Meditation 4: IN DEFENCE OF TRADITION

IN DEFENCE OF TRADITION

AKPAN, Idorenyin Anthony M., OP

(E-mail: rexama4@gmail.com; Tel: +234 81 2533 1847; +234 70 6398 6770)

Many people who attack the Catholic Church either do not have a sense of history and so refuse the use of one common gift given to us all: memory; or they have inadvertently or otherwise relinquished the exercise of yet another gift: common sense. If anything, the Church uses commonsensical arguments in presenting her case before her detractors. Yet, it is for this particular reason that they are her detractors: that her arguments are commonsensical. Evidently, commonsense is not very common.

Of the commonsensical things the Church speaks of is something she calls 'Tradition.' This English word "has come down to us" from the Latin tradere, meaning "to hand down," in the sense of "to pass unto." By the word Tradition is meant that "certain things have been done in certain ways; spoken of in certain ways that have been handed down for generations of the Church's existence." Notice how I highlighted the phrase "has come down to us." It is to show that, even in our language of communication, certain things have been handed down, one of which is to know what the word 'tradition' means. It is instructive to note that the fact of tradition, that is, that things have been done and spoken of in certain ways, is a simple fact of human existence. There is no single human endeavor without a tradition, even thievery. So, if tradition is so commonplace, how come that some detractors of the Catholic Church are particularly and nearly perpetually obsessed with the rhetoric of opposition that builds on tradition?

To further hide their lack of ground in their mindless scuffle with a compact system which the Church is, some claim that by tradition, the Church takes on a more traditionalist and conservative stand on issues. Those who advance this option claim to be 'progressive.' Rather interestingly, I speak under correction on this matter to note that there is no system that can be expressly progressive without a tradition to uphold, even if it is the fact of being progressive. Moreover, the kind of thinking that accuses the Church of being traditional and conservative must be the worst of its ilk. Reason being that there is no system more progressive than the Church, otherwise the Crusades would still be on, and people who say the Church is annoyingly traditional would have been burnt! It must be admittedly stated that the Church is almost always 'slow to change,' but so is the way of the wise: that they do not change by every whim. The wise take time to think through opinions before making any judgments, hence the Thomistic apothegm: seldom affirm. Seldom deny. Always distinguish.

Now, the origin of the proliferation of churches is the break-away from tradition, and consequently, the establishment of novel traditions. This proves the point against the progressive who thinks that in being progressive, she can be away from tradition. The fact of tradition is unavoidable. It is evident then, that to be against tradition simply because it is traditional is self-refuting; for everything that is, has a tradition, trailing behind it, building up with it or going ahead of it.