The Church is not capable of erring in theology. As far as Latin translations, since we’ve been talking about the language of the liturgy in the Latin Rite, the Latin version of the liturgy (the Roman Missal, the breviary, etc.) is not a translation; it is the original.
Those last two sentences are a filthy lie, but I will deal with them shortly. As for the rest, we do not owe vernacular Bibles to the Protestants. There is this myth out there that Catholics sought to keep people from reading the Bible, and Protestants tried to put Bibles in the hands of the people. First of all, the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome was created in the late 4th century precisely to disseminate the Bible as widely as possible, Latin being then the universal language (anybody who could read, read Latin; those who could not read Latin could not read at all). Secondly, vernacular translations existed in all countries within the reach of the Church’s influence as long ago as the 7th century. There were 27 editions of the Bible in German before Luther came out with his (nine of them produced before he was born). Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, Hungary and Portugal had vernacular Bibles. As far as translations of Scripture into English even Thomas Cranmer, the Protestant archbishop of Canterbury, admitted in 1540 that this did not start with Wycliffe (source:
Where We Got the Bible, Rt. Rev. Henry G. Graham):
So it is a lie that the Catholic Church has ever persecuted anyone for translating the Bible into a vernacular language. What she has always sought to suppress is erroneous and heretical translations. Wycliffe’s English translation, for example, was not published for the purpose of making the Bible accessible to the common folk, but to destroy their faith: Wycliffe, though a priest, was a heretic, and had a long history of attacking the Church and her doctrines.
This is an outrageous lie. It is
you who ought to be
covered in shame for believing it, and still more for spreading it. Shame on you, too, as a teacher, for cultivating an inexcusable ignorance that forms a fertile field for belief in such slanders. Name *one *Bible printer that the Church put to death.