The Catholic Church and the Bible

[Reuben_J]

I don’t know why Catholics get so offended at this.

Bible reading by the laity was discouraged in a response to the reformation. People were coming up with their own doctrines and ideas apart from the Church and it led to all kinds of errors. The rapture is a prime example. In some cases the Bible was used to justify civil unlawful and cruel behavior. For a long time some in the Church held that interpretation of the Bible was best left to professionals.

The quality of early Bibles was questionable at best. Many Bibles were translated using street vernacular by people with little or no qualifications and had serious errors. Typographical errors were common as well. Many of these were banned and the easiest way to get rid of them was burning. Protestant Churches did their share of burning. Here is an example.

Thou shalt commit adultery.(Exodus 20:14)
The “Wicked Bible”, 1621

Any Bible containing this text is clearly not trustworthy and should be burned.

Some people added to the Bible or changed them, claiming revelation from God. The Book of Mormon is a perfect example. These should surely be gathered and destroyed IMO.

biblecollectors.org/articles/untrustworthy_translations.htm

biblecollectors.org/articles/curiosities.htm

I really don’t know why Catholics bristle so much when this comes up. Seriously, there is a Klingon Bible and a Bible which replaces the word God with the word Cat. We complain about the poor quality of the NAB don’t we? So why shouldn’t these sacrilegious works be banned and burned?

I’m a fan of the truth and the truth is that some in the Church did discourage Bible reading by the laity and some Bibles were banned and burned with good reason.

-Tim-

 

[MartinJordan]

Exactly. Kliska seems to be of the opinion that the Catholic laity was ‘actively discouraged’ from reading the bible during the time period when people were actually literate enough to do so --basically in Europe, the U.S., and Canada, that would have been pretty much from 1850 on (prior to this, while ‘many’ could read, many more could not.) Compulsory free public schools along with rising immigrant populations whose first priorities were schools and churches, both places of learning, led to this kind of literacy which was unknown before then. The idea that people in those years were ‘actively discouraged from reading the Bible if they were Catholics’ would have been quite the news to my grandparents, born in 1887 and 1890, who were avid Bible readers their lives long having the example of THEIR parents and grandparents who did so as well.

Now I’m old but not old enough to have lived in the 19th century for firsthand information, but it seems to me that all I ever HEAR is ‘anecdotal’ evidence from people who swore that their dad and granddad etc were all ‘told’ by ‘the priest’ or ‘the teachers’ NOT to read the Bible.

Yet I have my grandparents’ Bible from 1900 with the Imprimatur and the INDULGENCE for daily Bible reading right there in the front. So if there were well-intentioned priests who wrongly professed ‘don’t read the Bible’, anybody who actually LOOKED at a Catholic Bible could see right in the front that Bible reading was ENCOURAGED. And all my anecdotal experience family wise is that we were ENCOURAGED to read the Bible.

So --who to believe? Internet posters and articles which speak of a ‘dark time’ (usually prior to the springtime of Vatican 2) where the people were told to pray (but not the Bible), pay, and obey --or internet posters and articles who speak of their families’ long traditions of reading the Bible regularly?

:clapping:

MJ

 

[Kliska]

Here’s thoughts on things like this from Jimmy Akin. catholic.com/video/do-horrific-acts-in-the-past-make-a-religion-untrue

I tend to agree; just because it is true that one group persecutes another, it doesn’t automatically mean the entire religion/group is wrong and that is what many people try to claim. Protestants did plenty of persecuting, as did Catholics… as did most other world religions. But, trying to hide harm does more harm. It is true that there was a time when protestants and other groups were persecuted because of their beliefs and/or owning/translating the scriptures into the common tongue because they were not authorized to do so by the RCC. I’m sure the RCC felt it had good reasons for doing so, or for getting the state to do so.

There was a time when the early anabaptists were persecuted by everyone else, protestants included, and were martyred regularly by protestants. As a protestant I would never want to deny it happened; it did. It was heinous and wrong, and would be insulting to try to deny it and to go up to an Amish individual and tell them their histories of their martyrs are nothing but make believe.

