A new Catholic news aggregator has been launched with an awesome URL. From its founder:

I’ve launched a new Catholic Newsite that distinguishes itself from other Catholic news aggregaters in that it offers only the best in Catholic punditry. From Father Zuhlsdorf to Mark Shea and from George Weigel to Ross Douthat and everything in-between.

We scour the Catholic blogosphere for the most insightful and well written articles that affect us as Catholics.

It is called “The Pulpit” and its URL is…

thepulp.it.

Check it out!

One of the dangers of being knowledgeable about Church history and the lives of the saints is that you can cherry-pick just about any action or words used by some saint at some time in history to justify your own actions.

Don’t feel like evangelizing? Just quote the apocryphal St. Francis quote, “Preach the Gospel always. When necessary, use words.”

Feel like smacking a co-worker that annoys you? Just remember that jolly ol’ St. Nick once hit the arch-heretic Arius.

In other words, take some event or quote out of context and (mis-)apply it to justify just about any action you take or any attitude you might have.

One of the most common historical phrases used by certain Catholics is “Athanasius contra mundum” or “Athanasius against the world”. This phrase is referring to the fact that St. Athanasius almost single-handedly held off the Arian heresy in the 4th century. When vast numbers of bishops capitulated to the Arians, Athanasius alone strongly defended Nicene orthodoxy, and in the end was successful (although after five exiles). St. Athanasius is a great example of perseverance and standing strong for the Faith even in the face of great adversity.

However, I have often seen this phrase used as the motto of those who do not want to put in the hard work necessary to be charitable to others and to change hearts and minds. For example, when a parish priest says something that doesn’t jibe with this person’s personal theology, he will attack the priest and accuse him of heresy. And when he is ostracized by the parish, he will take heart that he has joined the ranks of saints like St. Athanasius in defending the Faith in the face of persecution.

Well, no – he’s just been a jerk and treated accordingly.

We are required as Christians to treat everyone charitably and with the best possible intentions. St. Bernard said,

Even though you see something very bad about your neighbor, don’t jump immediately to conclusions, but rather make excuses for him interiorly. Excuse his intention, if you cannot excuse his action. Think that he may have acted out of ignorance, or by surprise, or accidentally. If the thing is so blatant that it cannot be denied, even so, believe it to be so, and say inwardly: the temptation must have been very strong. (Sermon on the Canticle of Canticles 40).

In other words, don’t go looking for errors and problems in others, but instead pray for them and assume the best. That does not mean that we do not resist heresy, it just means that we always do so charitably – and even reluctantly, in the sense that we hope and pray that the other person is simply being misunderstood or talking out of ignorance.

A more accurate way to describe the 4th century would be to say that it was “the world against Athanasius”. In other words, Athanasius did not go around looking for problems and people to offend. Instead he charitably and forcibly stood up for orthodoxy and then the world attacked him. We should do the same today. We don’t need to pursue persecution; simply living the Faith usually means that persecution will come to us.

The NY Times recently ran another breathless article which pits the big, bad Catholic Church (a.k.a. The Evil Galactic Empire) against a group of plucky men and women (a.k.a. a small band of rebel freedom fighters) who just want to sit around and sing kumbaya in peace. I have to wonder: has the Times ever written an article about the Catholic Church that didn’t sound like the plot for Star Wars?

Here it is, with my comments in red:

Catholics in Belgium Start Parishes of Their Own

BUIZINGEN, Belgium — Willy Delsaert is a retired railroad employee with dyslexia who practiced intensively before facing the suburban Don Bosco Catholic parish to perform the Sunday Mass rituals he grew up with.

“Who takes this bread and eats,” he murmured, cracking a communion wafer with his wife at his side, “declares a desire for a new world.” [Well, so much for performing "the Sunday Mass ritual he grew up with" - this sounds like something you'd hear at a Unitarian service.]

With those words, Mr. Delsaert, 60, and his fellow parishioners are discreetly pioneering a grass-roots movement that defies centuries of Roman Catholic Church doctrine by worshiping and sharing communion without a priest. [I don't know how you can call them "pioneers" since Protestants have been doing this for centuries. Sounds more like they are late to the game to me.]

