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Published: October 28, 2009
“What the Bible is and what it isn’t”
Bishop of Santa Rosa issues guidance on reading of sacred scriptures
From the website of the Diocese of Santa Rosa.
October 2009
My Dear People,
 One of the challenges we face as disciples of Jesus is to deepen our knowledge of our faith. So often as we grow up into adulthood, our knowledge of the faith remains on a child’s level. With the secular world we live in it is necessary for each of us to have an adult faith that is able to withstand and reject the false values and the pressures of the secular society we live in. One way to a mature faith is the prayerful reading of the Scriptures. It is in prayerful reading of the Scriptures that we learn to embrace the gospel values that Jesus proclaimed.
Today’s Catholic is called to take an intelligent, spiritual approach to the Bible. Here are some suggestions to help in developing an understanding approach to daily, prayerful Scripture reading.
Begin and end the reading of the bible with prayer. Reading the Bible is not like reading a novel or a history book. It should begin with a prayer asking the Holy Spirit to open our hearts and minds to the Word of God. Scripture reading should end with a prayer that this Word of God will bear fruit in our lives, helping us to become holier and more faithful disciples of Jesus.
The Bible isn’t a book. It’s a library. The Bible is a collection of 73 books written over the course of many centuries. The books include royal history, prophecy, poetry, challenging letters to struggling new faith communities, and believers’ accounts of the preaching, life and passion of Jesus. Knowing the genre of the book you are reading will help you understand the literary tools the author is using and the meaning the author is trying to convey.
We must know what the Bible is and what it isn’t. The Bible is the story of God’s relationship with the people he has called to himself. It is not intended to be read as a history text, a science book, or a political manifesto. In the Bible, God teaches us the truths that we need for the sake of our salvation.
Also we must read the Bible in context, in the context of our Catholic faith. What happens before and after – even in other books – helps us to understand the true meaning of the text. A Catholic edition of the Bible with the “imprimatur” indicates the book footnotes and introductions are free of errors in Catholic doctrine.
In prayerful reading of the Scriptures, we must ask: “What is God saying to me?” The Bible is not addressed only to long-dead people in a faraway land. It is addressed to each of us in our own unique situations. We must believe that the Lord speaks to us through the words of Scripture.
To be an adult Catholic, it is important to have an adult understanding of our faith. Prayerful Scripture reading is one element to assist us in maturing our faith. I encourage all to dedicate some time each day to the prayerful reading of the Word of God.
Assuring you of my prayers, I am
Your Brother and Servant in the Lord,
Most Reverend Daniel F. Walsh
Bishop of Santa Rosa
Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 5:22 AM By Angelo
This most certainly sounds good. Pope Benedict XVl has said that we cannot divorce the Bible from The Church. I have witnessed many Catholics today that start reading the Bible, Then suddenly turn around and start questioning the Church's teachings because according to them the Bible say's this or that. So they conclude that the Church is wrong. We must first learn what the Church teaches and then when reading Sacred Scripture if our interpretation contradicts the official teachings of the Church. We have a 100% guarantee that our interpretation is in error.
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 6:53 AM By Peter
So the bible can and should be interpreted from an individual's perspective, relative to "our own unique situations". This seems to contradict the "right thought" concept presented by a few previous posts, while at the same time promoting selective Catholicism . . .
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:22 AM By JLS
I am happy to read this instruction by Bishop Walsh.
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:55 AM By Rob
Very good Bishop! I agree. Here's the disconnect, why do many of the modernist scripture scholars (in Catholic seminaries) exegete the bible as a history text or literary form and not the inspired Word of God, and what is the Church doing about it?
