From Steubenville to Tradition
Try Tradition
The purpose of this website is rather simple, it is to reach out to any Catholics who are either new to Tradition or contemplating investigating Tradition but questions arise, causing a sense of
internal conflict.
I myself have been on this journey.
I know how it can seem for some Catholics to leave the familiar and go on a journey which can be scary because it demands the courage to question what you see all around you in the Catholic Church.
You may ask yourself, if this is the True Church established by Our Lord Jesus Christ, why am I so scandalised by statements by my parish priest, by bishops or even the Pope?
Such questions may quickly lead to a sense of guilt because a Catholic should not question such things. Right?
Wrong.
It’s not wrong to question statements or activities which seem to our intellect or even our instinct to be offensive to God or just ‘off’. Scripture instructs us through the Apostle Paul that if even an angel from heaven should appear and preach a faith contrary to what has been passed on by the
apostles to reject it completely (Galatians 1:8-9).
Such a warning would not exist unless God in His Providence deemed it necessary.
If you are someone that senses things in the Church are not right, do not worry, you are not the first and you will not be the last to experience this.
Just ensure you persevere.
To realise the Church is in crisis can be a truly disheartening time and can lead to certain
questions/concerns floating around in their head:
Am I just being a Pharisee, by criticising a lack of reverence at mass?
Why am I leaving church angry?
I feel alone in my home diocese but my experiences of attending a Latin Mass have been just as lonely for different reasons?
If I were go down the ‘rabbit hole’ of investigating what Tradition is am I not taking the easy route?
Am I not abandoning souls God has placed in my path in my local parish?
The best strategy is to change from within?
The key things to remember are that you are not alone, Our Lord does not want us to despair about such things. Turn to Him and His Blessed Mother, pray the rosary everyday and have courage to learn more about Traditional Catholicism, which is simply Catholicism.
What Prompted me to try Tradition?
I almost left the Catholic Church many years ago because I did not see the difference between being Catholic or a Baptist. I had absolutely no idea that Jesus Christ established the Catholic Church, but by God’s providence I stumbled across a discussion between a Catholic priest and a former Protestant about the proofs and origins of the Catholic Church.
Upon watching the discussion I learnt about the writings of the first Christians, known as the Church Fathers.
If you do not know about these writings I strongly encourage you to research;
here are some examples:
• St Clement of Rome (writings dated 80 A.D.)
• St Ignatius of Antioch (110 A.D.)
• St Justin the Martyr (writings 148-155 A.D.)
• St Irenaeus (“Against Heresies” 180-199 A.D.)
As a side note, these writings pre-date the formal compiling of the books of the Old and New Testament, which wasn't completed until approximately the fourth century.
The key argument of Catholicism versus all other Protestant groups is that we are the Church established by Jesus
Christ.
It is the only Church which possesses the four marks of the Church established by Our Lord; One, Holy, Catholic (means universal) and Apostolic.
We can prove this by looking at what the first Christians believed and practiced; we look at
Tradition which is evidenced in the early writings of the first Christians, also known as the Fathers of the Church.
Upon watching the televised discussion, I realised that I knew next to nothing about my Faith and this ignited a fire inside of me to learn the Faith in order to understand the proofs of the origins of the Sacraments, the Papacy and devotion to the Saints, to name some examples.
I desperately wanted to do what I could to pass this on to other Catholics to stop them
misunderstanding the most precious gift; the Catholic Faith.
I realised that if the proof that the one true Church is the Catholic Church is because its teachings have been constant throughout history, then the notion that moral teachings must be changed to suit the modern outlook has always been rejected by genuine Christians.
As the years passed I further understood that innovations have to be rejected because the
essence of innovations undermine sound, Catholic practices; this is not to be confused with the Church deepening its expressions of the Faith. For example, the Council of Trent used the term 'transubstantiation’ to more precisely define the dogma of the Real Presence; it does not mean
the dogma of the Real Presence was invented at the Council of Trent in 1545-1563.
Consequently, questions surrounding the liturgy and the state of the Church became relevant to me because I was awakening to the reality of a crisis existing.
Such an understanding deeply troubled me because I wondered if I was wrong and I also could not comprehend how God could permit His Church to experience a crisis. Was I blinded by my own pride and just looking for an excuse to not ‘offer up’ the sufferings of attending irreverent masses where at times heresy is preached from the pulpit?
It was not until I turned to Our Lady that I received the clarity I was searching for.