Catholicism is a religion based primarily around the Bible (don't let anyone tell you otherwise). Like all other Christian denominations, Catholics hold the Bible as inspired, infallible, free of error, and the true Word of God. However, Protestants and Catholics hold different perspectives of the Bible: the belief in the channels of revelation, and the interpretation of the text. Over the next two days, we'll address these differences.
Protestant Christians view the Bible as the written word, or the only source of divine revelation. Catholics, Anglicans (Episcopals), and the Eastern Orthodox Church consider both the written word and unwritten word (also called Sacred Tradition) as coming from the same source-i.e. God. The best way of looking at this is to think of some Christians as seeing only one channel of revelation (called sola scriptura, or Scripture alone), while others see two channels: Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.
It is not true to say that Catholics believe only in tradition, Protestants believe only in the Bible, and never the twain shall meet. All Christians believe that the Word of God is both sacred and divinely inspired. It's just that Catholics believe that the Word of God is more than just the Bible, and also includes the unwritten word. This is really one of the bones of contention between these two groups.
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