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 8:11 AM By John F. Maguire
One of the many features that recommends this website message from Bishop Daniel F. Walsh is his observation that: "The Bible isn't a book. It's a library." It is from within this perspective that we make us of the traditional Latin word *biblia* -- the Latin PLURAL of the word *book*. Likewise, in Catholic parlance, we have the commonplace introductory phrase: "We read in the Scriptures that...." What is emphasized, then, is the pluriformity of the Bible as *biblia* -- a library of books. Bishop Walsh goes on to integrate this emphasis on "scriptures" as a sacred library with the use of the word *scripture* in the collective-singular, as in his recommendation of "prayerful Scripture reading." Yet the Bishop of Santa Rosa retains a pluralist idea of Sacred Scripture. We are urged to engage in "prayerful reading of the Scriptures" (plural).
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 9:01 AM By Lorinda
Thank you, Bishop Walsh. I pray that this message will go out to all Roman Catholics in America. I will copy it and pass it on!
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 9:44 AM By Laurette Elsberry
It is good of Bishop Walsh to offer these guidelines. It troubles me, however, that he says that we should ask, "What is God saying to me?", without acknowledging that Bible interpretation comes from the Catholic Church. Each individual cannot interpret for him or herself what the Bible says. If we did this, we would all be Protestants.
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 11:05 AM By Sarah
Excellent article. I read the Bible each night before I go to sleep, however it didn't occur to me to pray before and after the reading. Now I will.
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 11:31 AM By Abeca Christian
I love God's word, His holy word in holy scriptures. Very nice article, here, I appreciate the advice given in this article.
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 11:37 AM By WOODY GUIDRY
To Angelo and Laurette-Thanks for your alertness to the dangers in just having access to a Bible! Only one text in English is currently approved for use in the U.S.by the Holy See-the New American Bible with revised Psalms and New
Testament (1988,1991). Inclusive language (avoiding male pronouns for God) caused the Jerusalem Bible and the RSV-Catholic at Mass to be withdrawn. I personally believe that using Scripture freely (alongside the Catechism) in our texts for schools and CCD may have helped lead 400,000 Protestants to understand the necessity for unification with us Catholics. If that is true, then it follows that Vatican ll is showing concrete results, because we were encouraged to use more scripture as a result. There isn't much humor to be found re Vatican ll, except remarks like, "Is the Pope Cathoic?", etc., but I find some grim humor in the wild Catholic interpretations of Vatican ll being akin to the unrestrained imagination of private Protestan interpretations
of the Bible.
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 11:44 AM By WOODY GUIDRY
In spite of people who claim to read every Scripture LITERALLY, only Catholics believe that Jesus said exactly what He meant when He said, "This is my body--" and "This is my blood--".
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 11:51 AM By tedn
So why even read the Bible, when doing so might lead one to WrongThought? Why not just go straight to The Official Interpretation, and skip that intermediate step? In fact, the early Catholic Church FORBADE ordinary people from possessing or reading the Bible. Everything you could need to know, would come from the priest. No thinking required (or allowed).
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 2:31 PM By JoeCee
Dear Laurette -- The "good bishop" is writing to ADULT Catholics. Perhaps this is why you missed his point. Like some others mentioned here, I am grateful that CCD published the letter.
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 2:47 PM By Mark from PA
I think this is an excellent letter. I go to a Bible study and find that one learns all through life.
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 3:18 PM By Anne T.
This is a very good article. Tedn, the Church never actually forbade the people to read the Bible. In the past monks had to translate and/or copy it by hand so Bibles were very expensive and precious. The priests needed Bibles to preach to the people, and many or most of the people could not read, so understandably most of the lay people did not have them. Of course unapproved texts were forbidden since they distorted the original meaning. And, Peter, although we are to apply the Biblical passages to our own unique situations, we should not use them to justify our sins or encourage others in wrongful behavior.
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 3:30 PM By Doug Lawrence
I wish the editors of the New American Bible would quit telling us that the writers of certain books just made stuff up, and that Jesus and/or Mary likely never said such things. Heresy of this type merely makes for more officially sanctioned scandals in the Church. See the USCCB website, NAB, footnotes on Luke, "[46-55] Although Mary is praised for being the mother of the Lord and because of her belief, she reacts as the servant in a psalm of praise, the Magnificat. Because there is no specific connection of the canticle to the context of Mary's pregnancy and her visit to Elizabeth, the Magnificat (with the possible exception of v 48) may have been a Jewish Christian hymn that Luke found appropriate at this point in his story. Even if not composed by Luke, it fits in well with themes found elsewhere in Luke: joy and exultation in the Lord; the lowly being singled out for God's favor; the reversal of human fortunes; the fulfillment of Old Testament promises."
