The Bible

In my younger days I was easily roused to anger. As I approachec old age I realised this was unprofitable and remained calm. That is until a Catholic Diocesan Bureaucrat stood up at a meeting and said that before Vatican II Catholics were forbidden to read the Bible. Many Protestants claim this and I understand they have better things to do with their time than examine the truth of the Catholic Church. But this lady made me see red. No Church loves Scripture and is more faithful to Scripture than the Catholic Church. It was in 399 AD at the Council of Carthage that the Catholic Bishops seperated all the early writings of the Church and put forward the present letters contained in the New Testament as `The Word of God`. Is it not strange that this declaration of a Catholic Council ratified by a Pope is so easily accepted by Protestants. Remember that this was in the 4th Century and until that time christians did not have a Bible to inspire them. They relied on the teaching authority of the Church. Indeed if you examine the New Testament you will see it is composed of letters that were sent to different Churches in different countries and there was no universal document drawn up as the Word of God, because this is not what Christ commanded. When the Reformers came along in the 15th century with the idea that Scripture alone would lead us to the truth what actually happened was that they could not agree a universal truth from Scritpure which they tried to do at the Council of Geneva and eventually we had denominations breaking off from denominations as everyone became their own Pope until we have about 26,000 Christian sects today. But did the Catholic Church keep the Bible from the people as is often alleged? In the 4th Century Pope Damasus asked one of the greatest scholars in his time St Jerome to translate the `new` Bible into Latin to be used throughout the Church. This was called the Latin `Vulgate` or `popular` Bible. But also in the 6th and 7th century the Bible was translated into the many emerging European Languages. The Venerable Bede, for example, translated it into the Saxon language spoken in England at the time, the 8th century. It is not often appreciated just how dedicated these monks were in copying Scripture so that the Word of God remained fresh and alive and could be taught in th Churches today. Of course, few people owned a Bible for there were no printing presses around to produce them. There is also an assumption around that it was Martin Luther, when printing was invented, who set about giving scripture to the people. Again this is erroneous. Actually 56 editions were printed before Luther put pen to paper, in Germany, France,Italy, Spain and other countries. The Catholics were just as quickly off the mark as Protestants. One such version still read today in the Catholic Church in England is the Douay-Rheims Bible. Going back to my Diocesan Bureaucrat I am appalled that even in the Catholic Church in England the myth that catholics were forbiden to read the Bible is being dishonestly promulgated. In the late 1940`s I went into a Catholic bookshop to buy a Bible and was surprised by the number of Bibles on display. I bought the Ronald Knox version and later went back for the Douay-Rheims one. I made sure I would read the Bible for fifteen minutes every day for Pope Leo XIII in the 19th century granted a plenary indulgence of 300 days to those who did so. I love the Bible but there are many difficult passages in it which are beyond my lay understanding. I am so grateful to have the guidance of the Catholic Church.