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God’s Word: Scripture—Tradition—Office is unavailable, but you can change that!

In this book Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, presents the Word of God as a living reality in the Church. God’s Word, according to Ratzinger, is encountered in the Bible, in Tradition, and through the teaching office of the bishop, who, through apostolic succession, is to be the servant of and witness to the divine Word. Ratzinger examines as well the relationship between the episcopacy...

Thus it becomes apparent that “apostolic tradition” and “apostolic succession” define each other. The succession is the form of the tradition, and the tradition is the content of the succession. At the same time, the justification of both principles, which are really one, is to be found in this interconnection: the decisive element by which Catholic Christianity (whether Roman or Greek) is differentiated from that kind of Christian self-understanding which renounces the title “Catholic” and is happy
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