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 3:30 PM By JLS
Laurette, read it first. Your question is clearly dealt with by St Paul. Then you will understand what the Bishop is teaching.
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 3:38 PM By JLS
tedn, why are you being so dishonest, and maligning both what Bishop Walsh has said and what the Church teaches and passing on a pack of lies? What is your objective? Some of you slaves of Satan are so corrupt that you cannot even preface your lies with a clearly stated objective. Now, I'm not saying that you are intentionally enslaved to the devil, even though that could be your case, but that you are indeed doing an evil work by your false statements, whether simply ignorant or rather malicious. The Bible is powerful, not simply another book, like the Bishop points out. I read it while I was still a party animal, and its light showed me a way out from the devil's camp. Now, when a Bible reader adds prayer to his or her Scripture reading, then that is like flipping on the reactor motor fires the warp speed drive. The most central point is mentioned by Woody and is found in several places, to note John 6 and the verses describing the Last Supper, and also what St Paul says about Mass. That is the printed key to union with God.
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 3:46 PM By John F. Maguire
In reply to Ted N.: The problem is that the "plain man's understanding" of Sacred Scripture -- or, as it was called in previous centuries, the "ploughman's understanding" of Sacred Scripture -- is NOT an understanding that is always informed by the mind of the Church. In this connection, it is worth bearing in mind that as Sacred Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit, so the Church in interpreting Sacred Scripture is inspired by that same Spirit. ~ If I may: It is in this context, Ted, that you ask the question, "So why even read the Bible, when doing so might lead one to wrong thought"-- or better, why even read the Bible when doing so might lead to wrong judgments as to the meaning of one or another text in question? REPLY: A biblical text is always understood according to the mode-of-knowing that the person striving to understand it employs. This is true whether a priest or biblical scholar helps (or hinders) insight along the way. Catholics are strongly encouraged to read and study Sacred Scripture even as -- all the while -- they are strongly encouraged to do so in accord with the mind of the Church. For the Holy Spirit, who has inspired the Sacred Scriptures, is also the same Spirit who guides the Church in fathoming the riches contained in these Scriptures. This circularity is called the Catholic-hermeneutic circle; it is within this open, upward spiraling, circle that serious thinking in the work of studying the Scriptures is required rather than disallowed.
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 4:37 PM By tedn
So why even read the Bible, when doing so might lead one to WrongThought? Why not just go straight to The Official Interpretation, and skip that intermediate step? In fact, the early Catholic Church FORBADE ordinary people from possessing or reading the Bible. Everything you could need to know, would come from the priest. No thinking required (or allowed).
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 6:13 PM By J.T.
Michael Servetus (aka Miguel Serveto) is surely one of the most remarkable men of history, though he is largely unknown in general circles. He was born in Spain in 1511 and died in 1553, at age 42, burnt at the stake as a heretic by John Calvin’s Geneva Council. He was a brilliant scientist and his field was primarily medicine, but it was his theological views that led to his universal condemnation by both Catholics and Protestants. Servetus rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, and although he maintained belief in the virgin birth, he denied that Jesus was God. He was fluent in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, and in his primary work, De trinitatis erroribus (”On the Errors of the Trinity”), he ably argued that the Bible itself, in neither Old Testament nor New Testament, supported the subsequent Trinitarian notion of Jesus as God.
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:13 PM By Dan
Well said Doug Lawrence -- there is no end to the foolishness that biblical experts come up with to deny miracles, change the plain meaning of the text etc. Your citation is a perfect example: the author suggests the Magnificat is an invention by Luke but this is of course his own subjective conjecture. Why make the conjecture at all, since it can't be proved or disproved? I guess I am lucky -- I don't have the New American Bible -- I have the older Jerusalem Bible and the New American Standard Bible from my protestant days. If I want commentary I'll do my own research.
