Catholic Church against Bible Reading?

  • Thread starter Thread starter AlphaOmega
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
A

AlphaOmega

Guest
Please help!
A false accusation by a non-Catholic on the Catholic Church.
Need true history experts. Good historical interpreters. Thanks.
Everyone knows (who has studied this) that the Catholic Church, for many centuries forbid and murdured their people who got hold of the Bible and read it. And of those who escaped murdur they ALL left the Catholic Church. Why? Because they had read the Bible for themselves and realised that the Church was teaching one big horrendus lie. Now, after centuries of poisoning peoples minds with ‘their’ interpritation (i.e. religion), they can safely allow their people to read the scriptures. However we are still seeing those, who begin to read the scriptures with an open and contrite heart, coming to Christ and leaving the Church.
Click to expand...
God bless you all! 🙂
 
Why would the Catholic church, which assembled the bible and preserved the bible for centuries; not want it to be read? Also,
Everyone knows (who has studied this) that the Catholic Church, for many centuries forbid and murdured their people who got hold of the Bible and read it.
Click to expand...
… No, everyone who has studied this, doesn’t know. What is the reference source for this accusation?
 
Sir Knight:
Why would the Catholic church, which assembled the bible and preserved the bible for centuries; not want it to be read? Also, … No, everyone who has studied this, doesn’t know. What is the reference source for this accusation?
Click to expand...
Thanks, I would have to ask them. But can you find the correct history behind their false understanding?
 
Anybody who truly believes this tripe needs to be handed a copy of “Where We got the Bible - OUR DEBT TO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH” by Henry Graham.

The relationship between the Catholic Church and the Bible is nothing less than a love story, that has continued since the first gospels were written. No entity has even come close to preserving God’s Words as the Catholic Church. NONE!

Notworthy
 
Forbidden and murdered…I think not!

I know that the early Church had to chain the Bible down so it would not be stolen…after all it took some poor Monk years to write, and the Bibles were elaborate…with gold encased on pages and very precious, and few (before the printer)…

But Forbidden…Murdered…Make them Prove that.

Besides…if you really study the Bible…and I mean every word…you would become…

Catholic 😃
 
For one thing, his logic doesn’t follow. He implies that, after over a thousand years of forbidding people to read the Bible, many were able to see the truth once they finally got their hands on one. YET, somehow, the Catholic Church of today, even with all the Protestant influence, was somehow able to brainwash it’s members with its teachings in a little more than four-hundred years.

Anyway, this is the same, tired old thing we hear, but unfortunately many Protestants sincerely believe that the evil Catholic Church really did forbid reading the Bible. One of the best books you can read is “Where We Got the Bible” by Graham, which is short and available through Catholic Answers. Anyway, here are a few good points to make:
  1. If the Catholic Church was really trying to hide the Bible and keep it from people, it did a horrible job since, for centuries before Protestants came along, it was the Catholic Church that preserved Scripture and Catholic Monks that spent countless years copying it by hand so that it could be spread.
  2. Did the Catholic Church forbid reading the Bible? No. It forbid reading heritic translations of the Bible. Say someone were to give one of your children a Jehovah’s Witness translation - you would forbid them to read it, right? Likewise, as a good parent, the Church forbid its children from reading translations that were put out by people who were trying to pervert the word of God (such as Luther, who wanted to add words and remove entire books, such as James).
  3. Did the Church burn heretics at the stake for going against church teaching? No. Capital punishment for heresy was a punishment of the state at that time (the Church didn’t even have the authority to do this). Secular authorities were the ones who would put heretics to death. Perhaps the Church should have stood against this, but remember it was a different time and even “great” reformers like Calvin, in Geneva, supported executing any who attempted heresy against his strictly enforced viewpoint.
  4. Protestants claim Wycliff was persecuted for translating a Bible into the vernacular, but the truth is that Vernacular versions already existed and sumptuary laws had to be passed to get people to buy them. Wycliff was just trying to pass off a poorly translated and theologically erred version, and no good parent - The Church - could allow that.
  5. Is it true that most people didn’t have their own Bible or spend much time reading it before the reformation? YES. Because THERE WAS NO PRINTING PRESS! A copy of the Bible, copied by hand by Catholic monks, of course, was sooo expensive that regular people generally couldn’t afford one. And for those who could, most were illiterate because who would learn to read when hand-copied books were out of reach financially?
  6. Does the Church, even today, forbid people reading the Bible and interpreting it on their own, without proper guidance? Yes, and so does Scripture (2 Peter 1:20-21). To see the danger in this, consider that, since the Protestant reformation, the Protestant Church has splintered into thousands of denominations. Christ prayed in John 17 that we would be one, and the Church is trying to preserve unity by making sure we all understand Scripture as the first Christains did.
Hope this helps,
God bless.
 
