What do I say to someone who claims Tradition as an excuse for rejecting the Church’s authority?

Question

I have a colleague who is flirting with radical Catholic traditionalism. Most times he talks about modernist heretics taking over the magisterium and betraying Catholic Tradition. He has canned arguments about things like religious freedom and dialogue, universalism, liturgical norms, and so forth. He says he can’t be in schism since he’s just holding on to Catholic Tradition. What can I say to him?

Answer

Point out that his claim about “holding on to Tradition” is specifically what is claimed by all schismatics– Orthodox, Donatists, even, in their own way, Protestants, who say they believe only what was “handed down” by the apostles in Scripture. Everybody says that what they are holding on to (as against Rome) is “Tradition.”

But when you ask these various factions how they know that their views instead of Rome’s represent the true Tradition, they all fall back on private judgment:

“Look how this Romanist practice or decree contradicts this earlier council or text of Scripture!  Clearly our view–not Rome’s–represents Tradition (or biblical teaching).”

Actually, schismatics do not receive their Church’s teaching on their church’s authority; they accept their church’s authority because they accede with their preferred teaching. They don’t accept the message at the word of the Messenger, they select the Messenger based on the message. Ask your colleague who is the arbiter of what does or does not constitute sacred Tradition: the individual, or the magisterium? Either the Church is our judge, or we are its judge. Either we judge our ideas by the teaching of the Church, or we judge the teaching of the Church by our ideas. And that includes our ideas about Tradition.