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:16 PM By Thomas Edward Miles
Laurette, Did you go to college, if not, please enroll in a JESUIT UNIVERSITY!
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:17 PM By Dave N.
Exemplary, clear instruction from the bishop.
When we encounter the Word in a variety of settings with hearts and minds open to guidance such as the above: in our personal reading and study, in a small group (perhaps like a well-lead Bible study) and most importantly at Mass, our chances of error decrease tremendously. It's when we place supreme value on our personal views in some sort of unaccountable vacuum that people tend to run amok.
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:56 PM By Anne T.
John F. Maguire your post this day at 3:46 p.m. is exactly on the mark. Your post about contraception and abortion on another article was excellent too. Doug, I agree with you. The notes in the New American Bible for the most part are atrocious, and some are or are almost downright heretical. There are much better notes in the Douay-Rheims, Ignatius Press Revised Standard, and from what I have heard, the Navarre Bible. I also like the the notes in the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, which has only been printed for the New testament so far and is a series of paperback booklets of the books of the New testament. One can buy them for nine or ten dollars each, one by one. Sometimes, I believe, the whole series is sold for a lower price. It is possible, also, to check them out at many Catholic libraries in churches.
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 8:09 PM By JLS
Once again, it is possible to read even the most egregious attempt at a Bible translation, such as that of the Jehovah's Witnesses, and still arrive at Jesus: Reading such garbage' as is brought quoted from the editor notes of the NAB maybe more subtle a deception, but I had to work my way through a whole bunch of religious stuff that is not Catholic or is opposed to Catholicism. Notice that Bishop Walsh recommends praying before and after reading Scripture? That is the ticket. Remember that other religions have the printed word as their authority, and the Catholics have the Vicar of Christ, ie Jesus Himself. It is possible to live a Catholic life without reading Scripture, but not possible to be an evangelical, eg, w/o reading it. What makes a person a Catholic is the Sacraments ... now this is a difficult point for some: Part of the Mass is "every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" ... so the Mass has to include the fullness of the teaching of the Church ... Things such as yoyo Masses do not fulfill this requirement given us by Jesus. Reading the Scriptures sharpens one's spiritual ears and eyes, one's soul to every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Now here is the caveat: If one does not inform himself or herself of the Word of God from reading or hearing every iota of it, then it won't be too common to find God supplying it through otherwise through prayer. One of the more interesting areas of Scripture on this topic is found in a letter of St Paul ... go for it.
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Posted Wednesday, October 28, 2009 10:21 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
I am glad that the good Bishop gave guidlines and did not recommend one of the modernist Catholic Bibles such as the "New American Catholic Bible" This Bible is full of errors such as in Genesis 3:15. It is She through the powers given to Her by Her Son that will "crush the head of the serpent".
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 1:14 AM By tedn
AnneT: I know what your are saying, but I was not talking about times of Bible unavailability. There were times when the Church actually prohibited possession of the Bible. There was a show on the PBS ("Battle for the Bible") about this. People were even put to death by order of the Church if they were found to have a Bible. There were also examples of people laboriously making copies and passing them on in secret, lest they be discovered by the local parish. CalCathDaily does not publish web site addresses, but a search for "bible banned catholic" or "bible banning burned at the stake" brings interesting results. The Catholic Forum also has a discussion on this.
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 1:15 AM By tedn
JohnFM: If the ultimate goal is an understanding of "what this means for my life", then I say great, more power to it. But in my experience, in both Catholic and Protestant settings, the usual procedure is that a person "in authority" says, "The Bible says *A*, and that meas *B*". And that completely negates the "serious thinking" you refer to. One man was prohibited from pursuing his life's work due to his disagreement with the "official interpretation" of the Scriptures, which stated that all celestial bodies revolve around the Earth. (By the way, Catholics are not saved, since they are baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. To be saved, one must be baptized ONLY in the name of Jesus. That is clearly stated in the Bible. At least, it is, according to the denomination professed by a woman who was a recent candidate for Vice President of the United States.)
