In Catholicism Scripture is effectively too often made a servant .....................
Exactly.
And it the *church* wrote Scripture then it has the authority to rewrite if they so choose.
But they can’t so they invented *sacred tradition* to usurp Scripture.
But that then raises a question. If they did such a poor job the first time around with not being clear when writing Scripture that it needs to be constantly amended, why should we trust them to get it right now with *sacred tradition*?
Actually "The Catholic Church" (Roman or Eastern) presumes that it is the HIGHER AUTHORITY since Scripture and Tradition only consist and authoritatively means what she says, since she says so.
The mere fact that the Church teaches the doctrine of the Assumption as definitely true is a guarantee that it is true.” — Karl Keating, Catholicism and Fundamentalism (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1988), p. 275.
For Rome has presumed to infallibly declare she is and will be perpetually infallible whenever she speaks in accordance with her infallibly defined (scope and subject-based) formula, which renders her declaration that she is infallible, to be infallible, as well as all else she accordingly declares. Out of which novel and unScriptural premise of ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility flows the premise that she cannot salvifically error in teachings that are not considered to be infallible.
Thus are explained both her respect for the writings of the Fathers of the Church and her supreme independence towards those writings–she judges them more than she is judged by them.” — Catholic Encyclopedia: “Tradition and Living Magisterium” http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15006b.htm
Not only does she wrongly presume that souls cannot ascertain what writings are of God apart from faith in her* (most of Scripture had been established as a body of inspired writings before there was a NT church), and then picks and chooses from so-called "church fathers" for support of her beliefs, but she can even claim to "remember" what early tradition "forgot" to record, and make belief in something into a dogma that requires belief, over 1700 years after the alleged event occurred.
A man by the name of Joseph Ratzinger explains:
Before Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven was defined, all theological faculties in the world were consulted for their opinion. Our teachers' answer was emphatically negative... Altaner, the patrologist from Wurzburg¦had proven in a scientifically persuasive manner that the doctrine of Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven was unknown before the 5C; this doctrine, therefore, he argued, could not belong to the "apostolic tradition. And this was his conclusion, which my teachers at Munich shared.
But...subsequent "remembering" (cf. Jn 16:4, for instance) can come to recognize what it has not caught sight of previously ["caught sight of?" Because there was nothing to see in the earliest period where it should have been, before a fable developed] .." (Joseph Ratzinger, Milestones (Ignatius, n.d.), pp. 58-59; emp. mine).
Add to that such scholarly confessions as from Lawrence P. Everett, C.Ss.R., S.T.D. who confesses:
In the first three centuries there are absolutely no references in the authentic works of the Fathers or ecclesiastical writers to the death or bodily immortality of Mary. Nor is there any mention of a tomb of Mary in the first centuries of Christianity. The veneration of the tomb of the Blessed Virgin at Jerusalem began about the middle of the fifth century; and even here there is no agreement as to whether its locality was in the Garden of Olives or in the Valley of Josaphat. Nor is any mention made in the Acts of the Council of Ephesus (431) of the fact that the Council, convened to defend the Divine Maternity of the Mother of God, is being held in the very city selected by God for her final resting place. Only after the Council did the tradition begin which placed her tomb in that city. More, by the grace of God.
*A premise in Catholic theology is that "no matter what be done the believer cannot believe in the Bible nor find in it the object of his faith until he has previously made an act of faith in the intermediary authorities..." - Catholic Encyclopedia>Tradition and Living Magisterium. "People cannot discover the contents of revelation by their unaided powers of reason and observation. They have to be told by people who have received in from on high."- Cardinal Avery Dulles, SJ, “Magisterium: Teacher and Guardian of the Faith,” p. 72; http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/08/magisterial-cat-and-mouse-game.html.
And thus (to avoid circular reasoning of proving the Scriptures by the church and the church by the Scriptures) "when we appeal to the Scriptures for proof of the Church's infallible authority we appeal to them merely as reliable historical sources, and abstract altogether from their inspiration." - Catholic Encyclopedia > Infallibility Whereby it is supposed that while one cannot recognize which writings are of God, yet it is allowed that one recognize that the Catholic church is of God. Meaning Scripture is then to be understood as only supporting said organization since she is the supreme authority on it. And thus the basis for assurance that something is of God is that the Catholic magisterium has told you this since she decreed that she is of God and cannot be wrong in what she decrees. .