Roman Catholics are not willing to accept the Bible as the sole authority in religion. To do so would destroy the Catholic Church for once you remove the authority of the priests and the Catholic hierarchy there goes the authority of the church and its power over men.
The Catholic Church in
history sought to keep the scriptures from the laity. “We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have
the books of the Old and the New Testament …
we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books.” (Council of Toulouse, 1229, Canon 14, p 195). At the Council of Tarragona in 1234 it was
decreed, “No one may possess the books of the
Old and New Testaments.”
The following
quote from Pope Gregory XVI pretty much sums up the attitude the Roman Catholic
Church held for centuries regarding the Bible and the laity.
From the encyclical INTER
PRAECIPUAS (On Biblical
Societies) by Pope Gregory XVI, May 8, 1844:
“1. Among the special schemes with which non-Catholics plot against the
adherents of Catholic truth to turn their minds away from the faith, the
biblical societies are prominent. They were first established in England and
have spread far and wide so that we now see them as an army on the march,
conspiring to publish in great numbers copies of the books of divine Scripture.
These are translated into all kinds of vernacular languages for dissemination
without discrimination among both Christians and infidels. Then the biblical
societies invite everyone to read them unguided. Therefore it is just as Jerome
complained in his day: they make the art of understanding the Scriptures
without a teacher ‘common to babbling old women and crazy old men and verbose
sophists,’ and to anyone who can read, no matter what his status. Indeed, what
is even more absurd and almost unheard of, they do not exclude the common
people of the infidels from sharing this kind of a knowledge.”
And more from the same
source:
“12. ... In particular, watch more carefully over those who are
assigned to give public readings of holy scripture, so that they function
diligently in their office within the comprehension of the audience; under no
pretext whatsoever should they dare to explain and interpret the divine
writings contrary to the tradition of the Fathers or the interpretation of the
Catholic Church.”
The last three lines explain
the fear of the scriptures on the part of the Roman Catholic hierarchy—the fear
that those who read the scriptures will have their eyes opened and reject “the
tradition of the Fathers” and “the interpretation of the Catholic Church.” That did happen, the Reformation, and we entered
into the modern era where attempts to withhold the scriptures became an act of
futility, impossible to do. However, by
studying history we can see what the desire had been as long as it was possible
to carry it out.
Part of
Catholic tradition and essential to it is to have scripture interpreted the way
the hierarchy wants it interpreted.
Thus, for example, no matter how clear the New Testament text seems to
be to the average person it remains a requisite to Catholicism that Mary, the
mother of Jesus, be a perpetual virgin.
You are incapable of reading the scriptural texts about Mary and
understanding them without the aid of the Catholic Church. When you read about Jesus having brothers and
sisters that runs against the tradition and so cannot be a correct
understanding, the church will tell you what those verses are saying. Even if you have a Ph.D. interpreting those
verses will be too tough for you without their aid.
But, what is
Catholic tradition? It might surprise
you. When most of us think of tradition
we think of that which developed in the past in the family or some
institution-- a school, a team, a country, etc.--whereby certain activities or
customs are passed on from time past into the present day. It might be a traditional yearly get-together. We all understand tradition in that aspect of
it.
But we also
understand that as tradition has a beginning it also has an end. If you are older you have likely experienced
it in your own family. What you once did
as tradition you no longer do. That is
fine in the normal course of the life of a man, the circumstances of our lives
change over time, but when it comes to religion we do not expect an ever-changing
God with ever-changing doctrines and commandments for us to live by. Yet, that is exactly what you get with
religious tradition in Roman Catholicism.
The change
from the Mosaical Law to Christianity was not a change of God’s mind but
planned before the world was established.
“He (Christ – DS) indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the
world.” (1 Peter 1:20 NKJV) He was “the
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” (Rev. 13:8 NKJV) He was the seed promise to Abraham that
through his seed all the earth would be blessed (Gal. 3:8, 16). The point is that God does not change. Roman Catholicism changes continually.
