In Brief

What Christ entrusted to the apostles, they in turn handed on by their preaching and writing, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to all generations, until Christ returns in glory.

“Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture make up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God”1 in which, as in a mirror, the pilgrim Church contemplates God, the source of all her riches.

“The Church, in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes.”2

Thanks to its supernatural sense of faith, the People of God as a whole never ceases to welcome, to penetrate more deeply and to live more fully from the gift of divine Revelation.

The task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him.