40.png
AlphaOmega:
Please help!
A false accusation by a non-Catholic on the Catholic Church.
Need true history experts. Good historical interpreters. Thanks.

God bless you all! 🙂
Click to expand...
don’t forum rules require a source or link?
what is the point of debating this stupid thing? If your challenger makes such a statement require them to provide documentation. There is none, so end of discussion, provide them with CA tracts and articles on this topic.
 
The Church’s position is that it is the duty of all Catholics to read both the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. They further encourage other Catholic spiritual reading.
 
Let’s not forget the fact that the Catholic Church kept the Bible in Latin so that no one could read it, after all, it’s a dead language.

What’s that? Anyone back then who could read, could read Latin? So then anyone who could read … was able to read the Bible?

… Nevermind.
 
40.png
AlphaOmega:
WOW, thanks
Truly an expert!
Click to expand...
Ah shucks. No, but read plenty of experts. Hope your conversation goes well. I just severed ties with a guy who would not let this conviction go, no matter how much documentation I provided. Take care.
 
This legend starts with the Wycliffe Bible, the first bible in English. English as we know it had just emerged as a language – a fusion of Saxon Germanic and Norman French. At the time, the Vulgate Bible (St. Jerome’s Latin version) was the Church standard. The Wycliffe Bible became popular among people who could read (for commercial reasons), but not read Latin.

After the Black Death, the Anglo-Saxon people of England were suffering. Their Normal overlords demanded they produce the same amount as they had before the plague – but so many had died, this was impossible.

Peasants had recourse to the King’s courts, which ruled that they didn’t take cases form “villeins.” The result was the Peasant Rebellion of 1382 – which ranged Anglo-Saxon peasants against the Norman upper class.

Anglo-Saxon parish priests (John Ball, Jack Straw, ect.)were prominent in the rebellion, and the Wycliffe Bible (which was not a good translation and contained many of Wycliffe’s radical ideas) was their text.

After the rebellion, the Wycliffe Bible was banned – not by the Church, but by the government.
 
St. John Chrysostom (344/354 -407 AD)
Doctor of the Church.
“To become adult Christians you must learn familiarity with the scriptures”
[On the Letter to the Ephesians - Education of Children.]

“But what is the answer to these charges? ‘I am not,’ you will say, ‘one of the monks, but I have both a wife and children, and the care of a household.’ This is what has ruined everything, your thinking that the reading of scripture is for monks only, when you need it more than they do. Those who are placed in the world, and who receive wounds every day have the most need of medicine. So, far worse even than not reading the scriptures is the idea that they are superfluous. Such things were invented by the devil.”
[St. John’s Second Homily on Matthew section 10 (which is sometimes labeled as section 5.) ]

appearently the church has been in favor of reading the bible
for a long, long time… 🙂

plus remember, we were granted an indulgence for reading the
bible for 25 minutes or more… i think by Pope Leo… ??

🙂
 
Lets not forget who added the Chapter and Verse numbers to the Bible for easy reference and teaching. It was a Catholic priest in the middle ages, the idea was so brilliant that everyone copied it even today!!

Before those numbers there was no chapter divisions and verses, where do Protestants think they came from?
 
Much of the world at the time was illiterate as well so they could not even read the Bible if they had an accurate translation. This is one of the reasons for all the great art work that shows scenes from the Bible, that way they could illustrate some of the Bible stories for the masses.
 
Can someone show me where in the CCC does encourage one to read the bible ? I am curious!! :confused: God Bless
 
40.png
SPOKENWORD:
Can someone show me where in the CCC does encourage one to read the bible ? I am curious!! :confused: God Bless
Click to expand...
131 "And such is the force and power of the Word of God that it can serve the Church as her support and vigor, and the children of the Church as strength for their faith, food for the soul, and a pure and lasting fount of spiritual life."109 Hence "access to Sacred Scripture ought to be open wide to the Christian faithful."110

132 "Therefore, the study of the sacred page should be the very soul of sacred theology. The ministry of the Word, too - pastoral preaching, catechetics and all forms of Christian instruction, among which the liturgical homily should hold pride of place - is healthily nourished and thrives in holiness through the Word of Scripture."111

133 **The Church "forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful. . . to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ, by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.**112
 
40.png
SPOKENWORD:
Can someone show me where in the CCC does encourage one to read the bible ? I am curious!! :confused: God Bless
Click to expand...
CCC 133: The Church “forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful…to learn the ‘surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ’ by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. ‘Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ’”

CCC131: “And such is the force and power of the Word of God that it can serve the Church for her support and vigor and the children of the Church as strength for their faith, food for the soul, and a pure and lasting font of spiritual life.” Hence “access to Sacred Scripture ought to be open wide to the Christian faithful.”

I would suggest reading the entire chapter (article 3, paragraphs 101 to 141) on Sacred Scripture in the Catechism. I’ve only listed two quotes above, but you can certainly use the whole chapter as an answer to your question.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top