The objection you guys are trying to raise, that not every Bible verse has been infallibly interpreted and defined, is silly. Infallible teaching is traditionally structured in the negative, first of all: "This is what you may *not* believe and still be a Catholic."
Trying to exhaustively define the whole meaning of even a single Scripture verse would be a bad idea; much of Scripture has multiple senses and nuances of understanding. Why tie exegetes' hands like that? No, the Church tells them how *not* to interpret it, and then gives them their freedom.
HMMMmmm...
Is the following true or not??
"One indeed is the universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved, in which the priest himself is the sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and wine; the bread (changed) into His body by the divine power of transubstantiation, and the wine into the blood, so that to accomplish the mystery of unity we ourselves receive from His (nature) what He Himself received from ours."
--Pope Innocent III and Lateran Council IV (A.D. 1215)
Trying to exhaustively define the whole meaning of even a single Scripture verse would be a bad idea; much of Scripture has multiple senses and nuances of understanding. Why tie exegetes' hands like that? No, the Church tells them how *not* to interpret it, and then gives them their freedom.
If only Roman Catholicism practiced exegesis.
Based on your argument, you put the understanding of Scripture into the hands of the individual.
By your post you confirm what I've long suspected about this topic.
Each priest, bible study teacher (if Roman Catholicism has those), each Sunday School teacher, the individual reading at home, will read a text and understand it in their own way.
Until Roman Catholicism can definitively say this verse means this or that then they have no superior hold on understanding the Scriptures. But on the handful of verses the RCC has tried to explain it has done a poor job. The claim Jesus gave Mary to the church in John 19:26-27 is one that comes to mind.
This means the estimated 414,313 priests and estimated 1.2 billion Catholics are making their own personal understanding of Scripture whenever they read the Bible.
Never let it be posted again by any Catholic to accuse non-Catholics of "their own personal interpretation of Scripture."