Don Bosco is one of about a dozen alternative Catholic churches [=non-Catholic churches] that have sprouted and grown in the last two years in Dutch-speaking regions of Belgium and the Netherlands. They are an uneasy reaction to a combination of forces: a shortage of priests, the closing of churches, dissatisfaction with Vatican appointments of conservative bishops and, most recently, dismay over cover-ups of sexual abuse by priests.

The churches are called ecclesias, the word derived from the Greek verb for “calling together.” [Rule #1 for dissenting Catholics: use NT Greek words to sound authentic.] Five were started last year in the Netherlands by Catholics who broke away from their existing parishes, and more are being planned, said Franck Ploum, who helped start an ecclesia in January in Breda, the Netherlands, and is organizing a network conference for the groups in the two countries.

At this sturdy brick church southwest of Brussels, men and women are trained as “conductors.” [At least they don't try to convince everyone that they are "priests".] They preside over Masses and the landmarks of life: weddings and baptisms, funerals and last rites. Church members took charge more than a year ago when their pastor retired without a successor. In Belgium, about two-thirds of clergymen are over 55, and one-third older then 65.

“We are resisting a little bit like Gandhi,” [a very little bit, I'd say] said Johan Veys, a married former priest who performs baptisms and recruits newcomers for other tasks at Don Bosco. “Our intention is not to criticize, but to live correctly. We press onward quietly without a lot of noise. [Considering the rapidly declining circulation of the NY Times, that might be true.] It’s important to have a community where people feel at home and can find peace and inspiration.”

Yet they appear to be on a collision course with the Vatican and the Catholic Church in Belgium. [Yes, I'm sure the big, bad Vatican will issue a fatwa and make sure these people are killed for their blasphemy...O wait a minute, Catholics don't do that...] The Belgian church has been staggering from a sexual abuse scandal with 475 victims, and the resignation of the bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, who last April admitted to years of molesting a boy who turned out to be his nephew.

In the view of Rome [and Jesus and the apostles and the saints and the Fathers and 2,000 years of Catholic teaching], only ordained priests can celebrate Mass or preside over most sacraments like baptisms and marriage. “If there are persons or groups that do not observe these norms, the competent bishops — who know what really happens — have to see how to intervene and explain what is in order and out of order if someone belongs to the Catholic Church,” the Rev. Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, said. [with some measure of exasperation, I'm sure]

[Oh, I give up - this is like shooting fish in a barrel. If you want to read more of this inanity, click here - but don't say I didn't warn you.]

A while back I was at a conference and a discussion arose about blogs. A bishop who was in attendance warmed to the subject and was quick to denounce bloggers, stating that they need to look at the beam in their own eye before condemning the speck in others’ eyes. It was clear that this bishop found no value in the Catholic blogosphere and wished it would just go away.

I thought of this incident when I read this AP story:

Catholic bloggers aim to purge dissenters

Pressure is on to change the Roman Catholic Church in America, but it’s not coming from the usual liberal suspects. A new breed of theological conservatives has taken to blogs and YouTube to say the church isn’t Catholic enough.

Enraged by dissent that they believe has gone unchecked for decades, and unafraid to say so in the starkest language, these activists are naming names and unsettling the church…

John Allen, Vatican analyst for the National Catholic Reporter, has dubbed this trend “Taliban Catholicism.” But he says it’s not a strictly conservative phenomenon — liberals can fit the mindset, too, Allen says. Some left-leaning Catholics are outraged by any exercise of church authority.

Yet on the Internet and in the church, conservatives are having the bigger impact.

Continue reading…

If I were a bishop I too would most likely be suspicious of Catholic bloggers, as often it is true that bishops get unfairly criticized – and it is frequently the case that the most negative bloggers – the “bishop bashers” – get the most attention. I can only imagine what my job would be like if every day I had a legion of bloggers following my every action to see whether I performed in a way they felt was satisfactory. I suspect I would wish they would go away as well.

Furthermore, too often bloggers can criticize bishops without basing their criticisms in love. They can assume a bishop has bad intentions and treat him as the “enemy” when often the bishop is just making a difficult prudential judgement in a particular case. I once wrote about the Three Credits of Love, and if anyone deserves the three credits, it is the successors to the apostles.

