[Persevero]

It is true. The RC church forbade its people to read the Bible.

“The Council of Trent (1545-1564) placed the Bible on its list of prohibited books, and forbade any person to read the Bible without a license from a Roman Catholic bishop or inquisitor. The Council added these words: “That if any one shall dare to read or keep in his possession that book, without such a license, he shall not receive absolution till he has given it up to his ordinary.” “

Also, Luther can hardly “stick with” a church once he is kicked out of it! As he was declared an outlaw, you know, he was essentially sentenced to death.

“His refusal to retract all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the Emperor.”

“In historical legal systems, an outlaw is declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, this takes the burden of active prosecution of a criminal from the authorities. Instead, the criminal is withdrawn all legal protection, so that anyone is legally empowered to persecute or kill them. Outlawry was thus one of the harshest penalties in the legal system.”

[vladimir998]

Nonsense. You are quoting a screed put together by David Cloud if I remember correctly. The usual source for this nonsense is a website that is banned here at FR. I guess that is why you didn't cite a source. Here's an answer from a Catholic priest. An anti-Catholic critic claimed knowing middle-aged ex-Catholics who were not encouraged to read God’s Word. I asked a priest in his mid-60′s and he said he never heard such a thing; indeed, a special indulgence was granted to anyone who faithfully read the bible on a daily basis. Pope Benedict XV wrote in his encyclical Spiritus Paraclitus of 1920: “A partial indulgence is granted to the faithful who, with the veneration due the divine Word, make a spiritual reading from the Sacred Scriptures. A plenary indulgence is granted if this reading is continued for at least one half an hour.” My late aunt admitted that she was hesitant to read the bible for fear of misinterpreting the texts; however, such a personal sentiment cannot be said to reflect a Catholic prohibition. Anti-Catholic apologists themselves use isolated bits-and-pieces to refute Catholic teachings and then accuse the Church of using the same flawed methods. Such just is not the case. An anti-Catholic author, David Cloud, furthered such distortions in an article entitled, “The KJV and the Latin Vulgate.” He writes: [beginning of Cloud's quote] The Council of Trent (1545-1564) placed the Bible on its list of prohibited books, and forbade any person to read the Bible without a license from a Roman Catholic bishop or inquisitor. The Council added these words: “That if any one shall dare to read or keep in his possession that book, without such a license, he shall not receive absolution till he has given it up to his ordinary.” Rome’s attempt to keep the Bible from men has continued to recent times. Pope Pius VII (1800-1823) denounced the Bible Society and expressed shock at the circulation of the Scriptures. Pius VII said, “It is evidence from experience, that the holy Scriptures, when circulated in the vulgar tongue, have, through the temerity of men, produced more harm than benefit.” Pope Leo XII called the Protestant Bible the “Gospel of the Devil” in an encyclical letter of 1824. Pope Gregory XVI (1831-1846) railed “against the publication, distribution, reading, and possession of books of the holy Scriptures translated into the vulgar tongue.” Pope Leo XII, in January 1850, condemned the Bible Societies and admitted the fact that the distribution of Scripture has “long been condemned by the holy chair.” [end of Cloud's quote] Let us look at his assertions. First, did the council of Trent really prohibit the reading and ownership of the bible? The answer is, no. The council fathers decreed on April 8, 1546, “. . . the 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 New Testament, –seeing that one God is the author of both, . . . .” Oddly, I could not find the quotation as given by the above author; however, I did find decrees regarding UNAPPROVED and or FAULTY translations of the Scrtiptures. Just as with theological works, the Church asserted her role over their legitimate use. To suggest that the council of Trent opposed the authentic Word of God is untrue. Second, the prohibition for Catholics in joining Bible Societies was due to the fact that these said groups did not use Scriptures approved by Church sources and were quite anti-Catholic in their approach. Such has been the continued problem with gullible Catholics stolen from Christ’s Church by anti-Catholic fundamentalist bible study programs, some which particularly target Catholics. Again, this was no disdain for the holy Scriptures, only for the malicious intent by which some men use them. Third, the concern about bible distribution was that Protestant bibles were being circulated which in missing texts and in footnotes often questioned and ridiculed Catholic teaching. Obviously, the Church preferred that Catholics read bibles which reflected the orthodox Catholic interpretation of the Word of God. The misuse of the Gospel against the Church established by Christ himself is as Pope Leo XII noted nothing less than satanic. Cloud’s interpretation of Church history, or tradition, is as cloudy as the anti-Catholic’s understanding of the Scriptures. Having attacked Christ’s Church, the anti-Catholic bigot who quoted Cloud on his website has the audacity to call the Catholic his “friend.” This hackneyed sign of affection was used several years ago by the pornography and prostitute addicted Jimmy Swaggert in a pamphlet to proslytize Catholics. The anti-Catholic critic, when he runs out of material, will often harp about the so-called multitude killed by Catholics and declared heretics. It is true that civil societies in the past did engage in much nonsense, both Catholic and Protestant, however, both camps equated spiritual murder with physical murder and subsequently confused the penalties. Neither Protestants nor Catholics would want to be classified by the actions of extremists. Returning to the subject of the bible, it is my supposition that if properly studied with care to the sources and the literary forms of the text, it will affirm the Catholic faith. Such an openness to the truth of the Scriptures have led many of the more astute Protestants into the Catholic Church. However, the more emotional, embittered, and ignorant the researcher– the less affected they are by such truths or the claims of the Catholic Church. The message of our loving God to such critics would be to put aside their prejudice and hatred and taste and see the goodness of the Lord in the Catholic community. http://fatherjoe.wordpress.com/instructions/debates/anti-catholicism/did-the-catholic-church-prohibit-bible-reading/ Almost every Protestant anti-Catholic I have ever dealt with online has either been dishonest or relied (wittingly or unwittingly) on dishonest sources. I can only conclude from this that Protestants in general, or anti-Catholics in particular, enjoy lying or are simply grossly ignorant.