 

[TimothyH]

There is anecdotal evidence on both side.

I know an elderly couple who were told by a priest that the Bible is best left to professionals, that the readings at Mass and explanation in the homily was enough.

Discouraging the laity from reading the Bible may not have been the official policy of the worldwide Church but it did happen. Sometimes it happened for good reason and sometimes not.

Not everything in life is black and white and we can’t stick our head in the sand. It did happen and those in the Church are not perfect. Denying the truth does no one any good.

-Tim-

 

[SyroMalankara]

There is anecdotal evidence on both side.

I know an elderly couple who were told by a priest that the Bible is best left to professionals, that the readings at Mass and explanation in the homily was enough.

Discouraging the laity from reading the Bible may not have been the official policy of the worldwide Church but it did happen. Sometimes it happened for good reason and sometimes not.

Not everything in life is black and white and we can’t stick our head in the sand. It did happen.

-Tim-

in what context? I guess if an elderly couple asked my opinion in regard to attending a protestant Bible study, for example, I’d say the same thing and give some Catholic options. Who knows the specifics of the circumstance and context, as well as the people involved?

 

[TimothyH]

in what context? I guess if an elderly couple asked my opinion in regard to attending a protestant Bible study, for example, I’d say the same thing and give some Catholic options. Who knows the specifics of the circumstance and context, as well as the people involved?

They are very good friends of mine, lifelong Catholics, both into their early 90’s.

They were not talking about participating in Protestant Bible study. They know I have a deep devotion to and love for Scripture and that is the context - private reading and study of Scripture.

-Tim-

 

[Tantum_ergo]

They are very good friends of mine, lifelong Catholics, both into their early 90’s.

They were not talking about participating in Protestant Bible study. They know I have a deep devotion to and love for Scripture and that is the context - private reading and study of Scripture.

-Tim-

And yet, Tim, we have my mother, who’s 86 this year, who attended Catholic schools in New York and New Jersey in the 1930s, where the kids not only had ye olde Catechism but also read the bible during the school day at school. And at home. With full approval and encouragement of the Sisters and the priests.

Like I said, I ‘hear’ from people that they or their family or friends were told this or that, usually in some nebulous period and no particular area given. . .so I’m giving some geography and dates here.

 

[Kliska]

And yet, Tim, we have my mother, who’s 86 this year, who attended Catholic schools in New York and New Jersey in the 1930s, where the kids not only had ye olde Catechism but also read the bible during the school day at school. And at home. With full approval and encouragement of the Sisters and the priests.

Like I said, I ‘hear’ from people that they or their family or friends were told this or that, usually in some nebulous period and no particular area given. . .so I’m giving some geography and dates here.

Tim doesn’t need me speaking for him for sure, but he already said it wasn’t a monolithic teaching, and I doubt it ever was either. My data; current Catholics who are about 50 years old, living their whole lives in the Midwest have expressed similar sentiments; Bible reading on their own was not encouraged, rather discouraged, either for them or for their parents. They are all still Catholic.

 

[MarkInOregon]

Tim doesn’t need me speaking for him for sure, but he already said it wasn’t a monolithic teaching, and I doubt it ever was either. My data; current Catholics who are about 50 years old, living their whole lives in the Midwest have expressed similar sentiments; Bible reading on their own was not encouraged, rather discouraged, either for them or for their parents. They are all still Catholic.

More data for your data pool. I’m in my early 50’s. The parish I attend has had a parish Bible study (i.e organized and run by lay parishioners) for --I believe this is our 20th year. I’ve never been discouraged from reading and studying the Bible in any parish that I have attended–all on the west coast.

The peace of Christ,
Mark

 

[estesbob]

Tim doesn’t need me speaking for him for sure, but he already said it wasn’t a monolithic teaching, and I doubt it ever was either. My data; current Catholics who are about 50 years old, living their whole lives in the Midwest have expressed similar sentiments; Bible reading on their own was not encouraged, rather discouraged, either for them or for their parents. They are all still Catholic.