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 4:48 AM By Jon
"In prayerful reading of the Scriptures, we must ask: 'What is God saying to me?' The Bible is not addressed only to long-dead people in a faraway land. It is addressed to each of us in our own unique situations." - This sounds like the Protestant error of individual interpretation of scripture, divorced from the true interpretation of the one who gave us the Bible: the Catholic Church.
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 7:37 AM By Jeff Culbreath
"It is not intended to be read as a history text, a science book ..."
One tires of this misguided admonition. Where Scripture claims to be history, it IS history, and the Church requires the literal historical hermeneutic be employed. Some bishops live in mortal dread that Catholics might read the Bible and get "fundamentalist" ideas about Genesis being real history.
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 8:09 AM By tedn
JLS: If you are going to call me dishonest and a "slave of Satan" simply because I do not fall into line with what you happen to think, then we have nothing to discuss.
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 10:02 AM By Abeca Christian
JLS when someone is a slave of satan, they are not aware of it. They just simply go on doing his work. JLS thanks for trying to shed some light to those who don't understand perhaps they won't take your words personally but take them as a way to try to understand better.
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 11:50 AM By JonJ
The reason Biblical scholars include notes about specific passages that may have been included at a later date, is because there are more existing variant versions of the bible than than there are words in the bible. Sometimes Biblical scholars note that a specific passage uses language or phrasesology or symbolism that doesn't fit the rest of the text (its sort of like seeing internet slang in a novel supposedly written in 1850). There are known cases of monks including what were originally footnotes into the actual text. Other times, passages seem to contradict subsequent or earlier passages, and biblical scholars think that they were actually interpretations included at a later date. The actual fact is: the biblie has been so heavily modified by included passages, translation difficulties between the different languages, simply copy errors through years of laborious hand copying, and works lost over time that scholars can't really determine what the original text said. We don't even have copies of all the books in the original Constantine Bible that came from the Council of Nicea. (If I recall correctly, our current Catholic Bible has a few more books than the original Constantine Bible. While we don't have any original constantine bibles remaining, we do have a list of its included books). Even then, the Council of NIcea composed the Constantine BIble 300 years after Christ's death. We have no textual method to determine how scripture changed when it was passed largely as oral history. That's why word splitting the Bible, and trying to analyze it like a legal statute book is a futile, (and inherently erroneous), endeavor. The bible also includes passages that completely contradict Catholic doctrine, (such as dueteronomy 20:10-18 which instructs us to slaughter every male in a city that makes war upon us after we conquer it).
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 12:42 PM By Angelo
tedn, Sounds like you've had your fill of Chick Publications,
comic books! A very Holy Priest once instructed me in this manner. The best way to read the Bible is to read it with the Church. He encouraged me to obtain a daily Missal and read the scripture readings for the day and meditate on them. Likewise he told me, study traditional catechisms they are the Church's interpretation of Sacred Scripture and the teaching tradition of the Church. I found this method to be perfect for me.
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 1:10 PM By John F. Maguire
In reply to Ted N.: In all actuality, Ted, a person must be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit -- i.e., in the name of all three Persons of the Blessed Trinity; this, in order for that baptism to have the effect -- through the power of Christ as Sovereign Priest -- of incoporating the person baptized into Christ's ownmost Mystical Body. Put another way: A person must be baptized using the Trinitarian form ("I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit") in order for that baptism (against the deadly effect of original sin) to communicate the supernatural life of grace to the soul of that same person. From within this perspective, Ted, I am sorry to see you endorse a form of baptism whereby a person is "baptized ONLY in the name of Jesus" (your emphasis). That, Ted, would NOT be a valid baptism. As a consequence, Ted, a person so "baptized," upon becoming a Catholic, would need be ACTUALLY baptized as having not been baptized on that prior occasion. The Jesus-name-only mode, then, is invalid. Never has he Catholic Church NOT regarded this mode of baptism as what it is: invalid.
