[caww]

This is why I won't argue about what the catholic church of old did or did not have to do with the scriptures or how we have our bible today. They are not credible.

The Papacy rose on the ruins of the Roman empire by claiming the name of Christ while occupying the thrones of the Caesars...making various political alliances by force and by deception..and further bloodshed to maintain it's power. Through much of its history the Papacy, by 'sale' of it's offices to the highest bidder, and trafficking in indulgences (much to the harm of it's membership), made scads of money building the most luxurious court in Europe at that time. Many of the Popes were evil and vile men and those precious few who weren't were mostly after Secular Power. And in all this deceit they determined and proclaimed the Popes to be infallible...to be the direct representation of Christ here on earth.. and that they held the place of Almighty God....further that obedience to Them was necessary for salvation. All this and more to maintain their power and obtain monies over the people.

Concerning the Bible from these guys perspective:

-Hildebrand.... ordered the people NOT to read the Bible.

-Innocent III...told them they could not read the Bible in their own language.

-Gregory IX...... would not allow the people to even possess a bible. People as well as their bibles were burned for having them!

-Paul IV..... prohibited the possession of translations without permission of the Inquisition.

-Clement XI.... condemned reading the bible by the people.

-Leo XII..., Pius VIII,.... Gregory XVI... and Pius IX.... all condemned bible societies.

And you somehow think I should consider the catholic Bishops of long ago as "keepers" of Gods word..or translators" of???? You have got to be kidding... they were keeping the bible from the very people who would have benefited...and in fact would even slaughter them for having one.

[narses]

Come one, come all, watch the virulent anti Catholic falsehoods get free rein:

The Papacy rose on the ruins of the Roman empire by claiming the name of Christ while occupying the thrones of the Caesars...making various political alliances by force and by deception..and further bloodshed to maintain it's power.

And much, much more. See Satan work his lies, unfettered by honor or shackled by truth.

[metmom]

Details, details....

Speaking of being Christ’s representatives on earth, I’m still trying to figure how the Inquisition reflects Christlikeness.

It appears that tradition could justify the torture and brutal murders of people who refused to capitulate to the Catholic church, but am coming up short on Scripture to justify it.

Sola Scriptura couldn’t justify it.

[Cronos]

Actually, the Throne of the Caesars was claimed by the Byzantines and then by the Carolongians. The papacy had no authority beyond the pale of the city of Rome, in fact less than that as Northern Italy was overrun by Lombards, Spains by Arian Visigoths, Gaul by Franks, Britain by Frisians and Angles and Saxons, while Southern Italy was still held by the Byzantines.

[Cronos]

Hildebrand? You mean Pope Gregory VII? Where exactly did you read that falsehood? You know that your pastors do lie to you about all of this, right? Do you have any proof for this statement? There is none, except in one anti-Catholic screed site. Are there any impartial historical sites you can cite?

[Cronos]

Also, there's another lie that your pastors have told you which you repeat. Pope Innocent did not tell people that they could not read the bible in their own language, he forbade the unauthorised (read Cathar i.e. Gnostic) translations of the Bible, where the Cathar would emphasise the demiurge aspects of their own philosophy and lead the population (remember that at that point in time, less than 10% and more likely less than 1% of the non-clerical population could read or write, so were dependent on what they heard) to heresy.

ALSO, in the 12th Century, all the LITERATE people could read Latin -- the latin Vulgate was hence "their own language" for the literate and OLD French was not sufficiently removed from Latin Vulgate to make it impossible but WAS sufficiently removed to allow for confusions to arise in the uneducated (which was the vast majority of the populace)

Needless to remind you, at that time there were no printing presses, hence books had to be laboriously copied out by hand and so cost a fortune (more than a year's worth of labor) and were extremely rare, so being literate was not really worth it except to the clergy and some (yes some) royalty.

[Cronos]

and, continuing with the lies that your pastor has fed you (don't you realise that with all of these lies, they also lie about scripture?) we have the canard about Pope Gregory IX: where exactly do you have any kind of proof about this? Any real websites that are not peddling in the same lies, but real, historical, impartial websites?

It's really funny that the websites by the various cultic groups outside The Church persist in spreading lies and excerpts. During the Middle Ages, priests AND Royalty had the Bible owned by them. I'll repeat -- Bibles were expensive as YOU REALISE THERE WERE NO PRINTING PRESSES AT THAT TIME and every one had to be laboriously copied out by hand and cross-verified to make sure that there were no errors in the copying. And, these would cost more than a year's wages for a man (a merchant). And, of course, the % of people who COULD read and write were minuscule (as there was very little point with so little to read or write)

Your pastors lie to you about this and they lie about the scriptures. Most likely they just repeat a lie that's been repeated ad nauseum

[Cronos]

Again, each of the statements you’ve made about the popes banning are just utterly false — your sources are inaccurate to say the least, actually the pastors are liars.

[Cronos]

The Bible Historiale was the predominant medieval translation of the Bible into French. It translates from the Latin Vulgate significant portions from the Bible accompanied by selections from the Historia Scholastica by Peter Comestor (d. ca. 1178), a literal-historical commentary that summarizes and interprets episodes from the historical books of the Bible and situates them chronologically with respect to events from pagan history and mythology.

This was "allowed" to use your terminology and verified by the Church as an accurate (and not a Gnostic one like the Cathar one you cite) translation.