[Salvation]

**It is true. The RC church forbade its people to read the Bible.

“The Council of Trent (1545-1564) placed the Bible on its list of prohibited books,**

Source please! This is nonsense.

Bibles were copied by hand in those days. That’s why there was only one Bible in a Church — usually chained to the ambo or the pulpit.

I have never come across people saying that Catholics were forbidden to read the Bible.

[Salvation]

Are you believing those anti-Catholic tracts again?

Here is the truth: (Please read the entire article.)

Did the Catholic Church forbid Bible reading?

Did the Catholic Church forbid Bible reading?

How come Catholics weren't allowed to read the Bible?

In this Article

1. Its historical context;
2. The situation earlier in this century;
3. What it's like today

 

 To explore this question I think we will need to look at three separate issues. (1) The history (2) The situation earlier in this century (3) What's it like today?

(1) History - Why didn't people in the middle ages read the Bible?
This section was researched by Art Sippo, Fr. Terry Donahue and Mark Bonocore

The Bible was on scrolls and parchments during the early centuries of Christianity. No one had a "Bible". Even into the Middle Ages, each Bible was written by hand. Most people were, at best, only functionally literate. That is partially why they used stained glass windows and art to tell the Bible story. The printing press was not invented until 1436 by Johann Gutenberg. Note: The Gutenberg Bible, like every Bible before it, contained the Deuterocanonical books - the "extra" books as they are called in Evangelical circles.

So prior to 1436, the idea of everybody having a Bible was out of the question, even if they could read. Yeah, I know it's hard to imagine a world without photocopiers, printing presses, email, and web sites - but hey look at the bright side - no SPAM!

After the invention of the press, prior to Luther's Bible being published in German, there had been over 20 versions of the whole Bible translated into the various German dialects (High and Low) by Catholics. Similarly, there were several vernacular versions of the Bible published in other languages both before and after the Reformation. The Church did condemn certain vernacular  translations because of what it felt were bad translations and anti-Catholic notes. (vernacular means native to a region or country)

The Catholic Douay-Rheims version of the whole Bible in English was translated from the Latin Vulgate. It was completed in 1610, one year before the King James Version was published. The New Testament had been published in 1582 and was one of the sources used by the KJV translators. The Old Testament was completed in 1610.

The Latin Vulgate was always available to anyone who wanted to read it without restriction. Some Evangelicals have said that it would only have been usable by people who read Latin. But in the 16th Century there were no public schools and literacy was not that common, especially among the peasants. Those people who could read had been well educated and could read Latin.

