By Isabella H. de Carvalho
“The ‘deposit’ of the Word of God is still in the hands of the Church and all of us, in our various ecclesial ministries, must continue to preserve it in its integrity, as a lodestar for our journey through the complexity of history and existence,” Pope Leo XIV said during the Wednesday General Audience on Jan 28, 2026.
Continuing his catechesis series dedicated to the Second Vatican Council and its documents, the Pope focused again on the Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum, on Divine Revelation. He highlighted the close relationship between Sacred Scripture and Tradition, meaning the living transmission of the Gospel through the Holy Spirit.
The Word of God “is not fossilized, but rather it is a living and organic reality that develops and grows in Tradition,” he underlined. “Thanks to the Holy Spirit, Tradition understands it in the richness of its truth and embodies it in the shifting coordinates of history.”
Tradition and Scripture come from the same wellspring
Pope Leo cited two Gospel scenes to explain “the intimate connection between the words uttered by Christ and their dissemination throughout the centuries.”
The first is when Jesus addresses the disciples in the Upper Room before his death and tells them they will receive the Holy Spirit from the Lord, who will guide them “into all the truth.” The second is when the risen Christ shows himself to the disciples and calls them to “make disciples of all nations … teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
Quoting point 9 of Dei Verbum, the Pope emphasized how the Second Vatican Council explains this close relationship between Scripture and Tradition by saying that “both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end.”
“Ecclesial Tradition branches out throughout history through the Church, which preserves, interprets and embodies the Word of God,” the Pope continued.
“Sacred Scripture is written principally in the Church’s heart rather than in documents and records,” he added, citing point 113 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The Church perpetuates Her belief to all generations
The Pope then highlighted how Tradition, which comes from the Apostles, develops in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit.
“This occurs with full comprehension through ‘contemplation and study made by believers’, through ‘a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience’ and, above all, with the preaching of the successors of the apostles who have received ‘the sure gift of truth’,” he explained, citing again the Dogmatic Constitution.
“In short,” he reiterated, “‘the Church, in Her teaching, life and worship, perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that She Herself is, all that She believes’.”
To explain the living dimension of the Word of God and its relationship with Tradition, the Pope quoted the Doctor of the Church, St John Henry Newman, who affirmed that “Christianity, both as a communal experience and as a doctrine, is a dynamic reality, in the manner indicated by Jesus himself in the parables of the seed: a living reality that develops thanks to an inner vital force.”
One sacred deposit of the Word of God
Pope Leo emphasized then how Dei Verbum points out that “‘Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church’, interpreted by the ‘living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ’.”
The term deposit, he continued, implies that the custodian should preserve the content, in this case the faith, and transmit it intact, and thus called on the Church and all Her members to do so.
Pope Leo concluded by quoting again Dei Verbum, which explains that the Sacred Scripture and Tradition “are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and … all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.” – Vatican News