Simply not true. I was born and raised in the Midwest , am in my 60s and we had scripture study in grade school . One of my cherished Momentos is my dad’s well thumbed copy of “the imitation of Christ” that he carried with him across the Pacific in World War II . It is, of course, loaded with scripture verses and when I was a kid we used a family Bible that have been passed down for at least 3 generations .

 

[Kliska]

Simply not true.

Then you are calling fellow devout practicing Catholics liars.

 

[Pulvis]

Well, i inherited my desire to study the bible from my Baptist roots. I came to the Catholic church due to studying the church fathers, especially pre nicean. The Baptist theologians have done excellent work in studying the Scriptures. Some of the protestant study bibles are fantastic resources for truly gaining a full grasp of scripture, as long as you understand the protestant slant on certain themes. There are fewer resources for Catholic study bibles, but the Douay-Rheims with Bishop Challoners notes works well. The Ignatian study bible is good, but i get more from the HCSB and ESV study bibles. I cannot speak for other Catholics, but i have always felt that Scripture study is lacking in the Catholic Church by the laity. But i admit that that opinion comes from someone who was raised in a church where the Bible was central to all teaching/preaching. Not surprising when you understand that when the reformation jettisoned most of the 1500 years of church History, teachings from the early Fathers, teachings of the Doctors of the Church, and writtings from the Saints, the Scriptures were all that was left. Sometimes i wonder if Luther and Calvin stood on sola scriptura simply as a way to eliminate all other tradition.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Then you are calling fellow devout practicing Catholics liars.

I don’t think Bob was calling your friends liars. . .in the context of the posts to which you and I were responding, it appeared that though you did not refer to this as a "monolithic teaching’ you used 'my data --Catholics in their 50s in the Midwest-- and Bob, himself in the age range and the geography range, had a completely different experience.

Thing is, I don’t think I have ever seen any person come onto the forums point blank and say that they were told by Father McNemo in 1950, while lisping the rosary at St. Immaculata in East Peoria, Illinois, that they were FORBIDDEN to open up their Bibles ‘at home’ or ‘in class’ as 'Scripture is only for us priests and experts to read, and we’ll tell YOU what it means", and that this class of 45 in this school of 500 kids was simply the latest to hear what ‘the fathers’ had been telling every class in said school since the school had started, because the BISHOP had told them and all the other priests in the diocese decades ago that ‘this was Catholic teaching’, and that everybody in the diocese KNEW it, everybody in the STATE knew it, everybody in the country, etc. etc.

I have always heard these tales third hand --by somebody who was told about it by a friend, often about the friend’s friend.

Well I have this to say, for what it’s worth.

In lo my ‘sunset years’ I am, quite unexpectedly, raising my grandsons, who are 4-1/2 and nearly 3. They are darling, NORMAL boys --they aren’t geniuses and they aren’t ‘slow’. . .and every day I tell them simple things that they ‘understand’ in some of the strangest possible ways.

I venture to say that a 1st or 2nd grader 50 some years ago, living in a ‘simpler’ time and not as ‘advanced’ as our current children (no I have NOT bought my boys computers, tablets, electronics, but I’m a dying breed in the educational world), could have EASILY MISUNDERSTOOD the words of a priest or teacher and now years later is CONVINCED that Father specifically told him “Don’t bother reading your Bible” when Father never said anything of the kind.

All these stories, and I am NOT calling people ‘liars’, have the kind of ‘urban legend’ characteristics to them. They all sound exactly alike.

Do you remember back in the 1980s when there were so many stories about children being abused in day care? The psychologists who interviewed the children were planting stories in the children’s minds, and after enough hearings, the children thought those stories had really happened TO THEM. But they hadn’t.

I think that either unwittingly or knowingly, people who spoke to your friends and others of the "we were told as Catholics not to read our Bibles’ ilk, were either projecting what they THOUGHT happened, or slanting and misrepresenting what happened, in the vast majority of cases. There are simply too many examples of Catholics, from the saints (even those of the 19th and 20th century) who were avid Bible readers from their youth. . .saints who lived ‘all over’.