And yet I think there is a positive contribution that bloggers have made to the Church, even those which mostly focus on negative aspects of Church life. Blogs have re-energized the faith life of many Catholics, as orthodox faithful who have endured years of misery in a dissenting or dying parish have seen that there are other Catholics out there who care about their faith and love the Church unreservedly. Church bureaucrats who hid behind their bishop’s cloak have been exposed when they do something against the Catholic Faith. Bishops themselves now know that when they allow heresy to be proclaimed in their diocese that it will be made public (and be made known to the Vatican).

I am a strong proponent of the authority of bishops, yet I am not a fan of clericalism. Throughout Church history bishops have faltered and it was the laity who kept the Faith alive in the world. I am thankful that in our time there are a good number of very good bishops proclaiming the Faith in power and in love, but I am also thankful that many lay people take their faith seriously enough to defend it in the public square, even when they have to defend it against the bishops themselves.

We relentlessly hear about the vocations crisis and how no one is interested in becoming a priest anymore. However, reality does not always match with conventional wisdom: here in Washington, DC, a new seminary is opening!

Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl announced today that the Archdiocese of Washington will open a new seminary in August 2011 for men preparing to become priests. The seminary, for men in college and pre-theology studies, will be located near The Catholic University of America at 145 Taylor Street, NE, Washington, DC.

“At a time when the teachings of the Catholic faith seem counter-cultural, we are seeing an increased interest in the priesthood, particularly among younger men who want to be a part of a new evangelization in society. Until now, most of our new seminarians, especially those in college, have had to leave the area for their studies. Now, the men will begin their formation here and be an integral part of the local Catholic community from the beginning,” said Archbishop Wuerl.

Sixty-seven men are studying for the priesthood in the Archdiocese of Washington, including 29 in college and pre-theology studies. In the 2001-02 academic year, 11 of 44 seminarians were in college or pre-theology programs.

Monsignor Robert Panke, archdiocesan director of priest vocations and formation for the archdiocese and president of the National Conference of Diocesan Vocations Directors, is overseeing the development of the new seminary. He calls it “a real boost” to vocations efforts and notes that the archdiocese has accepted 9 to 15 men into formation annually in recent years. He attributes the numbers to efforts to encourage young men in high school and college to consider the priesthood.

Continue reading…

I know some of the young men discerning their call to the priesthood who would be going to this seminary and they are all fine disciples of our Lord. Please pray for them and for all men called to the priesthood that they might answer the Lord’s call with enthusiasm and faithfulness.

It has been announced that the archbishop of my home diocese of Washington, DC – Archbishop Donald Wuerl – has been named a Cardinal! Congratulations Cardinal-designate Wuerl!

And, in a bit of shameless self-promotion, I will now be able to say that my book Who is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew has been endorsed by a prince of the Church!

Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, in his reflections on the 2008 Synod on the Word of God, taught us that “Coming into communion with the Word of God, we enter a communion of the Church that lives the Word of God.”  Eric Sammons’ reflections examine the titles and names given to Jesus by those who knew him, as recorded in the Gospel of Saint Matthew.  Drawing on his own faith journey and his personal experience, Eric Sammons demonstrates how the lived Word of God — reflected in the lives and writings of the saints and prayers of the Church — of both the East and West — can help us to better know Jesus and to strive to form our daily lives into his likeness. Who Is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew is a work of devotion and readers should find it both inspiring and encouraging.
— Cardinal-designate Donald W. Wuerl, S.T.D., Archbishop of Washington

Let us all remember to pray fervently for Cardinal-designate Wuerl and all the new Cardinals of the Church. May they always lead us faithfully to Jesus.

Often people want to boil down complex subjects into simple-to-understand concepts. They are afraid that if something is too complex, some will reject it even if it is true because they can’t easily grasp it. This is also true of Christianity: throughout our history people have tried to simplify the web of truths which make up Christianity into easy-to-understand ideas. This is a noble project, although it does have its dangers. Sometimes in the process of simplification you leave out essential elements and thus distort the reality. But it is still praise-worthy to try to help others to understand Christianity and to try to break down any barrier to it.

If I had to boil down Christianity to just one word, it would be communion. I would define communion as “mutually self-donating union between two or more persons.” It is a union in which each person freely and completely gives himself or herself to the other out of love.

