I thought that was what the Church always taught; tradition and scripture. No one has answered my question about what brought this up. Is it being bandied about among Catholics?
Well, I think that Vincentius had kind of said or at least implied on FE in the third page of the thread Prima Scriptura Redux that Catholic converts from Protestantism such as Scott Hahn, Tim Staples, and others have seemingly sort of tended toward a "primacy" of Scripture over Tradition. Is that correct, Vincentius?
Kepha,
My take on the Scriptures, as a cradle Catholic, is this: we learned about the Scriptures, the story of the life of Jesus, through the Catechism, not through
chapter and verse as the Protestant do. And Tradition has been handed down to us the same way, through the Mass particularly, and the basic and most necessary prayers. By the time we're 7 years old and ready for First Holy Communion, we know all about Christianity (anyway, as much as can be crammed into the little brain we have). And thereafter we live our lives the way the Catholic Church teaches.
It's different with the Protestants. The Bible is their sole authority and Tradition is rejected, though strangely, each Protestant community and even each Protestant individually, makes up his own tradition (thus the tradition of men, not of God).
Prior to Vatican II, a Prottie's conversion to the Catholic religion was a true (and pure) conversion, in that the convert completely divested himself of all protestant trappings and embraced Catholicism completely -- the Church made sure this would be the case. However, with Vatican II and aggiornamento and the "opening of the windows," a prottie convert still retains vestiges of his old religion and instead of getting rid of them, incorporates them into his version of Catholicism. If we read Scott Hahn or James Akin, they are still prottie at heart --that is, they are still of the liberal mind (modernists) that they were previously. The
prima scriptura is protestant in design. It is definitely not Catholic. So these halfway (or semi-) heretics are bringing into the Church the old religion they cannot shake off after becoming Catholic and are turning the faithful into neo Protestants with these teachings. They want Catholics to be Bible-bred. As I stated in a post in FE, there are now more scripture readings (in the Mass in particular) and all the beautiful prayers and hymns (St Thomas wrote most of the beautiful hymns) have been discarded and thrown away. The banal hymns in the Mass
IS protestant and nothing more -- directed not to God but to the congregation.
A note in the impasse: the Prima Scriptura thread at FE appears to have lost momentum and has come to a dead stop. Lumen is a sincere convert and is working his way towards being the compleat Catholic...if only he would divest himself and shake off whatever traces of protestantism left in him...
The Church came first (Matthew 16:18). On Pentecost, Tradition was born -- that is, the whole concept of the economy of salvation was infused in the minds and hearts of the Apostles by the Holy Ghost. Then a few of the Apostles decided -- prompted by the Holy Ghost -- to set down in writing about the life of Jesus and the purpose of His Coming, but they wrote in a terse economical way, leaving out much detail. As St. John wrote, not everything that Jesus did and said is to be found in the Scriptures (it would have taken many books and consumed much time). So where thenwhere do we find the doctrines not specifically found in the Bible -- Mary's Immaculate Conception, her bodily Assumption, the concept of the Trinity as one Godhead, etc.? In Sacred Tradition, where else?
EDIT: the whole concept of the economy of salvation
(which Jesus has taught to them before the Ascension) was indelibly (i.e., never to be effaced or erased) infused in the minds and hearts of the Apostles by the Holy Ghost.