It’s like a more 20th century version of the old canard, “Catholics repressed the Bible in the Middle Ages”. No matter how often we can demonstrate (even nonCatholic scholars of repute concur) that this didn’t happen, you will find many nonCatholics and even a few Catholics who still believe it did happen and is just being ‘covered up’. The old heresies never really change, they just get a new ‘urban legend’ attached to them as time goes by.

 

[estesbob]

Then you are calling fellow devout practicing Catholics liars.

I said what you related was not true. It is likely you believed it was but you were not speaking from personal experience I am.

 

[Duane1966]

Tim doesn’t need me speaking for him for sure, but he already said it wasn’t a monolithic teaching, and I doubt it ever was either. My data; current Catholics who are about 50 years old, living their whole lives in the Midwest have expressed similar sentiments; Bible reading on their own was not encouraged, rather discouraged, either for them or for their parents. They are all still Catholic.

My experience, as a 49 year old Catholic, lived his whole life in the Midwest, I was given a pocket NT in fourth grade, as were all the kids in our parish. We were encouraged to read it every day. As was my mother who grew up in the great depression. As was my grandmother who was born in 1901. I get to high school, and there are kids from other parishes who also had that pocket NT. My cousins also in the Midwest, another diocese, had a similar experience.

The vernacular question is the most overblown issue. We know that there were licit translations of the bible into French, Spanish, Czech, and other languages hundreds of years before the Reformation. The first German translation is about 70 years before Luther and his 95 theses. Let’s face it, if you could read back then, you could read Latin.

From Wikipedia:

The firstFrench translationdates from the thirteenth century, as does the firstCatalan Bible, and the SpanishBiblia Alfonsina.

However, theVulgateremained the authoritative text, used universally in the West for scholarship and theliturgy, matching its continued use for other purposes such as religious literature and most secular books and documents. In the early Middle Ages, anyone who could read at all could often read Latin, even inAnglo-Saxon*England

.

Of a more interesting question to me is, with all the widespread reading of the bible, why does data show this country becoming more secular? I know Catholics and Protestants who can quote scripture and verse who never go to church.

 

[SyroMalankara]

Of a more interesting question to me is, with all the widespread reading of the bible, why does data show this country becoming more secular? I know Catholics and Protestants who can quote scripture and verse who never go to church.

I could retort, what do you need the church (any church) for when you’ve got all the answers right there in the book and you are the sole and final interpreter? (as devil’s advocate/evangelical-non-Apostlic protestant position)

 

[DebChris]

I said what you related was not true. It is likely you believed it was but you were not speaking from personal experience I am.

My experience, as a 49 year old Catholic, lived his whole life in the Midwest, I was given a pocket NT in fourth grade, as were all the kids in our parish. We were encouraged to read it every day. As was my mother who grew up in the great depression. As was my grandmother who was born in 1901. I get to high school, and there are kids from other parishes who also had that pocket NT. My cousins also in the Midwest, another diocese, had a similar experience.

The vernacular question is the most overblown issue. We know that there were licit translations of the bible into French, Spanish, Czech, and other languages hundreds of years before the Reformation. The first German translation is about 70 years before Luther and his 95 theses. Let’s face it, if you could read back then, you could read Latin.

From Wikipedia:

.

Of a more interesting question to me is, with all the widespread reading of the bible, why does data show this country becoming more secular? I know Catholics and Protestants who can quote scripture and verse who never go to church.

I already shared that my family had several copies of the Douay-Rheims.
Fourth grade catechism was a reprieve from the Baltimore Catechism with the Brown book of Bible stories. I did have my own Children’s Bible to read.

Even as an adult, I find it interesting when I am traveling and praying my LOTH, how many non-Catholics will ask me if I am reading the Bible.

Never as a Catholic have I been discouraged from reading scripture. Quite the contrary. We are encouraged to learn as much as possible. To read the Bible as well as the lives of the Saints.