Communion is the leitmotif of all of Salvation History:

• Before creation, there is the Trinity, in which God is a communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
• In the story of creation, the first time something is noted as “not good” is when man is alone (Genesis 2:18). It is only after man is joined with woman – in communion – that he is complete.
• The Fall ruptures two communions – the one between man and God (expelled out of Eden) and the one between man and woman (no longer able to be naked without shame).
• In the Incarnation, God entered into communion with man by becoming one of us.
• In his crucifixion and descent into hell, Christ entered into communion even with the depths of man, taking on our sins and dying for them.
• In his resurrection, Christ re-established the ruptured communion between man and God.
• In establishing the Sacrament of the Eucharist – “communion” – Christ gave us the ability to be in communion with both God and with our fellow man.
• In establishing the Sacrament of Matrimony, Christ re-established the ruptured communion between man and woman.
• At the end of time, those who are saved will be completely united to God and become like Him; we will “come to share in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4), thus being in complete and full communion with God and with all the other saved for all eternity.

So you can see that communion is the essence of the Christian Gospel. This has profound implications for how we live as Christians. One of the most obvious is that we cannot believe that our faith is an individualistic one, just between Christ and me. Through Adam, we were lost together, and through Christ – the new Adam – we are saved together. We are bound in this process of salvation as one Body, and to think that the salvation of our neighbor is irrelevant to my salvation is to distort the Gospel.

One of the defining characteristics of Hell is that you are completely and utterly alone. The person is Hell has chosen himself as his god, and God honors that choice by leaving him by himself for all eternity – no God, no communion with anyone. Heaven, on the other hand, is complete communion with God and with all those who are saved. Thus, as the Church Militant we are called to imitate, as much as possible, the Church Triumphant by living in communion with one another and with God.

Let us live out the reality of communion in our churches, in our marriages, and in everything we do on this earth. It is by living out communion that we are truly Christian.

This interview with Fr. Benedict is a few years old, but well worth watching if you haven’t seen it yet. Fr. Benedict talks about his involvement in the civil rights movement, the future of the United States, Mother Teresa and other topics.

CatholicExchange.com has a spiffy new website, and one of the feature articles is my Rules of Engagement for Catholics on the Internet.

Check it out!

Now I just have to figure out how to get them to create a cool cartoon of me like they did for Mark Shea:

Catechism of the Catholic Church translated into the Pidgin language

and in less important translation news, my Rules of Engagement for Catholics on the Internet has been translated into Spanish.

Most informed Catholics are by now quite familiar with Vatican II’s insistence on a “universal call to holiness” (Lumen Gentium Chapter 5). By this, the Council Fathers reminded Catholics that each one of us, no matter our vocation, is called to be holy. After all, Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, in which he said that we must “be perfect” and that his followers were to be salt and light in this world (Matthew 5), was directed to all the crowds, not just the apostles. This has always been the teaching of the Church, but it had admittedly been forgotten in many parts of the Church in the years before Vatican II.

However, since Vatican II in some quarters of the Church this universal call to holiness has been tinged with a certain clericalism, which believes that the only way to be holy is to do the tasks that clerics traditionally have done or to work directly for the Church. In other words, the path to holiness for the laity is through ecclesial ministry (One bishop even wrote a book about this!). Obviously there is a need for the laity to perform certain tasks for the Church, and our priest shortage has made this even more true in recent years (I am the head of Evangelization at my parish, so I’m clearly not against the entire concept of lay ecclesial ministry).

But a problem arises when parishes push “involvement” as the most important component of a “vibrant” parish and a holy life. In my mind, a “vibrant” parish is one where the lines for Confession are long, the adoration chapel is packed and parishioners are sharing their faith in their everyday lives. None of these activities, you will note, involves lay ecclesial ministry. The fact remains that God does not call most lay people to volunteer for a parish, but He does call every single person to be holy.

What we have forgotten is the second component of the “universal call to holiness”. Not only does “universal” mean all people are called to be holy, but it also means that all honorable walks of life are means of growing in holiness. In other words, no matter what you “do” for a living – be it as a housewife, a garbage collector or the CEO of a large corporation – your work can be used to sanctify your life. One does not need to be a Eucharistic minister or a lector or a parish music minister to be doing “Christian” activities. Every activity – as long as it is moral – can be a means to grow in holiness if it is offered up to God for His glory.

St. Josemaría Escrivá, that great saint of “ordinary” life, like to say that each person has an altar on which they offer sacrifice to the Lord. For the priest, it is the Eucharistic altar. For the lay person, however, it is the work desk, the kitchen counter-top or the workbench: wherever we do our work we offer our “first fruits” to the Lord.