I got an email that said:

The Church still had its readings and services in the dead language of Latin ...The Church fought to keep the Bible in Latin even though it could not be understood by most people of the time.

Mark Bonocore responds:

Latin was far from a dead language. It was the language of theology and science (the language of all educated peoples throughout Europe and beyond) well into the 17th and 18th Centuries. For example, when Isaac Newton published his works on physics, he published them in Latin so that all of Europe could read them. The same was true of all other scientific and scholarly advances.

The reason that the Protestant reformers used vernacular languages was because a) most educated people did not take the reformers seriously and b) they used the masses to get power for their movement. The pamphlets published by Luther and Calvin were filled with all manner of crude and dirty language (lots of references to "shitting," "pissing," and "farting"), and this was done to capture the imagination of the common man and to create popular uprising against the social establishment.

The Bible could very much be understood by people with the intelligence and ability to understand its theological content -- most of whom spoke Latin. Most common people of the time, however, could understand neither the language nor the content ...and most common people are still clueless about the content of the Bible today ...which is why Protestants supply "ministers" to interpret it for them.

We should also remember that the Jews had always kept their Bible in the Hebrew until the 19th Century. The Greek versions of the Jewish Bible made in ancient times had been co-opted by the Christians so the Jews basically abandoned them. Any Jew who wanted the read the Bible was expected to make the effort to learn Hebrew.

Some Evangelicals have accused the Catholics of burning people for reading the Bible. Mark Bonocore responds:

We must be careful not to project modern, American sensibilities (in regard to freedom and justice) into the context of medieval history. In the Middle Ages and before 1776, there was simply no such thing as separation of Church and State ---not in Catholic countries OR in Protestant countries. If we "burned people for reading the Bible," then the Protestants burned people for praying in Latin or hearing the Catholic Mass (something they unquestionably did in England, Geneva, and Scandinavia, etc.). At this time in history, heresy was also a secular crime; and the powers of a particular country treated it as such ... Despite the "spin" that some Evangelicals put on the Catholic position, the Catholic Church was never opposed people reading the Bible. What it opposed was people reading interpretations the Bible apart from the teaching authority of the Church, which would lead to the kinds of problems we have today with 30,000 denominations interpreting Scripture differently. The Bible itself warns against this. (2 Peter 1:20). With the invention of printing, there was a communications explosion, and one suddenly saw lots of people making very poor and heretical translations of the Bible and popularizing them throughout Christendom...The Church  tried to stop this.

The common people of the middle ages had no intellectual defense with which they could make a reasonable judgment about the Truth. They were almost as vulnerable to the heresies that were sweeping through their communities as a person standing in front of a gun today. Except a lot more than their lives was at stake, their eternal lives were in jeopardy. Today, if someone went out into the street and started shooting people, we wouldn't say, "let him go ahead and do it, people can protect themselves...its there own fault if they are shot to death."  The Church was very worried that people who were influenced by these heresies were going to spend eternity in hell. No one was punished for simply believing a heresy. The crime was teaching it, and leading others astray. The Church felt it was their job to protect the souls of the innocent. In hindsight, we see that we would have done better by not using force.

Some Evangelicals accuse the Catholic Church of "Chaining Bibles". The Church DID chain Bibles in the Middle Ages; and for the same reason that the Telephone Company chains its directories to the booth -- to prevent people from STEALING them. They were chained so that everyone could read it, in the congregation. Today even Telepone books are chained to telephones so they don't "walk" away.

We must remember that each Bible had to be copied by hand and that it took many years of a monk working behind the walls of a monestary, called a scriptorium to do this. Each Bible was made on vellum (sheep hide), it took 250 sheep and 1000's of hours to make every Bible. ccording to standards today, each one of these Bibles would be worth about $100,000. Records have been compiled which show that there were 5,000 chained books in 11 Protestant and 2 Catholic libraries. The Reformers, likewise, chained their Bibles in their churches for at least 300 years. Therefore, Catholics were not alone in chaining Bibles.

(2) Bible reading earlier this Century

I did not grow up Catholic but I've interviewed dozens of older Catholics, and ex Catholics, including those who now go to Evangelical Churches, to try to gain an understanding of the charge that Catholics weren't allowed to read their Bibles in the 1930's - 1970's.

