Is there anything we can learn from Protestantism?

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Maybe its different in America but its not a stereotype, very few Catholics in Ireland would have read the Bible in the past. As far as I recall it stems from the Reformation, the church didn’t want Joe Pubic to misinterpret scripture and frowned on people reading it. Maybe Catholics in america have absorbed the culture of reading the Bible from their Protestant neighbours but it less read on this side of the pond.
 
0331 said:
Where does the old stereotype of Catholics not knowing or reading the Bible come from?
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It periodically comes up on here and there is always a huge argument about it. I think it’s safe to say that at least a goodly percentage of devout Catholics (in USA, I can’t speak for foreign countries) have been reading the Bible for many many decades, and above and beyond just hearing the readings at Mass, but we don’t study it and memorize it the same way Protestants do, and that leads to this misperception that it wasn’t being read by Catholics.

I can safely say that as far back as the 1970s, which was 50+ years ago now, I don’t know a single Catholic who didn’t participate in some kind of Bible study or have a course on it in school, and a good many Catholics I see at Mass are toting Bibles or copies of “Magnificat” magazine which contains a lot of scripture devotions. The vast majority of devotional aids nowadays contain scripture as well.

I’m personally on my second read-through of the Bible. My last read-through of it was when I was 14 so I figured I was due for a re-read. I’m up to the beginning of Chronicles.
 
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That’s the thing, though. I’ll accept it if there is actually proof that Catholics were told by priests and bishops not to read the Bible.
 
0331 said:
I’ll accept it if there is actually proof that Catholics were told by priests and bishops not to read the Bible.
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It’s my understanding from my mother that some priests did discourage people from reading the Bible on their own in the pre-Vatican II era, which would have been before I was born. Given the questions and weird personal interpretations of Bible stuff we see just on this forum, I can kind of understand where the priests may have thought it was too difficult for the average Joe in the pew to understand without guidance. It’s sort of like ordinary people reading the Constitution - things don’t always mean what you think it means.

This discouragement must have gone out the window by the early 1960s though in USA, because our first family Bible was a wedding gift to my parents from their priest. Apparently the diocese provided these Bibles as a wedding gift for all newly married couples in hopes they’d take them home and read them as part of family devotions, or so the foreword by good ol’ Cardinal Spellman (I pray for his soul) seems to say.
 
Interesting. Well, I can accept that bad advice was given. Too bad.

I just bought a reproduction copy of a 1914 Douay Rheims to read along with my other Bibles. In the first pages it informs the reader of an indulgence given for private reading of the Gospels, approved by Pope Leo XIII. And it presents the ‘Come, Holy Spirit’ prayer as a good way to begin reading.
 
My mom told me that she and Dad tried to read the Bible together a couple nights a week when they were first married. Unfortunately when they hit the part about Noah laying around drunk and naked in his tent and some of the other racy stuff in Genesis, they became too embarrassed and had to stop.

Mom always knew the Gospels pretty well though, probably from hearing them over and over at church. I also had children’s books that told the stories of some of the OT heroes like Abraham and Jonah.
 
I have an original that I rescued from a furnace, with the same encyclical. Had it rebound as the original owner had the cover varnished and it cracked! Douay Bible
 
Cool! It’s really a neat Bible, with all those old maps and drawings. And the references in the back are helpful, too.
 
I was reading it this morning and it has great explanations at the end of the pages. The names of the books are different to what Im used to but I use the Catholic Public Domain Bible on my phone as comparison. Its the Douay without the Thees and Thous.
 
Ecumenism. Also, I think this is one of the better moderated ecclesiastical forums out there. There’s a bunch of well educated and catechized folks here. Iron sharpens iron. 🙂
 
Not only to sing but to pay the choir and the accompanist/conductor.

We can also learn to have more fellowship. But maybe they’re better at this because their standards for people aren’t as high. I’m thinking of the United Church which is uber welcoming, but it’s easy to do that when you are willing to accept every sexual union as being equivalent to proper marriage.
 
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Just to add to this the priest this morning was bemoaning the fact that most people present probably listen to the bible (being read at mass) than read it. He encouraged people to read it was we miss the nuances of certain words being repeated and re-enforced to get across a particular message.
 
My pastor recently encouraged us to read the Bible more and to own at least more than one, so we can dive deeper into the meaning of different words and passages.

A priest who chaplained a community my family belonged to was an incredible Bible scholar and was fond of quoting St. Jerome: ‘Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.’
 
John 17: 22-23
The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; 23 I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.

I think he was implying the reformation kinda broke up the band.
 
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