Always Advent

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by Clare Siobhan

…ANSWERS TO COMMON QUESTIONS ABOUT CATHOLIC TEACHINGS

You’re grabbing your books from your locker. You’re eating lunch in the company break room. You’re dancing the polka at the wedding reception of a second cousin. And someone comes up to you – a classmate, co-worker, distant relation – and asks you one of two questions: “Are you saved?” or “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?”

The usual Catholic response to this opening salvo is a slack-jawed blank stare, because we’re just not used to talking that way. What your Protestant friend is really asking you is “Are you serious about the practice of your faith as the living out of a personal commitment to Our Lord Jesus Christ?” Hopefully all baptized, confirmed Catholics can all answer “yes!” to that.

But then the tough questions are likely to begin, and if we’re not prepared, we could find ourselves spinning in circles under a barrage of questions, objections, and Biblical citations. One of the most common Protestant objections to the Catholic faith is:

“Why do Catholics teach things that are not in the Bible?”

The basis of this question is a Protestant doctrine called sola scriptura, which means “scripture alone” and refers to the Protestant belief that the Old and New Testaments of the Bible form the entire and complete revelation of God and contain the sum of all authoritative teaching for Christendom.

Ironically, this foundational teaching is itself not found anywhere in the Bible, but the Protestant arguing this point will usually point to 2 Timothy 3:16-17 – “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

Notice that the text says “all scripture”, not “only scripture”, and also keep in mind that when St. Paul wrote his second letter to St. Timothy, most of the documents contained in the New Testament scriptures had not even been written, so if Protestants really want to use this text as support for sola scriptura, they must limit its application to the Old Testament scriptures only.

But they have a point. Some Catholic doctrines are not directly Biblical. Some are only loosely Biblical and some are not found in the Bible at all. The reason for this is that God has spoken to the world in written form – the Sacred Scriptures – and in unwritten form – the oral and lived practices and teachings of the Church that we call Sacred Tradition. Together, Scripture and Tradition form the two pillars of God’s revelation to mankind. When used in this way, the word Tradition is capitalized, in order to distinguish it from traditions that are truly man-made and not necessarily inspired by God, such as the tradition of having a Christmas tree. Catholics consider Sacred Tradition just as authoritative and without error as Sacred Scripture.

Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition are interpreted for us and passed on to us by the Church’s teaching authority, which comes from Jesus Himself. The term for the authoritative teaching of the Church is Magisterium, from the Latin word for teacher.

Examples of teachings that come to us through Sacred Tradition are:

The contents of the Bible itself
Nowhere in the pages of the Bible is there a list of which texts should be in the Bible. The Bible’s table of contents is an authoritative Tradition of the Catholic Church that Protestants adhere to without even realizing it.

The perpetual virginity of our Blessed Mother
Early Church fathers affirm this teaching repeatedly in their writings, but, even though the virgin birth is explicitly Biblical, the continued virginity of Mary is not found in the Bible.

The practice of infant baptism
Even though some Protestants object to the practice, historical records from the earliest days of the church prove that it was widespread from the beginning because it had been handed on directly from the Apostles themselves.

Observing the Sabbath on Sunday instead of Saturday
It is not from the Bible that Christians derive this practice, but from the lived experience of the earliest Christians, who transferred observance of the Sabbath to Sunday in order to better commemorate the Lord’s resurrection, and also to show that their observance was distinct from the Jewish observance.

The Catholic who wants to prepare himself for these kinds of conversations with Protestants has a wealth of resources at his disposal. Just for starters, try these:

BOOKS
The Catechism of the Catholic Church
Where Is That in the Bible?, Why Is That in Tradition? and Answer Me This! by Patrick Madrid (Our Sunday Visitor)
Catholics and Fundamentalists: Understanding the Difference by Rev. Martin Pable (ACTA Publications)
Catholic and Christian: An Explanation of Commonly Misunderstood Catholic Beliefs by Alan Schreck (St. Anthony Messenger Press)
By What Authority? An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition by Mark P. Shea

OTHER PRINTED MEDIA
Friendly Defenders Flashcards. Designed to help young people explain and defend the Catholic faith. Each card has a common question or objection and the Catholic response. Covers a dozen topics such as Church, Tradition, Saints, Eucharist/Mass, and Papacy.

Beginning Apologetics, volumes 1-9 by Jim Burnham and Fr. Frank Chacon. (Catholic Answers) Apologetics refers to the study of understandable explanations of Catholic belief and practice (from the Greek word apologia, which means “explanation”.) These are short workbooks designed to quickly prepare a Catholic for challenges from any other religion (including Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses), worldview (including atheism) or ideology (including abortion advocacy and human cloning).

The Catholic Answer, a bi-monthly magazine published by Our Sunday Visitor

AUDIO
Catholic Answers Live. A call-in “Question and Answer” format radio broadcast. Many of the guests are well-known converts from Protestantism, such as former Lutheran minister Jeff Cavins, former Presbyterian minister Scott Hahn, former Pentecostal preacher Alex Jones, former Assemblies of God youth minister Tim Staples, and many others.

I’m Not Being Fed – The #1 Catholic Eating Disorder by Jeff Cavins (Ascension Press) Focuses on clear Biblical evidence for the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.

(This article originally appeared in the Family Centered Faith Formation News, volume 3, issue 5, January 2006, produced by the Holy Trinity Office of Religious Education, Westmont IL)

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