Catechism Paragraphs
74 – 100
The catechism of the Catholic Church was put together to
document in one place the key doctrines of the Church, and where they came from
--- someone did not just make them up.
The section I read today documents a key underpinning of the Church’s
authority: Divine Revelation. Section I Article 2 is on The Transmission of
Divine Revelation. Article 3 is on
Sacred Scripture.
“God desires all men to be saved and to come to the
knowledge of the truth. (1Tim 2:4) 74 Christ the Lord commanded the apostles to
preach the Gospel. This Gospel was to be
the source of all saving truth and moral discipline. 75 The Church, the pillar and bulwark of the
truth, faithfully guards ‘the faith which was once for all delivered to the
saints.’ She guards the memory of Christ’s
words; it is she who from generation to generation hands on the apostles’
confession of faith. (1Tim 3:15; Jude 3.)
The Church our Mother teaches us the language of faith in order to
introduce us to the understanding and the life of faith.” 171
“In keeping with the Lord’s command, the Gospel was handed
on in two ways: orally, by the apostles by
the spoken word of their preaching, by the example they gave, by the
institutions they established, what they themselves had received – whether from
the lips of Christ, from his way of life and his works, or whether they had
learned it at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and in writing, by those apostles and other men associated with the
apostles who, under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit, committed the
message of salvation to writing.” 76
“In order that the full and living Gospel might always be
preserved in the Church the apostles left bishops as their successors. They gave them their own position of teaching
authority. 77 This living
transmission, accomplished in the Holy Spirit, is called Tradition, since it is
distinct from Sacred Scripture, though closely connected to it. Through Tradition, the Church in her
doctrine, life, and worship perpetuates and transmits to every generation all
that she herself is, all that she believes.
The sayings of the Holy Fathers are a witness to the life-giving
presence of this Tradition, showing how its riches are poured out in the
practice and life of the Church, in her belief and her prayer.” 78
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRADITION AND SACRED SCRIPTURE
Sacred Scripture
is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy
Spirit. And (Holy) Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been
entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the
apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully
preserve, expound, and spread it abroad by their preaching. 81 Both
Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of
devotion and reverence. (This is a key doctrine of the Catholic
Faith). 82 Tradition is to be distinguished from the various theological,
disciplinary, liturgical, or devotional traditions, born in the local churches
over time. These traditions can be retained, modified or even abandoned under
the guidance of the Church’s magisterium.”
83
THE MAGISTERIUM OF THE CHURCH
“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 means
that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion
with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome. Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the
Word of God, but is its servant. It
teaches only what has been handed on to it.
85-6 Mindful of Christ’s words to his apostles: ‘He
who hears you, hears me,’ the faithful receive with docility the teachings and
directives that their pastors give them in different forms.” 87
DOGMAS OF THE FAITH
“The Church’s Magisterium exercises the authority it holds
from Christ to the fullest extent when it defines dogmas, that is, when it
proposes truths contained in divine Revelation or having a necessary connection
with them, in a form obliging the Christian people to an irrevocable adherence
of faith. 88 The mutual connections
between dogmas, and their coherence, can be found in the whole of the
Revelation of the mystery of Christ. In
Catholic doctrine there exists and order or hierarchy of truths, since they
vary in their relation to the foundation of the Christian faith. 90 All the faithful share in understanding
and holding on revealed truth. They have
received the anointing of the Holy Spirit, who instructs them and guides them
in all truth. 91 Through the
contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts,
it is in particular theological research (which) deepens knowledge of revealed
truth.” 94
“It is clear therefore that, in the supremely wise
arrangement of God, sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, and the Magisterium of
the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand
without the others. Working together,
each in its own way, under the action of the one Holy Spirit, they all contribute
effectively to the salvation of souls.” 95
Can the Church err in
questions of faith? The faithful as
a whole cannot err in faith, because Jesus promised his disciples that he would
send them the Spirit of truth and keep them in the truth (Jn 14:17) Although individual members of the Church can
err and even make serious mistakes, the Church as a whole can never fall away
from God’s truth. The Church carries
through the ages a living truth that is greater than herself. We speak about a depositum fidei, a deposit
of faith that is to be preserved. YOUCAT Q 13
SACRED SCRIPTURE
“In Sacred Scripture, the Church constantly finds her
nourishment and her strength, for she welcomes it not as a human word, but as
what it really is, the word of God. In
the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet his
children, and talks with them. 104
God is the author of Sacred Scripture; (the words are) written down
under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
105 The inspired authors teach the truth. Since therefore all that the inspired authors
or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we
must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly and without error teach
that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to
the Sacred Scriptures. Still, the
Christian faith is not a ‘religion of the book.’ If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead
letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy
Spirit, open our minds to understand the Scriptures.” 107-8
“To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be
attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm and to what God
wanted to reveal to us by their words. 109
Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same
Spirit by whom it was written. The
Second Vatican Council indicates three criteria for interpreting Scripture in
accordance with the Spirit who inspired it.
