“Rome hates the Bible. Rome FEARS the Bible. They don’t want you studying it without an “approved leader” looking over your shoulder (usually a priest or a specially-trained lay minister) so that they can tell you what it means, so that the proles won’t come to any unauthorised conclusions derived solely from reading the actual text for themselves.”
That notion, I’m sorry to say, is pure lunacy. I guess you got it from someone you think credible, but it bears no resemblance to reality.
“I’ve heard Catholics on FR exude their hatred for the King James Bible”
How interesting. I’ve been here a while, now, and have never heard any such thing. I suppose you can support your accusation with examples.
“As the most doctrinally rigourous version in English, it is also the one that opens up the most cans of worm for Catholics if they were to read it for themselves, with an open mind, “unaided”.
I’ve read it. It opens up no cans of worms. Of courese, it’s abridged.
It’s on the “unaided” thing that you’re really reversed, though. Protestants seem to think that the Holy Spirit will come and help them understand the Bible correctly just any old time they sit down to read.
No one who has ever experienced the Holy Spirit’s presence would imagine such a thing. It is as staggering an experience as it is rare.
I consider an understanding of a scripture conferred by the Holy Spirit to be an Inspired Interpretation. The Catholic Church has compiled more of these than any other individual, organization, library, or body. When they get one, it becomes the “official” interpretation of that given passage. No subsequent Inspired Interpretations ever contradict a previous one.
If you are blessed enough to have one yourself, and you take it to your priest, he will probably look at you with perplexity and say, “Yes, that’s what the Church holds. Didn’t you get that before?” If, like a protestant, you try to rely on your own mental abilities to understand the Bible, it’s really hit and miss...more miss than hit.
The Church urges Catholics to study the Bible. There are three readings at just about every Mass. The Church holds the Bible to be the highest authority. If someone claimed to have had a personal revelation of some kind, and it contradicted the Bible, it would be dismissed out of hand.
You have a lot of misinformation. You are on notice of that.
Excellent Post!