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 2:29 PM By Dan
""In prayerful reading of the Scriptures, we must ask: 'What is God saying to me?' The Bible is not addressed only to long-dead people in a faraway land. It is addressed to each of us in our own unique situations." - This sounds like the Protestant error of individual interpretation of scripture, divorced from the true interpretation of the one who gave us the Bible: the Catholic Church. " Jon, reading scripture is a way to let God speak to us. And that speaking is mainly a sense of grace, of peace, or of conviction; the Holy Spirit doesn't say to us, the text means this and such; rather, the work of God when we read His word is to elevate our wills and hearts to love it and love Him. Scripture reading, prayerfully done, disposes us to loving obedience to God and His Church. True, there are bones of contention-- controversial passages which have split Christendom--but these are the great exception. One can suspend judgment on obsure matters while letting scripture "warm the heart" unto greater love of God and neighbor.
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 4:09 PM By JLS
tedn, if you do not fall in line with the Gospel, then you are a slave of Satan. Notice how I provided a caveat? Or did you miss that? There is only one way out of slavery to the devil, and that is to follow Jesus. If you make up your own "Jesus", then you are not on the freedom wagon.
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 4:11 PM By JLS
The Bishop did not say that any reader who prays is thus able to interpret the Bible infallibly.
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 4:21 PM By JLS
TEM, what kind of advice is it to Laurette to enroll in a Jesuit college? One enrolls in a college for specific reasons. Different colleges excell at different things. Jesuit colleges excell at distorting and defying Catholic doctrine and popes. That does not seem to be what Laurette is after.
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 4:24 PM By JLS
More, TEM: Back in '78 in a UCLA freshman history course on Europe from Martel to the Renaissance, the tenured professor told us in lecture that he could defeat any Jesuit in an argument. I have not found any dissident Jesuit argument that I cannot easily defeat. Rather their power lies not in the truth, but in a "good ol' boys club", where they use money and temporal power to fight against the truth.
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 4:31 PM By JLS
tedn, you show zero comprehension of rumor mongering. You have no respect for proving your allegations. You sound like you believe anything you want if it is in print somewhere. Your arguing against Maguire is pathetic, demonstrate only that you know very little Scripture, that you're involved with a anti-Catholic religion and not even a "name brand one", that you do not know that there are verses in the Gospels which sometimes seem to contradict one another but don't -- and it is here that your utter nonsense show up the most. The early formulas for baptism would not include the Holy Ghost, because Pentacost had not happened yet. C'mon, go and learn something before professing to know what you don't.
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 6:02 PM By abqdad
It's truly sad the people like tedn continue to believe the lies that were spread by enemies of Christ and His TRUE church! NO...The church has NEVER forbade the reading of the bible. That is silly! Come on...If a person goes to church over a three year period, they will have heard the ENTIRE bible! How does that square with tedn's comment? He needs to get some TRUE information about apologetics and learn the truth...that the anti-Catholic liars have been trying to get ignorant people to believe their lies forever! We need to be smart enough to FIND truth! He will ONLY find truth in Christ's true church...The Catholic Church!
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 6:53 PM By John F. Maguire
In further reply to Ted N.: Against a counter-Trinitarian reading of Sacred Scripture, I've invoked the Catholic biblical hermeneutic, that is, I've invoked the exacting spirit of Catholic biblical interpretation. From within this context, I was sorry to see you appear to endorse a form of baptism that Holy Church has rejected as invalid -- as invalid because, in point of fact, this form of baptism, namely the "Jesus-name-only" form, deviates from baptism's Trinitarian form ("I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit"). ~ At the same time, Ted, I am sorry to see brickbats thrown at you (such as: you're supposed to be under the sway of the bigotry of Chick Publications; you're supposed to be in the camp of Satan) when the correction of errors, not the wild-eyed denunciation of persons, is what is proper to the ethos of any dialogue carried out within the spirit of "charity in truth" (Pope Benedict XVI). ~ In your post, Ted, you raise two issues related to former Alaska governor Sarah Palin: one pertaining to her baptismal history; the other pertaining to the form of her baptism. These are good questions. I'll attempt to reply to them below.