 

[Church_Militant]

That is absolutely true; the laity were actively discouraged from reading Holy Scripture. Some see that as a good thing, some see that as a travesty. Modern Christians of all stripes can’t hardly fathom not owning a Bible of their own, so it is hard to realize the full import of what it meant in ages past to either not be allowed to own one, or to read one on one’s own. Good reasons and bad reasons abounded, but to be dismissive of the facts (on either side) is not a good thing.

See my response in post # 6

 

[Kliska]

I don’t think Bob was calling your friends liars. . .in the context of the posts to which you and I were responding, it appeared that though you did not refer to this as a "monolithic teaching’ you used 'my data --Catholics in their 50s in the Midwest-- and Bob, himself in the age range and the geography range, had a completely different experience.

We were asked for specifics, so I gave mine. That was then dismissed, as it is here as being wrong. So, from the perspective here, either my friends (from different parishes and families) are lying to me, or they aren’t intelligent enough to understand what was taught to them. I don’t believe either of those things are true. I don’t believe, as I stated earlier, that this was a monolithic teaching of the RCC, and even stated I know priests and nuns who pushed scripture study, memorization, etc…

What I believe, based on the facts I have gathered from secular, Catholic, and protestant sources, is that the RCC did indeed have reasons they thought were good ones for persecuting individuals in the middle ages for translating and owning personal copies of the bible not approved by the RCC itself. History shows that the RCC and/or governments swayed by the RCC did indeed persecute protestants for various reasons including translating scripture without their permission or oversight. I understand why some would want to deny it, as we now know it to be a heinous thing, but it doesn’t come across very well to deny persecution when it happens on any side. Protestants persecuted Catholics. Catholics persecuted Protestants. Protestants and Catholics persecuted Anabaptists, etc… It doesn’t prove who is right or who is wrong, and we modern believers didn’t do it, but it still happened.

What I believe, based on facts I have gathered from individuals I know personally who are devout Catholics, is that independent bible study was frowned upon at one point in time. Not owning a Catholic bible, not reading the Catholic bible, but the attempt to learn it and study it on one’s own was actively discouraged.

Thing is, I don’t think I have ever seen any person come onto the forums point blank and say that they were told by Father McNemo in 1950, while lisping the rosary at St. Immaculata in East Peoria, Illinois, that they were FORBIDDEN to open up their Bibles ‘at home’ or ‘in class’ as 'Scripture is only for us priests and experts to read, and we’ll tell YOU what it means"

I know plenty of ex-Catholics that would indeed come here and post that. I wouldn’t think of using their data, however, because if people won’t believe devout practicing Catholics, why would they believe ex-Catholics?

All these stories, and I am NOT calling people ‘liars’, have the kind of ‘urban legend’ characteristics to them. They all sound exactly alike.

There can also be other reasons for that, other than it being misunderstood or someone slanting/lying about it. It could be that it actually did happen. Maybe not, but just maybe it did. I know people personally that say it did indeed happen to them, not a friend of a friend but to them personally. My friends that I’m referring to are closer to 60 than to 40, so were plenty old enough, as well as being serious Catholics that actually practice their faith, not “Christmas and Easter” Catholics, or Catholics that only got serious when they were older.

Did it happen to me personally? Of course not, I’m not Catholic nor have I ever been Catholic. Did it happen to people I trust to tell the truth, that were Catholic and still are? Yup. That’s all I really have to add to the conversation.

Grace and Peace,
K

 

[Duane1966]

What I have gathered from secular, Catholic, and protestant sources, is that the RCC did indeed have reasons they thought were good ones for persecuting individuals in the middle ages for translating and owning personal copies of the bible not approved by the RCC itself. History shows that the RCC and/or governments swayed by the RCC did indeed persecute protestants for various reasons including translating scripture without their permission or oversight. I understand why some would want to deny it, as we now know it to be a heinous thing, but it doesn’t come across very well to deny persecution when it happens on any side. Protestants persecuted Catholics. Catholics persecuted Protestants. Protestants and Catholics persecuted Anabaptists, etc… It doesn’t prove who is right or who is wrong, and we modern believers didn’t do it, but it still happened.