The average
person not knowing any better would think that when a doctrine is based on
tradition in Catholicism it would mean that the early church held that
doctrine. That is what you would think
but you would be mistaken. Under
Catholicism, a doctrine based on tradition can begin evolving at any point in
time. It does not have to trace its roots
back to the first century. Why not? Because Catholicism is its own
authority. It derives its authority from
itself; it sees itself as the fountain, or source, of authority. Thus one will find various Catholic dogmas
first stated in generations far removed from the first century and the early
church.
For example,
the doctrine of purgatory was officially proclaimed as dogma in 1438. By dogma, it is meant you are obliged to
believe it if you are to be a faithful Catholic. This means you could have been a faithful
Catholic and not believed in purgatory until 1438, well over a thousand years
after Christ. After 1438 you are
unfaithful if you don’t believe in it.
You have a moving target for faithfulness.
Now where do
you find purgatory in the New Testament?
You don’t is the quick and accurate answer. If they tell you such and such scriptures
teach it (and I do know they rely on certain scriptures for this) then my
response is “why did it take you over a thousand years to discover it?” The point I am getting at is that Catholicism
makes up its doctrines and dogmas as it goes along. It is like playing a game where you are the
sole rule maker and can change the rules as the game goes along and no one has
a right to challenge you thus you always win.
Now for the
Catholics, I do understand that the doctrine of purgatory evolved and began
with the idea of praying for the dead.
From there one idea led to another but that is just my point—the
doctrine was not given by revelation but by the philosophizing of men. There was no revelation; there was only men's
reasoning; it was “this is what seems right and reasonable to us.” That is what all of us non-Catholics have to
understand about Catholicism. Tradition
with the Catholics is often no more than the evolution of thought among
Catholics, especially the Catholic hierarchy, until a dogma, an official
teaching, comes out of it.
What I have
done here with the doctrine of purgatory you can do with many other dogmas
found in Catholicism. Search out the
date the doctrine became dogma and begin asking questions about it like why
then and not earlier. Why now? What is the source, etc., etc? Try it with the teachings about Mary. I say that because I know you will find
fruitful digging. You will not come up empty-handed.
The
non-Catholic must understand the terminology of the Catholic Church or be
misled. If you are not Catholic, but
Christian, when you hear the phrase “the word of God” you immediately think of the
Holy Scriptures, the Bible. With the
Catholic that is not the case. With the Catholics,
the word of God is the combination of the scriptures and what they call “Sacred
Tradition.” This is the tradition we
have been talking about. Scripture alone
is insufficient with the Catholic.
Indeed, tradition will overrule scripture if the need arises for
scripture will be interpreted to ensure the desired outcome, one that is in
accord with what they teach no matter how incredible the interpretation may
seem.
Tradition ends
up being whatever we want it to be in Catholicism. It can be based on any number of things. It can be simply what we want to believe and
thus practice. I mentioned Mary
earlier. Catholics have a doctrine
called the Assumption of Mary which says Mary, after her death, was taken
bodily into heaven and thus her body never underwent decay. This teaching was not to be found in any of
the first twenty ecumenical councils, not found in any creeds, only found in
the writings of two of the eighty-eight church fathers so-called and both of
them wrote in the 7th century, none of the major church doctors
wrote of it and only 1 of the minor doctors and he lived hundreds of years
after Christ and yet, based on tradition, the bodily assumption of Mary became
dogma.
How could that
be? What tradition? It was based on the teachings of the bishops
alive at the time. The church calls
these bishops and what they are teaching “the Ordinary Magisterium,” and it is
considered an infallible guide to the faith.
And it was based on what the church in practice was already doing--
honoring Mary’s assumption, dogma or no dogma, by its practices. They already had a feast of Mary’s Assumption
on August 15th, they had set up in churches sacred images of the
assumption, the church’s liturgy made references to Mary’s Assumption, etc., thus
in 1950 the Pope declared the assumption to be dogma. In Catholicism what we desire, what we are
doing, what we are practicing, becomes dogma if we are patient long enough and
there is enough of us involved to put the pressure on. This is Catholic tradition placed on an equal
footing with the scriptures. Abide in
it? Who can?
Well, there is
one group – the Catholic hierarchy. They
have a huge stake in maintaining the status quo.
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