Let us today, and everyday, offer our ordinary tasks and work to the Lord and know that they are the means which God has given us to grow in holiness.

Perhaps this is just another case of “the media doesn’t get religion”, but I was struck by the opening paragraphs of this story:

The former Belgian bishop who resigned in April after admitting he sexually abused a nephew for years said Saturday he would go into hiding to assess his future, despite calls for him to leave the church immediately.

Roger Vangheluwe said in a statement he would immediately leave an abbey in his bishopry of Bruges, where he has been staying since his April 23 resignation. His bishopry has urged him to seek another place to live, and several victims of sexual abuse by clergy as well as a prominent senator have called on him to leave the church as an institution.

“Leave the church as an institution?” What does that mean? Excommunicate himself? Stop going to Mass? The reporter of this story really dropped the ball in this case.

The absolute last thing anyone should want is for this bishop to leave the Church; it is the Church, after all, which is the hospital for sinners and the only place this man can find peace and forgiveness. Obviously, justice must be served and the Church should make sure he never serves in a capacity that endangers other children, but kicking him out of the Church would do nothing to help him.

While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples. The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” He heard this and said, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.” (Matthew 10-13)

In the typical Catholic parish, it is likely that more energy is spent on youth ministry than any other ministry. But is it energy well-spent? In a 2005 article (but one I just found), Mike Aquila gives us a model from the early Church in which we can compare to modern attempts at youth ministry:

Scouring the Patrologia Latina and Patrologia Graeca, I found nothing to suggest that Ambrose had ever led teens on ski trips to the nearby Alps. Digging through the Eastern Fathers, I came up even drier — no junior-high dances — not even a pizza party in either Antioch or Alexandria. In fact, in all the documentary evidence from all the ancient patriarchates of the East and the West, there’s not a single bulletin announcement for a single parish youth group.

Yet the Fathers had enormous success in youth and young-adult ministry. Many of the early martyrs were teens, as were many of the Christians who took to the desert for the solitary life. There’s ample evidence that a disproportionate number of conversions, too, came from the young and youngish age groups.

How did the Fathers do it? They made wild promises.

They promised young people great things, like persecution, lower social status, public ridicule, severely limited employment opportunities, frequent fasting, a high risk of jail and torture, and maybe, just maybe, an early, violent death at the hands of their pagan rulers.

The Fathers looked young people in the eye and called them to live purely in the midst of a pornographic culture. They looked at some young men and women and boldly told them they had a calling to virginity. And it worked. Even the pagans noticed how well it worked.

Continue reading…

Let us also make “wild promises” to our youth today: if you follow Christ, you will be completely counter-cultural and your life will never be the same…

Quick question: have you ever met anyone who likes The New American Bible? Me neither.

The NAB, which is the official translation used during Mass in the United States, first entered this world, like me, in 1970. Also like me, it is starting to show its age. Unlike the King James or the Douay-Rheims, the NAB is unable to escape from its origins and reading it is like opening a time capsule and entering 1970 all over again. Because of this, Cistercian monk Br. Stephen makes a great suggestion: let’s retire the NAB:

The NAB, with its self-consciously contemporary prose of 1970, lacks the necessary timelessness to succeed as religious prose, possessing neither consciously sacral language that takes the reader out of the present moment nor the sort of unobtrusive good writing that allows the word of God to speak across time. With age, the idiom of the NAB has become a period piece, carrying us back two full generations to the blunt ugliness of the aesthetics of socialist realism and other ideas about language and literature that failed to win a lasting cultural berth. Today, its awkward phrasing may remind the reader not so much of the small, still voice of God as of the staccato earnestness of James T. Kirk on the bridge of the Enterprise. In attempting to be current, the translators left us with something that was already becoming dated by the time their work was in print.

Continue reading…

And lest anyone think that the NAB is somehow the only English version approved for liturgical use, note that in many English-speaking countries the translation used for the liturgy is the Jerusalem Bible (my personal favorite), and the Douay-Rheims is still used for the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, even in this country. So we already have approved English translations to choose from.

Along with Br. Stephen, it is my prayer that the NAB is retired before I am.