Kliska, let’s say I produce a translation of the bible that I know to contain errors and false teachings, all to fit what I think the bible should say, to fit my theology. I then use my translation to teach illiterate masses, preaching what I want them to believe, not what the true bible actually says. The CC tells me to stop, and burns the false bible I produced. I refuse, produce another, and go on leading sheep astray. In fact, my translation I produce uses the bible to promote anarchy. The civil authorities throw me in jail. Am I being persecuted?

What I believe, based on facts I have gathered from individuals I know personally who are devout Catholics, is that independent bible study was frowned upon at one point in time. Not owning a Catholic bible, not reading the Catholic bible, but the attempt to learn it and study it on one’s own was actively discouraged.

Official Catholic teaching on reading the bible through the years:

Pope* St.* Gregory* I** (died 604 AD)“The Emperor of heaven, the Lord of men and of angels, has sent you His epistles for your life’s advantage—and yet you neglect to read them eagerly. Study them, I beg you, and meditate daily on the words of your Creator.* Learn the heart of God in the words of God, that you may sigh more eagerly for things eternal, that your soul may be kindled with greater longings for heavenly joys.”***[Letters,* 5, 46.* (EnchBibl* 31)]The Lindisfarne Gospelsdigitally restored

The publisher of the Catholic Koberger Vulgate Bible(1477 AD)“The Holy Scriptures excel all the learning of the world . . . All believers should watch zealously and exert themselves unremittingly to understand the contents of these most useful and exalted writings, and to retain them in the memory. Holy Scripture is that beautiful garden of Paradise in which the leaves of the commandments grow green, the branches of evangelical counsel sprout . . .”

The publisher of the Catholic Cologne [German] Bible(1480 AD)*writes:“All Christians should read the Bible with piety and reverence, praying the Holy Ghost, who is the inspirer of the Scriptures, to enable them to understand . . . The learned should make use of the Latin translation of St. Jerome; but the unlearned and simple folk, whether laymen or clergy . . . should read the German translations now supplied, and thus arm themselves against the enemy of our salvation.”See :Catholic German Language Bibles Before Martin Luther

Decree of the Council of Trent*** April 8, 1546.“ The holy synod] following the examples of the orthodox fathers, receives and venerates with an equal affection of piety and reverence all the books both of the Old and of the New Testament-seeing that one God is the Author of both…”[Session 4, April 8, 1546.]

Pope Benedict XIV****( 1740-1758* AD)Pope Benedict instructed the bishops of the Papal States that"In ecclesiastical chant care must be taken to insure that the words are perfectly and easily understood…"He quoted the* Synod of Cambrai from the year 1565:"What is sung in choir is destined to instruct the faithful…"and quoting the Council of Cologne from 1536 :“the most important part is made up precisely of the recital of the words of the prophets, the apostles, the Epistle, the Creed, the Preface or the act of thanksgiving, and the Our Father. On account of their importance these texts like all the others must be sung clearly and intelligibly.”*—*Pope Benedict XIV, “Annus qui” 19 February AD 1749)

Pope Pius 6th* (April 1st 1778 AD)“BELOVED SON : Health and apostolic benediction. At a time that a vast number of bad books, which most grossly attack the Catholic religion, are circulated even among the unlearned, to the great destruction of souls, you judge exceedingly well, that the faithful should be excited to the reading of the Holy Scriptures : for these are the most abundant sources which ought to be left open to every one, to draw from them purity of morals and of doctrine, to eradicate the errors which are widely disseminated in these corrupt times : this you have seasonably effected, as you declare, by publishing the sacred writings in the language of your country, suitable to every one’s capacity …Given at Rome, on the calends of April, 1778, the fourth year of our pontificate.”(Letter to the Most Rev. Anthony Martini, Archbishop Of Florence, on his Italian translation of the Bible which is printed in Haydock’s Bible, revised by the Very Reverend Dr. Husenbeth, 1884 AD. SeePhotograph)

To be continued. …