111 1)Be
especially attentive to the content and unity of the whole Scripture. Different as the books which comprise it may
be, Scripture is a unity by reason of the unity of God’s plan. 2) Read
the Scripture within ‘the living Tradition of the whole Church.’ According to a saying of the Fathers, Sacred
Scripture is written principally in the Church’s heart, for the Church carries
in her Tradition the living memorial of God’s Word, and it is the Holy Spirit
who gives her the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture. 113 3) Be
attentive to the analogy of faith.
By ‘analogy of faith’ we mean the coherence of the truths of faith among
themselves and within the whole plan of Revelation.” 114
“According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish
between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter
being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. 115 The literal
sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by
exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: ‘All other senses of
Sacred Scripture are based on the literal.’
116 The spiritual
sense. Thanks to the unity of God’s
plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about
which it speaks can be signs. 1) The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding
of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the
Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ’s victory and also of Christian
Baptism. 2) The moral sense. The events
reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written ‘for our
instruction.’ 3) The anagogical sense (Gr: anagoge, ‘leading’). We can view realities and events in terms of
their eternal significance, thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly
Jerusalem.” 117
“It was by the apostolic Tradition that the Church discerned
which writings are to be included in the list of the sacred books. This complete list is called the canon of
Scripture. It includes 46 boos for the
Old Testament and 27 for the New. 120
The books of the Old Testament bear witness to the whole divine pedagogy
of God’s saving love: these writings are
a storehouse of sublime teaching on God and of sound wisdom on human life, as
well as a wonderful treasury of prayers; in them, too, the mystery of our
salvation is present in a hidden way. 122
The Word of God, which is the power of God for salvation to everyone who
has faith, is set forth and displays its power in a most wonderful way in the
writings of the New Testament, which hand on the ultimate truth of God’s
Revelation. Their central object is
Jesus Christ, God’s incarnate Son: his acts, teachings, Passion and
glorification, and his Church’s beginnings under the Spirit’s guidance.” 124
“The Gospels are the heart of all the Scriptures because
they are our principal source for the life and teaching of the Incarnate Word,
our Savior. We can distinguish three
stages in the formation of the Gospels:
1) The life and teaching of Jesus 2) The oral tradition: For, after the
ascension of the Lord, the apostles handed on to their hearers what he had said
and done, but with that fuller understanding which they, instructed by the
glorious events of Christ and enlightened by the Spirit of truth, now
enjoyed. 3) The written Gospels. The
sacred authors, in writing the four Gospels, selected certain of the many
elements which had been handed on, either orally or already in written form, in
such a fashion that they have told us the honest truth about Jesus.” 125-6
“The Church, as early as apostolic times, and then
constantly in her Tradition, has illuminated the unity fo the divine plan in
the two Testaments through typology, which discerns in God’s works of the Old
Covenant prefigurations of what he accomplished in the fullness of time in the
person of his incarnate Son. 128
The New Testament has to be read in the light of the Old. Early Christian catechesis made constant use
of the Old Testament. 129
The Church forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian
faithful to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ by frequent reading
of the divine Scriptures. ‘Ignorance of
the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.’”
133
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