Replies

No, I think You misunderstand ...Rome says scripture can only be interpreted by the church..not individuals ...

Rome does NOT say that, in the least. The Catholic Church says that many parts of Scripture are clear and easy enough to interpret and understand with minimal difficulty (which is why you won't find volumes of "official Church interpretations" of verses such as "Jesus wept", etc.), while other parts are obscure and difficult to penetrate. The Church, despite your preconceptions, doesn't micromanage Scriptural reading or interpretation; She merely sets guidelines and boundaries as to where people CANNOT go.

For example: the Catholic Church forbids any Catholic from promoting the view that we did not all (as humans) descend from two original parents (Adam and Eve). The Church also forbids any Catholic from promoting the view that they are free to promote whatever interpretation they please, without recourse to the teaching of the Church Who is entrusted with final authority in that matter.

In short, the Catholic Church's approach to its members handling Scripture is, "Check with the list of prohibitions, first... and if your idea isn't prohibited, then discuss it as freely as you like; just be alert to (and humble enough to be obedient to) any corrections from the Church, should you happen to veer into error and the Church points that out."

I understand that you're asking for a comprehensive, verse-by-verse interpretation via the Catholic Church; but you're asking for an imaginary thing (possibly because you're trying to score a rhetorical "gotcha" point).

so every priest, every bible study, every theologian is just giving his own personal interpretation of the Scriptures..

I can't speak for ill-informed or disobedient priests, bible study leaders, theologians, etc.--but all faithful and well-informed Catholics are free to give personal interpretations of Scripture, so long as they do not run afoul of anything that the Church has taught definitively on this-or-that matter. Far from the tyrannical monster you take the Church to be, She actually gives Her children a great deal of freedom and latitude; She merely insists that they stay on the "safe" side of the few guard-rails which She had to set up.

As a side-note: you (though you may not admit it) are the beneficiary of many of these Catholic "guard-rails"; the Catholic Church has fought and condemned heresies since Her institution by Christ, roughly 2000 years ago. The list is very long, and non-Catholic Christians (especially anti-Catholic Church Christians) are often heedless of the long list of doctrines which they inherited from the Church, and the long list of enemies to the Faith from which they were protected by the Church's tireless battles. Arianism (saying that Jesus was a creature, and not God), Donatism (which held that some sins could never be forgiven, even if the sinner was sincerely repentant), Marcionism (which held that the God of the Old Testament was a different God from the God of the New Testament), Pelagianism (which held that it is possible to "earn" salvation by good works alone), Docetism (which held that Jesus never became Man, but had an illusory body, such as the angels assume when speaking to men), and dozens (if not hundreds--they're sometimes difficult to count) more were all condemned and excluded from the Christian Church by the Magisterium. You, as I said before, inherited a great many of these, unawares... so you don't know enough to thank the Church for protecting you from them. Were it not for the Church, you would likely be a follower of Arianism (or some other ancient error), right now.

>No, I think You misunderstand ...Rome says scripture can only be interpreted by the church..not individuals ..<

. Rome does NOT say that, in the least.

You, uh, might want to check out the catechism. It differs with your understanding.

85 "The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ."47 This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome. http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a2.htm

In short, the Catholic Church's approach to its members handling Scripture is, "Check with the list of prohibitions, first... and if your idea isn't prohibited, then discuss it as freely as you like; just be alert to (and humble enough to be obedient to) any corrections from the Church, should you happen to veer into error and the Church points that out."

And again, we get back to the issue that Catholics have no basis on which to condemn and criticize non-Catholics interpreting Scripture on their own.

If Catholics are allowed to do it, anyone else is.

But no, the RCC wants to micromanage everyone's life whether they like it or not.

Rules for thee but not for me, is the Catholic byword.

They are such hypocrites allowing for themselves what they prohibit for others.

>>Rome does NOT say that, in the least.<<

Yeah paladinan. We know.

CCC 100 100 The task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him.

Thus he [the Catholic] never dreams of reading Holy Scripture with the view of gathering from it the articles of his belief; indeed, to do so would be to cease at once from being a Catholic in heart; and any one reading Scripture in this spirit, or in danger of doing so, would certainly be forbidden to read it at all, if he desired to continue in the communion of the faithful; for he would be virtually denying that the Church is the sole infallible interpreter of Scripture, whereas the acknowledgment of her as such is the very fundamental principle of Catholicism. Catholics, then, do not study the Scripture to learn their faith, but to grow in holiness; and for this purpose selections from Scripture, or meditations, and devotional works on Scriptural subjects (in which Catholicism is rich beyond what Protestants can imagine), are found to be more useful, and also to give more insight into the real spirit and meaning of Scripture itself, than the unaided study of the entire Bible. It is surely, then, nothing very wonderful that the Bible, as a whole, should be found less frequently in the hands of Catholics than in those of Protestants, whose principle in this matter is altogether opposite. While Catholics acknowledge but one authoritative interpreter, [Source: Library of Controversy - The Clifton Tracts, by the Brotherhood of St. Vincent of Paul, Volume 1, How Do We Know What The Bible Means?, published about 1854 in New York by P. J. Kenedy, Excelsior Catholic Publishing House, 5 Barclay Street, pages 6-7.]