Replies

Anyone who says Catholics don’t read the Bible is not telling the truth. We do. Practicing Catholics attend Mass every Sunday. At every Mass we hear a passage from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the New Testament and the Gospel. The readings are selected on a three-year cycle.

That is all we are required to read; however most Catholics read the Bible on their own in various ways. Some attend Bible studies, some attend more than weekly Masses, some read it on their own at home.

The only difference that I’ve ever been able to see is that most Catholics don’t memorize passages to the degree that other Christian faiths do. We will memorize some that are meaningful to us, but we tend to focus on the message or concept in the passage rather than rote memorization of it.

This accusation that we don’t read the Bible is just a “talking point.” Good Catholics read the Bible, just as good Christians of all denominations do. This talking point is flawed because many non-Catholic Christians do not read the Bible much either. I know lots of people who call themselves Christian who rarely look at a Bible. Some of them are very good, spiritual people who do many loving acts of charity.

Finally, I might add that some Christians seem to make the Bible their god. They actually seem to revere it above all else. The Pharisees were like that too. They were so concerned with the minute details of the Law, arguing the minutia all day long, that they forgot to treat the people right in front of them with respect and dignity and love. They were so concerned with the memorized passages they would fling at people like weapons that they couldn’t even recognize the Messiah standing right in front of them radiating love and concern.

We know what Christ thought of them. He called them whited walls. Let us not forget, also, that the Pharisee, who had memorized the Torah cover to cover, was able to step over the injured traveler lying on the ground in the parable of the Good Samaritan and continue on his way. Perhaps he didn’t notice the broken human before him because he had his nose buried in his holy book. This parable made clear that Christ considered the Samaritan who responded to the human being in front of him with compassion and respect to be His kind of Christian. He had nothing but contempt for the Pharisee who spent his days memorizing the Torah and using it to hurt, humiliate, and browbeat people.