Doctrine Answers

Not Scripture against Tradition, but apostolic teaching in its full form.

The Catholic position begins from the fact that the apostolic faith was preached, celebrated, governed and only then also written. Scripture is inspired and normative; Tradition is not a rival book, but the living transmission of the apostolic faith in the Church.

• 2 Thessalonians 2:15 commands Christians to hold traditions taught by word or letter.
• Acts 2:42 shows doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayers as one apostolic life.
• The canon of Scripture itself is received within the Church’s discernment.

Visible unity requires a visible principle of communion.

Matthew 16, Luke 22 and John 21 are read together with early Christian concern for apostolic succession and Roman communion. The Catholic claim is not that Peter replaces Christ, but that Christ gives a pastoral office for the Church’s visible unity.

The Real Presence is the natural reading of the Church’s worship.

John 6, the institution narratives, Paul’s warning in 1 Corinthians 11 and the ancient liturgies converge on a sacramental realism: the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ under sacramental signs.

All Marian and saintly devotion is Christological when rightly ordered.

Catholic devotion does not place creatures above God. It confesses what grace has done in members of Christ and asks the prayers of those alive in him.