Long before St. John Henry Newman, St. Vincent of Lerins wrestled with questions that still divide Catholics today: Can doctrine change? What does it mean to remain faithful to tradition?
In today’s debates about tradition and doctrinal development, St. Vincent is often quoted, but rarely read carefully. In this video, Pedro Gabriel goes back to the fifth century to see what St. Vincent actually taught about how doctrine grows, how to distinguish development from corruption, and who ultimately has the authority to decide.
By placing the Commonitorium in its historical context—especially the Councils of Nicaea and Ephesus—Pedro explains why Vincent’s thought is more nuanced than it’s often made out to be. This video also explains why appeals to “antiquity” alone cannot settle doctrinal disputes.
Pedro Gabriel, MD, is a Catholic layman and physician, born and residing in Portugal. He is a medical oncologist, currently employed in a Portuguese public hospital. A published writer of Catholic novels with a Tolkienite flavor, he is also a parish reader and a former catechist. He seeks to better understand the relationship of God and Man by putting the lens on the frailty of the human condition, be it physical and spiritual. He also wishes to provide a fresh perspective of current Church and World affairs from the point of view of a small western European country, highly secularized but also highly Catholic by tradition.
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