A Universal Apology Point Eleven: ON TRADITION

ON TRADITION

I am recounting the several reasons I have for accepting that the Catholic Church is what she says she is. I had become convinced that any denomination with no continuity to the historical church could be a guard of the traditional Christian faith.

This lack of history logically necessitates a lack of tradition, which implies also a lack of completeness, of universality, or of depth in art and ritual.

During this period of my life, I went to services of one denomination or another weekly or biweekly. Hand in hand with my growing sense of discontent to be in the midst of Christians utterly isolated from their Christian fathers, I began to notice how frequently the preaching lingered on the words of the founder of the particular sect I was visiting, and how comparatively infrequently on the words of Christ and His Apostles, and how no disciple of any Apostle was mentioned even by name, much less quoted.

I felt like a man starving for stew, and being given a watery broth without meat and without substance. It was thin soup indeed.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.