It is true that earlier in this century, in some Catholic circles, people were not encouraged to read their Bibles. This discouragement was a mistake. The Church does not claim that these types of mistakes have not been made. Catholics believe that although the teaching of the Church is "infallible" on matters of doctrine, the Church is not "indefectable." Sometimes God chooses people who fall. He has done that since the beginning of the Church. (i.e., Judas)

It was never forbidden to read the Bible. But some priests were worried that congregations would come up with dozens of conflicting interpretations of Scripture. These priests knew of over 300 Protestant denominations who had distinct beliefs about the interpretation of Scripture. Many of these interpretations conflicted with each other yet every one of them claimed divine inspiration. As a whole, neither Catholics or Evangelicals are into relativism (which says there are many truths). So we have to conclude that the vast majority of conflicting Evangelical biblical interpretations are incorrect since only one can be true. (Perhaps this is a powerful argument against Sola Scriptura - Bible alone.) Some priests saw this divisional process in Protestant circles and felt it was a danger.

Eleanor, an elderly lady in our Church, explained to me that Catholics went to Catholic school. That was in the day when they really were religious based schools. They had religion class for 40 minutes every morning which taught the basics of the faith, including many articles based on Scripture and Latin. (those who think Jesus is about "Relation" not "Religion" may want to go here) The Evangelical counterpart to this was once a week of Sunday School. Eleanor loved the nuns who were her teachers. Eleanor's mother went to Church every morning at 6 am. Even though the Mass was in Latin, the Bible readings were in English. As mentioned above, there were four readings at every Mass. Most families had a family Bible although it is true they favoured hearing the Bible reading during Mass where there would be a homily explaining the readings. Joan, a lady in our church said this:

...in grade 6 or 7 all the students in our class were given the New Testament and encouraged to read it every day. The teacher (a nun) started us with the Acts of the Apostles and I remember becoming soooo excited...and I still get that way! ...I do remember being told by my grade one teacher...to listen well to the Bible readings at Mass on Sunday because that was Jesus talking to us...My grandmother used to quote Scripture to her neighbors...She heard it at church or from the priests and remembered it...and used it!

 

(3) What's it like today? Do Catholics read the Bible?

Today, Catholics who are faithful to the teaching of the Church are totally into the Word. The level of education is higher than it has ever been and people are better able to comprehend its meaning. The New American Bible has a preface from the Vatican that regular private Scripture study is a blessing (an indulgence is received) to all Catholics who crack open the Word. I love digging into the Word with my Evangelical friends. And hey, my Bible was not copied out by hand. Thank God for the printing press.

 

Notes:

(1) http://www.ccel.org/contrib/exec_outlines/matt/mt15_1.htm

(2) Father Mateo at www.cin.org

(3) Evangelical and Catholics Together: Toward a Common Mission, edited by Charles Colson and Richard John Neuhaus, Dallas: Word Publishing, 1995, Neuhaus' chapter, "The Catholic Difference," 175-227; quote from 209-210

Lord Jesus, let Your prayer of unity for Christians
become a reality, in Your way
we have absolute confidence
that you can bring your people together
we give you absolute permission to move. Amen

[Natural Law]

“The Council of Trent (1545-1564) placed the Bible on its list of prohibited books, and forbade any person to read the Bible without a license from a Roman Catholic bishop or inquisitor. The Council added these words: “That if any one shall dare to read or keep in his possession that book, without such a license, he shall not receive absolution till he has given it up to his ordinary.”

If you are going to cut and paste from an anti-Catholic website you ought to at least have the integrity to admit and cite it.

Once you have done that you should then do a fact check because what you posted is a lie (note: I am not accusing you of lying, only of passing lies along).

Some 300 years earlier, in response to the Albigensian heresy the local councils of Toulouse (1229 AD) and Tarragona (1234 AD) banned possession of unauthorized heretical versions of the bible.

Peace be with you

[Religion Moderator]

What is the source for those quotes?

[AnneM62]

Hey, I suspect most mainstream Protestants reject the heretical Scofield Bible. How bout that new Jimmy Carter Bible? Do you recommend that to your friends? Or is it on your ban list?

This is what the Catholic Church was facing in banning certain editions of the bible in their blatant heresies. They needed to keep the truth in tact.