Don't read the bible

[pio_s]

What was the reasoning that the church had for discouraging lay people from reading the bible? I have heard people say it was because the church thought we were too stupid, but i doubt this. What is the true reasoning and history behind it?

 

[bear06]

What is your reasoning for believing that this actually happened in the first place? To me this is right up there with the story about how we worship Mary.

 

[pio_s]

What is your reasoning for believing that this actually happened in the first place? To me this is right up there with the story about how we worship Mary.

someone who lived through the transition (of vatican II) told me.

 

[kell0618]

…we are confidently told that Bible reading by the laity was discouraged by the pre-Vatican II Church. The truth is that it was encouraged all through the 20th century.

See the full article here.

And since we are in the Catholic Answers forum, it is important that I direct you to this article: Are Catholics Allowed to Read the Bible?

God bless you,

Kelly
%between%

 

[LilyM]

someone who lived through the transition (of vatican II) told me.

They don’t know what they’re on about if they said this. And it’s sad if they believe this was the attitude.

Far from discouraging the reading of the Bible, the Church devoted enormous resources to producing copies of it (which if you remember was a very time-consuming process prior to the invention of the printing press) for those minority of laypeople who could read as well as for themselves. Of course the first printed book was Gutenberg’s Bible, but the first printed works in the vernacular languages of the different European countries were ALSO translations of the Bible - catholic translations, as the printing press was invented a fair few decades before the Reformation.

It was read, then as now, at every Mass, and most churches would have at least one copy of it sitting there in the Church for absolutely anyone who cared to read it to do so.

 

[vern_humphrey]

someone who lived through the transition (of vatican II) told me.

I lived through the transition of Vatican II, and I was encouraged to read the Bible loooong before Vatican II.

I attended Catholic schools in the late '40s and early '50s – and we studied the Bible. My parents and grandparents had bibles – dating back to the late 19th Century.

At every mass, we had readings from the Bible – just as we do today. And there were Adult Bible Study Groups – just as we have today.

Now, the English government didn’t like having people read the Bible in English – because one of the early English translations (the Wycliffe Bible) served as the theological basis for the Great Peasant Uprising of 1382. Later on, the Protestant English projected that onto the Catholic Church – claiming the Church forbade people to read the bible.

Let me point out that the first book printed with moveable type was Guttenberg’s Bible. The great thing about moveable type was that you could produce lots of books at a very low cost (compared to hand-copying them.)

If people weren’t allowed to read the Bible, how did Guttenberg think he was going to make money selling the Bible?:whacky:

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I have heard this so often! And yes, I’m another who grew up in the ‘transition’ time of Vatican II, attended Catholic schools, studied the Catechism and yes, the Bible. And my mother and aunt, growing up in the 1920s-30s, also attended Catholic schools, read the Bible, etc.

Perhaps there were certain areas, certain dioceses or schools, where students were not encouraged to read the Bible. I personally have never found ‘enough’ reliable evidence to show any place/group, but I’m only human, the evidence could be out there.

If there were some poor souls who suffered this, it would have been ‘outside the norm’ of Catholic teaching and tradition. It would have been an aberration, a great wrong.

 

[kaycee]

I lived through the transition of Vatican II, and I was encouraged to read the Bible loooong before Vatican II.

I attended Catholic schools in the late '40s and early '50s – and we studied the Bible. My parents and grandparents had bibles – dating back to the late 19th Century.

At every mass, we had readings from the Bible – just as we do today. And there were Adult Bible Study Groups – just as we have today.

Now, the English government didn’t like having people read the Bible in English – because one of the early English translations (the Wycliffe Bible) served as the theological basis for the Great Peasant Uprising of 1382. Later on, the Protestant English projected that onto the Catholic Church – claiming the Church forbade people to read the bible.

Let me point out that the first book printed with moveable type was Guttenberg’s Bible. The great thing about moveable type was that you could produce lots of books at a very low cost (compared to hand-copying them.)

If people weren’t allowed to read the Bible, how did Guttenberg think he was going to make money selling the Bible?:whacky:

The Council of Toulouse,1229.

Canon 14. We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old or New Testament; unless anyone from motive of devotion should wish to have the Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or the hours of the blessed Virgin; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books.

 

[puzzleannie]

The Council of Toulouse,1229.

Canon 14. We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old or New Testament; unless anyone from motive of devotion should wish to have the Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or the hours of the blessed Virgin; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books.

because of so many problematic even heretical translations of parts of biblical books that were floating around at that time. Remember Latin was still the language of the church and of the only accepted version of the bible, the Vulgate, in use at that time, so except for some translations of certain books made, with permission, by missionaries, there were no approved vernacular translations of the entire bible at this time (13th c) so to possess one was almost certain to mean it was a heretical text.

 

[Eireann]

What was the reasoning that the church had for discouraging lay people from reading the bible? I have heard people say it was because the church thought we were too stupid, but i doubt this. What is the true reasoning and history behind it?

Could illiteracy have anything to do with it ?

 

[lak611]

I have a Douay-Rheims Bible that was printed in 1941. On the title page right under Holy Bible, it mentions that Pope Leo XIII granted to the faithful an indulgence for reading the Holy Scriptures for at least a quarter of an hour with veneration due to the Divine Word and as spiritual reading. Pope Leo XIII (Born 2 March, 1810, at Carpineto; elected pope 20 February, 1878; died 20 July, 1903, at Rome.). So everybody from the late 19th century until the present time was **encouraged ** to read the Bible, since the Church would not attach indulgences to something that she didn’t want the faithful to do.

 

[vern_humphrey]

The Council of Toulouse,1229.

Canon 14. We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old or New Testament; unless anyone from motive of devotion should wish to have the Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or the hours of the blessed Virgin; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books.

