Here is the truth: (Please read the entire article.)
Did the Catholic Church forbid Bible reading?
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? 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. 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. 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! 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. (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 Did the Catholic Church forbid Bible reading?
How come Catholics weren't allowed to read the Bible?
In this Article
(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 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 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
(3) What's it like today? Do Catholics read the Bible?
Notes:
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
“Are you believing those anti-Catholic tracts again?”
I didn’t read or cite any anti-Catholic tracts.
Here’s some more about those killed for translating/distributing Bibles. This time from the blurb for PBS’s Battle for the Bible from their Secrets of the Dead series.
“Today, speakers of English take for granted many phrases from the King James Bible — from “let there be light” to the word “scapegoat” — that were the work of an intrepid 16th-century translator who met not with acclaim but with years of exile, and eventually lost his life.
But this translator, William Tyndale — who was burned at the stake on October 6, 1536 — was no lone renegade. Rather, he was a pivotal transitional figure, his work a step toward bringing direct experience of the Bible to a reading public.
The film BATTLE FOR THE BIBLE explores the lives and lasting influence of three major figures in the translation and propagation of the English Bible: the 14th-century theologian, politician, and reformer John Wycliffe; Tyndale; and Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VIII and advisor to the king through the period that saw the split with Rome and the creation of the Anglican Church.
The translation of the Bible into the vulgar — the language of everyday people — was a key element in the series of reforms within the Catholic Church that eventually resulted in what we know as the Protestant Reformation.
In the 14th century, the Roman Catholic Church was Western Europe’s undisputed religious authority; and its central rituals — the Mass and Communion — the only legitimate pathway to salvation. The pope and the clergy held enormous power, and secular authorities looked to the Church for legitimation. Key to the Church’s power was the fact that its rituals were conducted in Latin, a language inaccessible to the uneducated faithful. The public was completely dependent on the priesthood for access to salvation — only through mysterious rituals conducted in an unfamiliar tongue could they conduct their spiritual lives.
John Wycliffe, born around 1320, was a prominent theologian at Oxford University and a leading ecclesiastical politician in the dark period of English history following the decimation of Europe’s population by the Black Plague. He became convinced through his own scholarship that Scripture itself, rather than the Mass, should be seen as the source of Christian authority.
Wycliffe’s notion that the Bible should be translated into the common tongue for the edification of all believers was a radical innovation, and one that spawned a movement. Working outside of the Church, translators eventually produced perhaps hundreds of so-called “Wycliffe Bibles,” translated and hand-copied from the Latin. It is not clear that Wycliffe himself produced any translations into English, so they are more properly known as “Wycliffite” Bibles.
With or without Wycliffe’s active involvement, the English Bible became part of an underground movement that became known as Lollardy and continued to spread after Wycliffe’s death in 1384. It worried Church authorities enough that by 1407 the English translation was denounced as unauthorized, and translating or using translated Bibles was defined as heresy — a crime for which the punishment was death by burning. In 1415 Wycliffe himself was denounced, posthumously, as a heretic. His body was exhumed and burned in 1428. Wycliffite Bibles, even after the ban, were produced in great numbers, and the 250 or so that now remain are the largest surviving body of medieval English texts. But the time was not yet right for the Bible to exist publicly in the common tongue. “
I do not condemn current R. Catholics for this, but I do condemn the re-writing of history. Just admit the R.Catholic church had a horrible problem, but has since repented on the issue (I am assuming it has), rather than pretending it did not happen.