FFM Parishes: O'Donaghue on being Catholic, 6

Another of our extracts from 'Fit for Mission? - Parishes' by Bishop O'Donaghue of Lancaster. Click on the 'label' FFM Parishes to see others. See the 'Fit for Mission?' website and download the full document. The previous title in the series, 'Fit for Mission? - Schools' is downloadable here (pdf). This generated a Facebook support group.

From section 8.4, p45
The [Second Vatican] Council clearly presents the Catholic understanding of the place and role of Scripture in the life of the Church and individual.
Dei Verbum starts from the premise that revelation is founded not only on the word Christ preached but also in the whole living experience of His person: ‘the Apostles, who by their oral preaching, by example and by observances handed on what they had received from the lips of Christ, from living with Him and from what He did, or what they had learned through the promptings of the Holy Spirit ‘(DV 7). We can conclude from this that the Word of God includes and also transcends the written word of Scripture.
The Council places Scripture within the framework of Tradition, with the objective content of Tradition – the teaching of the Church, the life of the Church and the worship of the Church – including and surpassing that of Scripture. Dei Verbum 8 states that Scripture is the inspired and privileged expression of the pre-existing apostolic Tradition, and is not an independent or separate norm. Therefore, the Tradition of the Church takes a logical precedence over Scripture.
As Karl Rahner puts it, it was a historical necessity that the apostolic preaching took concrete form as Scripture, but by ‘becoming a book it does not become an independent herald and norm of the faith’. Post –biblical Tradition is also necessary to transmit, interpret and explain the preaching expressed as Scripture. (Karl Rahner, Encyclopaedia of Theology, p.1550).