WHY do the Gideons not let Catholics be members?

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Why do the Gideons not let Catholics be members of the Gideons
 
Not sure what you mean by member?
I’m positive they will accept donations from Catholics

The Gideons International is open to Protestan/evangelical church members.

I think an interested Catholic can give them a donation without problem. Or they could get involve with Catholic Charities, etc.
 
Here is their membership requirements as posted on wiki:

Article 3.-Membership.
The membership shall consist of business and professional men, except clergymen, who believe in the Bible as the inspired Word of God, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the eternal Son of God, have received Him as their personal Saviour, endeavor to follow Him in their daily life, and who are members in good standing of an **evangelical or Protestant church, congregation or assembly.". **(bold text mine).

I’m not sure why they have this specification, but it could have something to do with if they did allow Catholics to join, they might have to come to terms with the fact that they have been handing out *1.5 billion *incomplete Bibles since 1908.

Replacing all of these would be a logistical nightmare. 🙂
 
Interesting. However, most of those Gideon Bibles are just the NT, which sidesteps the issue.
 
When I was still a Protestant Pastor, we had a Gideon speaker at our Church one Sunday. When I mentioned to him that I had a check for him from a Catholic man who was visiting the service, he refused it, saying “The Catholic ARE the mission field.”

But Catholics shouldn’t feel too bad: the Gideons that I have met do not think much better of the old-line Protestant denominations. I normally refused to allow them to come to our Churches.
 
LongJourney said:
Interesting. However, most of those Gideon Bibles are just the NT, which sidesteps the issue.
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Most of the ones I’ve seen in hotel rooms are 66 book Bibles, but you are right that they do hand out the NT + Psalms and Proverbs books also.

Jon
 
My child’s Catholic school actually let these guys in to distribute bibles. My son came home with one of them. I wrote to them to tell them how thrilled I was to realize they are Catholics.

They were quick to reply that they are not, (but are very “ecumenical”).

😊

I was not very happy with that school, needless to say.
 
Bill_Pick said:
Why do the Gideons not let Cathloic be members of the Gideons
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It might have something to do with certain things Catholic officials have said and wrote during the 100+ years that the Gideons have been distributing the Bible. For example, I believe that the following is an accurate quote from the work of Cardinal Merry de Val, “Forward,” in the Index of Prohibited Books, revised and published by order of His Holiness Pope Pius XI (new ed.; [Vatican City]: Vatican Polyglot Press, 1930), pp. ix-xi:

[p. ix] What many, indeed fail to appreciate, and what, moreover non-Catholics consider a grave abuse — as they put it of the Roman Curia, is the action of the Church in hindering the printing and circulation of Holy Writ in the vernacular. Fundamentally however, this ac- [p. x] cusation is based on calumny. During the first twelve centuries Christians were highly familiar with the text of Holy Scripture, as is evident from the homilies of the Fathers and the sermons of the mediaeval preachers; nor did the ecclesiastical authorities ever intervene to prevent this. It was only in consequence of heretical abuses, introduced particularly by the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the followers of Wyclif, and by Protestants broadly speaking (who with sacrilegious mutilations of Scripture and arbitrary interpretations vainly sought to justify themselves in the eyes of the people; twisting the text of the Bible to support erroneous doctrines condemned by the whole history of the Church) that the Pontiffs and the Councils were obliged on more than one occasion to control and sometimes even forbid the use of the Bible in the vernacular…
[p. xi] Those who would put the Scriptures indiscriminately into the hands of the people are the believers always in private interpretation — a fallacy both absurd in itself and pregnant with disastrous consequences. These counterfeit champions of the inspired book hold the Bible to be the sole source of Divine Revelation and cover with abuse and trite sarcasm the Catholic and Roman Church.

emphais added

Canon Law at 825 provides:

§1. Books of the sacred scriptures cannot be published unless the Apostolic See or the conference of bishops has approved them. For the publication of their translations into the vernacular, it is also required that they be approved by the same authority and provided with necessary and sufficient annotations.

§2. With the permission of the conference of bishops, Catholic members of the Christian faithful in collaboration with separated brothers and sisters can prepare and publish translations of the sacred scriptures provided with appropriate annotations.

Has the conference of bishops given Catholics permission to work with the Gideons?
 
Its actually a bit surprising the Catholics don’t have a similar charitable group.
 
Byzantine_Wolf said:
I would prefer the NAB with the beautiful illustrations, but that’s a discussion for another thread. 😉
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You want cheap bibles, you have to sacrifice the bells and whistles.

I think I need to head to bed. I’m making more typos than usual. Pretty soon I’ll just be stringing letters together to no purpose.
 
Byzantine_Wolf said:
I would prefer the NAB with the beautiful illustrations, but that’s a discussion for another thread. 😉
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my duay rheims has beautiful illustrations. but i think the average protestant would have problems navigating it. the books are pronounced completely different in some cases. like Chronicles is paraphel…well, i dont have it in front of me. i can hardly pronounce the word any ways. my protestant roomate borrowed it, and had fits trying to find what he was looking for. (thats what you get, when you try to read other peoples mail) 😃 yeah nab would be better. Peace 🙂
 
Ceil-1 said:
My child’s Catholic school actually let these guys in to distribute bibles. My son came home with one of them. I wrote to them to tell them how thrilled I was to realize they are Catholics.

They were quick to reply that they are not, (but are very “ecumenical”).

😊

I was not very happy with that school, needless to say.
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LOL, what kind of security system is that school running? Next, they’ll have the Mormons distributing the book of Mormon.😛
 
Musicadmirer said:
LOL, what kind of security system is that school running? Next, they’ll have the Mormons distributing the book of Mormon.😛
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hey, if it wasnt for the redundancy ie." and it came to pass." it might actually be a pretty good read. 😉 peace 🙂
 
Radical said:
It might have something to do with certain things Catholic officials have said and wrote during the 100+ years that the Gideons have been distributing the Bible. For example, I believe that the following is an accurate quote from the work of Cardinal Merry de Val, “Forward,” in the Index of Prohibited Books, revised and published by order of His Holiness Pope Pius XI (new ed.; [Vatican City]: Vatican Polyglot Press, 1930), pp. ix-xi:
[p. ix] What many, indeed fail to appreciate, and what, moreover non-Catholics consider a grave abuse — as they put it of the Roman Curia, is the action of the Church in hindering the printing and circulation of Holy Writ in the vernacular. Fundamentally however, this ac- [p. x] cusation is based on calumny. During the first twelve centuries Christians were highly familiar with the text of Holy Scripture, as is evident from the homilies of the Fathers and the sermons of the mediaeval preachers; nor did the ecclesiastical authorities ever intervene to prevent this. It was only in consequence of heretical abuses, introduced particularly by the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the followers of Wyclif, and by Protestants broadly speaking (who with sacrilegious mutilations of Scripture and arbitrary interpretations vainly sought to justify themselves in the eyes of the people; twisting the text of the Bible to support erroneous doctrines condemned by the whole history of the Church) that the Pontiffs and the Councils were obliged on more than one occasion to control and sometimes even forbid the use of the Bible in the vernacular…
[p. xi] Those who would put the Scriptures indiscriminately into the hands of the people are the believers always in private interpretation — a fallacy both absurd in itself and pregnant with disastrous consequences. These counterfeit champions of the inspired book hold the Bible to be the sole source of Divine Revelation and cover with abuse and trite sarcasm the Catholic and Roman Church.
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This is sound and wise.
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