site Caminante Wanderer on August 14, under the title “La
Tradición devorada por el Magisterio.” This translation has been prepared for Rorate Caeli.—
PAK

Tradition Devoured by the Magisterium

(from the Spanish blog Caminante Wanderer)

I would like to propose a thesis: in the course of the centuries, and especially after the Council
of Trent, there has been a shift from an objective notion of Tradition as a revealed deposit to a
subjective notion, which insists above all on the organ that proposes the truth—that is, the
Magisterium. In scholastic terms, there has been a transition from quod to quo.

Whoever studies the Summa theologiae will see that the theological method St. Thomas applies
is not the one that, according to modern manuals, must be followed to prove a theological
proposition. This would consist rather of proof by the Magisterium, proof by Scripture, and
proof by Tradition. In St. Thomas, however, there is no proof by the Magisterium; for him the
auctoritates are Scripture and the Fathers. Quotations from popes or councils are scarce.

If we take up Denzinger, we will see that the first thirteen centuries of the Church—that is, up
to the death of St. Thomas—cover only a fifth of the total of the interventions of the
Magisterium. And we could continue to add significant data: the word “magisterium” does not
appear at the Council of Trent, but the notion begins to take shape from Stapleton at the end of
the sixteenth century, and especially in the theological treatises of the eighteenth century such
as those of Mayr, Gotti, and Billuart.

All this does not mean—and it is important to clarify this—that the primacy of the Roman See
is in doubt; it is simply to note that before modern times this See did not exercise the active
magisterium of dogmatic definitions and constant formulation of Catholic doctrine that it has
exercised since the pontificates of Gregory XVI and, above all, of Pius IX. In antiquity, the
Roman See functioned more like a supreme court of last appeal, acting only once the question
under dispute had been studied and broken down by doctors, theological schools, universities,
and local councils.

We can say roughly that in the first centuries and until well into the second millennium, the
Regula fidei was objective, that is, it was the same doctrine received from the Apostles, and
that the popes, councils, and bishops fulfilled a function of conservation and of testifying to
the fact that a doctrine had always been maintained—that it went back to the origins and
therefore belonged to the aforesaid Regula fidei.

What can be observed is that a kind of reduction of Tradition to the Magisterium has
been slowly taking place since the beginning of the second millennium and more rapidly in
the last few centuries. There was a transition from conceiving Tradition as the content of the
Apostolic Deposit to conceiving Tradition from the vantage of the transmitting organ,
considered as residing in the Church’s Magisterium. The next step was to speak, probably
beginning in the nineteenth century, of Tradition and Scripture as “remote rules” of faith,
while the Magisterium would be the “proximate rule.” Theologians of the early twentieth
century already speak of the Magisterium as having a formal function in relation to the
objective deposit. Finally, the notion of remote rule is criticized, and the conclusion is
reached of attributing the quality of rule of faith exclusively to the “living Magisterium.”
With this process, the Magisterium has been introduced into the very definition of
Tradition. To put it in an exaggerated way, Catholics today believe in Tradition because
the Magisterium commands it. And for this reason, the faithful today wait for the Pope to
pronounce on this or that matter, in order to know what to believe. And they obey slavishly in
absolutely everything that the pope of the day comes up with, even his gestures or personal
tastes.

This is not what happened during the first fifteen centuries of the Church. When a pope (or a
council with the pope) spoke, it was because the situation was truly critical—for example, the
Arian crisis, or Nestorianism, Monophysitism, Protestantism, Jansenism, Modernism, etc.

The most ultramontane positions could argue that the First Vatican Council defined, as a matter
de fide, that the Roman Pontiff possesses universal, supreme, and immediate power even in
jurisdictional and disciplinary matters, and whoever does not wish to accept it, anathema sit
(Denzinger 1821–1831); therefore, the foregoing thesis could be seen as an attack against this
dogma of faith.

It is definitely not so, because what is questioned is not the pope’s universal power but
the papal absolutism of the second millennium. Supreme power is not equivalent to
absolutism, which is the same power taken to excess.

On the other hand, it is necessary to be precise about what is understood by “supreme and
universal power,” since many consider that it empowers the Roman Pontiff to do whatever he
wants. This is not so. There are many things the pope cannot do. He cannot suppress
institutions of divine right. He cannot suppress the episcopal order. He cannot abrogate
sacraments. He cannot modify or annul the commandments. He cannot admit someone
in mortal sin to sacramental communion. He cannot bless morally evil acts.

And above all, there is a general principle of natural law that applies to any authority:
commands must be rational. If a command is not ordered by reason, it is not law but force
and violence. And while the pope cannot be judged by anyone on earth, his manifestly
irrational laws or commands can be resisted. For example, even if the pope did not like
people of color, he could not suppress the African dioceses; nor could he ordain all the
males of his family bishops to give luster to the Bergoglios. If he does not like kibbeh and
sfiha, he could not suppress the Maronite rite; and we could give other examples of
irrationalities that a pope could not do—in regard to which, were he to do them, it would
be licit, if not obligatory, to resist him.

Finally, an argument from authority. When Benedict XVI took office as Bishop of Rome in the
Basilica of St. John Lateran, he said in his homily: “The Pope is not an absolute monarch whose
thoughts and wills are law.” And while still prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, he wrote: “The Pope is not an absolute monarch whose will is law. He is rather the
guardian of authentic Tradition and thus the first guarantor of obedience. He cannot do
whatever comes into his head and is thus able to oppose those people who, for their part, want
to do whatever comes into their heads. Its rules are not those of arbitrary power, but those of
obedience in faith” (Prologue to Alcuin Reid, The Organic Development of the Liturgy,
Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2004, p. 18).
In the light of the above thesis and the words of Pope Benedict XVI, it is worth asking, once
again, to what extent the despotic act with which Francis has suffocated the traditional liturgy
through Traditiones Custodes should be obeyed—thus ceasing to be the “guardian of authentic
tradition” and becoming its executioner.

https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2021/09/tradition-devoured-by-magisterium.html Accessed 3
Sept, 2021