Relative Authority of Scripture & "Sacred Tradition"

Brian McCall of Oklahoma University College of Law offers these thoughts on the MOJ & the Bible question, raising the question of the relative "authoritative value" of Scripture and "Sacred Tradition."  Any thoughts on this?   The issue of the relative authority of different Church teachings is something that we ended up discussing quite a bit at the June Conference on Catholic Legal Thought meeting, and something we think we'll address in more depth at next year's meeting.

Unlike Protestants, Catholics do not have “an” original text.  Scripture and Sacred Tradition are of equal original authoritative value and both of which are inerrant.  In fact Sacred Tradition could be seen as taking priority over the Scripture in researching a topic because part of Tradition is to authoritatively interpret Scripture.  Therefore, I think it is wholly Catholic to begin with Tradition (Fathers, Scholastics, Encyclicals, Catechisms) when reviewing a question.  From these sources relevant biblical texts will emerge.  After orienting ourselves in the answer we can then turn to the passages and read them in light of the interpretation preserved by the Church. 

I don’t think this is radically different from legal research (at least as I do it).  We often begin with a treatise/law review and then from there read the statute discussed in light of the explanation.  Protestants only having one aspect of Revelation are obviously left starting with all they have.