Madam, - Pádraig Ua Corbaidh (May 25th) appears to understand tradition in the Catholic Church as doing and believing exactly as our forefathers did. This would reduce tradition to a static thing and the practice of our faith to mere atavism.
In spite of the comfort some may gain from this view, it is both untrue and misleading. It may also be an inadvertent act of sabotage on the work of the second Vatican Council, which was about much more than changes in the way we say Mass. The council sessions ceased over 40 years ago but the work of the council still goes on.
Tradition is indeed rooted in the past and to be valid must not sever its connections with what has been laid down; but it is also a living and growing thing which must change if it is to deserve to be called the tradition of the Church.
To want to continue celebrating Mass according to the rite in vogue immediately before Vatican II may be a harmless preference, but it has no prior claim to be "traditional" over and above the developing faith of our fathers (and mothers). This seeks now, as it has always done, to take from the storehouse "things both new and old" (Matt. 13: 52). - Yours, etc.,
Rev VALENTINE FARRELL, Blackpool, England.