Whenever there is a debate between Christians today about some theological point, one question is sure to be fired off: “Where in the Bible is that?” Whether the topic is infant baptism, purgatory, justification by faith alone or the assumption of Mary, Scriptural support is demanded for one’s views. And for good reason; after all, the Bible is the inerrant Word of God and therefore, if a belief is found in the Bible, then surely it is true.

However, there is a false presupposition lurking behind this question, one that is commonly held by Christians today. It is the presupposition that the Bible is the source of Christian doctrine, that the Bible contains all the teachings of the Christian Faith and its purpose is to be a catechism of sorts for our teachings and beliefs. Although many Catholics have this presupposition, it is foundational to Protestantism. If you read just about any book from your local Family Bookstore (a chain of Protestant Christian bookstores), the language used in them is soaked with this presupposition: “The Bible teaches…”, “The Bible says…”, “we see from the Bible that…”.

However, this presupposition is not only false, it is illogical and contrary to history. Let us look at Salvation History for a minute and see how our Faith was passed on to us:

1. After the Fall, God raised up a nation (Israel) to be His people. He sent them prophets, kings and priests to teach them about the ways of God.
2. At the fullness of time, God sent His Son. This Son – Jesus Christ – preached, did mighty works, and suffered, died and rose again for our salvation.
3. The followers of Christ, especially the apostles, went around preaching the Gospel – which consisted of the teachings, works and passion of Christ – to the known world.
4. Some of these followers wrote down this Gospel in letters, histories and “gospels.”
5. The successors to the apostles – the bishops – continued to preach the Gospel handed on to them, guarding and protecting it from error.

We can see from this short recounting that the content of our Faith – the “Gospel” – was passed on to future generations by two methods: (oral) preaching (a.k.a. Tradition) and writings (a.k.a. Scripture). Then the college of bishops – the “Magisterium”, or teaching office of the Church – continued to preach that Gospel through time, making sure that it was not deformed or altered. But it is important to know the order of priority: the Gospel is the content of the Faith, and oral preaching and writings are the methods in which they are passed on.

(An aside: an objection might be raised that the way we know about Salvation History is through the Bible, so the Bible is “before” the Gospel. However, at this point, we are looking at the Bible as strictly a history book, not an inspired text. One would not think that a book about Socrates is the source of his life and teachings; instead, it simply recounts what we know about him.)

So if we want to know the source of the content of our Faith, we must look to the Gospel, which includes the life of ancient Israel and is fulfilled completely in the person of Jesus Christ and his life, teachings, works and passion.

This idea that there is one pre-existing Gospel and then two methods in which we receive that Gospel has been the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church since its earliest days. In the second century, St. Irenaeus, bishop of Gaul, wrote Against Heresies, which defended the Catholic Faith against the various false teachings of his day. It is a somewhat difficult work, but if you have a moment, take some time to read Book III from the Preface through Chapter 3. In that famous section, Irenaeus lays out his defense of how he knows the heretics are wrong and he is right. His logic is as follows:

1. The Gospel was given to the Church through the apostles (Preface-Chapter 1).
2. The Gospel was passed on to us through Scripture and Tradition, and the heretics contradict both of these pillars (Chapter 2).
3. The Gospel, passed on to us through Scripture and Tradition, is defended and protected by the successors to the apostles, the bishops (Chapter 3).
4. Therefore, if we follow the bishops, especially the bishop of Rome, then we can be assured that we are orthodox (Chapter 3).

And the Church today follows this same divine logic. In Dei Verbum, Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, the Church beautifully and clearly articulates the relationship between the Gospel (also called “Revelation”), Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium. Sections 1-6 discuss Revelation being given from God, and then section 7-9 note the two ways in which that Revelation is handed on to us, and finally section 10 notes the role of the Magisterium in guarding and teaching that deposit of faith.

None of this means, of course, that any part of the Gospel will contradict Scripture, Tradition or the teaching of the Magisterium. The “glue,” so to speak, which holds all these parts together in one unified whole is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the originator of the content of the Gospel, the inspiration of the Scriptures, the guide of Tradition, and the protector from error of the Magisterium. Man would not be able to keep a consistent teaching for even a few decades under his own power, but with the Holy Spirit involved, the Church is able to pass on the authentic and saving Gospel to all generations.

So when someone asks, “where in the Bible does it say…”, you can know that if the Catholic Church teaches it, it is part of the saving Gospel, which precedes the Bible and is the source of its content.