I do not find the Council of Toulouse in my two-volume set of Ecuminical Councils. Unless I miss my guess, that was a Gallican Council – not binding on the Catholic Church.

 

[NotWorthy]

The Council of Toulouse,1229.

Canon 14. We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old or New Testament; unless anyone from motive of devotion should wish to have the Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or the hours of the blessed Virgin; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books.

I have a feeling Kaycee is also familiar with the “rest of the story” regarding this situation.

Why are you failing to include that in this post, Kaycee? If so, isn’t this a bit intellectually dishonest?

 

[Mannyfit75]

I do not find the Council of Toulouse in my two-volume set of Ecuminical Councils. Unless I miss my guess, that was a Gallican Council – not binding on the Catholic Church.

Actually there was a Council called Council of Toulouse. It was in response to heresy.

Note the following;

Bible forbidden to laymen, placed on the Index of Forbidden Books by the Council of Toulouse in A.D. 1229 a) [The] Index was established in 1543, so a council held in 1229 hardly could have listed a book on it…The council held in Toulouse dealt with the Albigensian heresy, a variety of Manichaeanism, which maintained that marriage is evil because the flesh is evil…In order to promulgate their views, the Albigensians used vernacular versions of the Bible to “substantiate” their theories…[and they] were twisting the Bible to support an immoral moral system. So the bishops at Toulouse restricted the use of the Bible until the heresy was ended.

Many of these Albigensians had mistranslation of the Bible so the Church at the Council of Toulouse listed a books that forbid the laymen to read.

The Catholic Church preserved and protect the Bible. She will not have the Bible be distorted by some heresy.

 

[mlchance]

I do not find the Council of Toulouse in my two-volume set of Ecuminical Councils. Unless I miss my guess, that was a Gallican Council – not binding on the Catholic Church.

The Council of Toulouse was indeed a local council largely responding to the Albigensian heresy. Its decrees are not binding on the Church Universal but were purely a local matter.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[Mannyfit75]

For my fellow Catholics,

Use this cite. Many Protestants who have false ideas about Catholicism can be refuted here.

Is strange how Protestant Apologists like to distort history…

canapologetics.net/html/inventions_.html

 

[Subrosa]

What was the reasoning that the church had for discouraging lay people from reading the bible? I have heard people say it was because the church thought we were too stupid, but i doubt this. What is the true reasoning and history behind it?

To prevent things like the Reformation from happening.

 

[kaycee]

I have a feeling Kaycee is also familiar with the “rest of the story” regarding this situation.

Why are you failing to include that in this post, Kaycee? If so, isn’t this a bit intellectually dishonest?

Failed to include? I just stated a fact of history. Clearly, the mistaken sentiment in this thread that the clergy always encouraged open bible reading was incorrect. Stating historical facts is hardly being dishonest.

The Council of Tarragona of 1234, in its second canon, ruled that:

“No one may possess the books of the Old and New Testaments in the Romance language, and if anyone possesses them he must turn them over to the local bishop within eight days after promulgation of this decree, so that they may be burned lest, be he a cleric or a layman, he be suspected until he is cleared of all suspicion.”

John Wycliffe was the very first to translate the entire Bible into English, which he completed in 1382. Wycliffe translated from the Latin Vulgate. One copy of an original manuscript is in the Bodlein Library in Oxford, England. Wycliffe’s Bibles were painstakingly reproduced by hand by copyists.

In 1408 the third synod of Oxford, England, banned unauthorized English translations of the Bible and decreed that possession of English translation’s had to be approved by diocesan authorities. The Oxford council declared:

“It is dangerous, as St. Jerome declares, to translate the text of Holy Scriptures out of one idiom into another, since it is not easy in translations to preserve exactly the same meaning in all things. We therefore command and ordain that henceforth no one translate the text of Holy Scripture into English or any other language as a book, booklet, or tract, of this kind lately made in the time of the said John Wyclif or since, or that hereafter may be made, either in part or wholly, either publicly or privately, under pain of excommunication, until such translation shall have been approved and allowed by the Provincial Council. He who shall act otherwise let him be punished as an abettor of heresy and error.”

William Tyndale completed a translation of the New Testament from the Greek in 1525, which church authorities in England tried their best to confiscate and burn. After issuing a revised edition in 1535, he was arrested, spent over a year in jail, and was then strangled and burned at the stake near Brussels in October 6th, 1536. It is estimated today that some 90 percent of the New Testament in the 1611 King James Bible is the work of Tyndale. Tyndale was unable to complete his translation of the Old Testament before his death.

 

[Lazerlike42]

What was the reasoning that the church had for discouraging lay people from reading the bible? I have heard people say it was because the church thought we were too stupid, but i doubt this. What is the true reasoning and history behind it?

One reason that this would be done is simply because up until very recently, the vast majority of persons in the world were uneducated and most were illiterate. It would just be dangerous for the everyday layperson to read the Bible, especially when considering the words of St. Peter: “There are some things in [St. Paul’s epistles] that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” (2 Peter 3:16) I am not endorsing the idea that the Church banned the Bible, but I am pointing out that when individuals or groups may have been prohibited, this is why.

 

[lak611]

One reason that this would be done is simply because up until very recently, the vast majority of persons in the world were uneducated and most were illiterate. It would just be dangerous for the everyday layperson to read the Bible, especially when considering the words of St. Peter: “There are some things in [St. Paul’s epistles] that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” (2 Peter 3:16) I am not endorsing the idea that the Church banned the Bible, but I am pointing out that when individuals or groups may have been prohibited, this is why.

Like I said in an earlier post, since the late 19th century, reading the Bible has not been prohibited, it has been encouraged. It has indulgences associated with it.