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 7:18 PM By Dan
Ted N, your comments about banning the bible center around the works of Wycliffe, Tyndale and Cranmer. The PBS article admits the translations were a direct threat to Catholicism by the way certain passages were rendered. The Church naturally banned these translations (such was the way of things at the time--as J.T. mentions, even the protestants reacted harshly to those who denied the faith.) The Catholic church never displayed disdain for scripture -- just the principle of "individual interpretation" of scripture such as has led to innumberable protestant denominations.
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Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009 7:50 PM By John F. Maguire
My copy of the transcript of the _Time Magazine_ Interview with Sarah Palin by Jay Newton-Small is dated August 29, 2008. Here is the section of interest: JAY NEWTON-SMALL: "What's your religion?" SARAH PALIN: "Christian." NEWTON-SMALL: "In particular...?" PALIN: "No. Bible-believing Christian." NEWTON-SMALL: "What Church do you attend?" PALIN: "A non-denominational Bible church. I was baptized a Catholic as a newborn and my family started going to non-denominational churches throughout our life." COMMENT: By her Catholic baptism the Palins' daughter Sarah was incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ, her soul sanctified by supernatural grace. ~ By its very nature, the Sacrament of Baptism cannot be repeated. A fall (later) from sanctifying grace would indicate the necessity of the conciliatory and reviviscent Sacrament of Penance, not Baptism. It would be a misnomer, then, to say that Sarah Palin was "re-baptized" into, say, an Assembly of God pentecostal group when, in all actuality, Sarah Palin had been validly baptized, as a newborn, into the the Church of the Word Incarnate, the one, true Church of Christ: the Catholic Church. ~ From within this perspective, Ted, the consequent question -- namely, whether Sarah Palin's protestant baptism was Trinitarian in form or instead was Jesus-Name exclusive in form -- needn't be reached. Sarah Palin, as a newborn infant, was -- once and but once -- validly baptized.
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Posted Friday, October 30, 2009 12:11 AM By Angelo
tedn, You have done such a great service to the Catholic Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ. Now we know that having ears itching for fables, was a true prophecy in scripture. liberal catholics cannot deny that, that prophecy has been fulfilled in our day. You are living proof!
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Posted Friday, October 30, 2009 1:05 AM By tedn
abqdad: Yes, I agree that it *would* be silly for the church to forbid reading the Bible. And no, I am not an enemy of the church. But history is history. Words like "Canon 14. We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old or New Testament; unless anyone from motive of devotion should wish to have the Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or the hours of the blessed Virgin; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books" (A.D. 1229) seem straight-forward to me. Or: "Since experience teaches that, if the reading of the Holy Bible in the vernacular is permitted generally without discrimination, more damage than advantage will result because of the boldness of men, the judgment of bishops and inquisitors is to serve as guide in this regard. Bishops and inquisitors may, in accord with the counsel of the local priest and confessor, allow Catholic translations of the Bible to be read by those of whom they realize that such reading will not lead to the detriment but to the increase of faith and piety. The permission is to be given in writing. Whoever reads or has such a translation in his possession without this permission cannot be absolved from his sins until he has turned in these Bibles" (A.D. 1559). And these are just a few examples. Granted, much of this was to solve the "problem" of people reading the Bible in their own language. But no matter, the effect was the same, "regular folk" were cut out from reading and understanding the Bible, except what the clergy told them. Feel free to deny history if you choose to. But you know the old saying, "Those who do not remember history will be forced to repeat it".
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Posted Friday, October 30, 2009 1:06 AM By tedn
JohnFM: Not to worry, I am NOT endorsing Chick Publications, or Jesus-Name baptism, or any of those, as being an exclusive pass to glory. I was merely using that as an example of how different "holy" people, reading the same text, guided by the same spirit, can arrive at different conclusions. As I was growing up, it was fascinating to hear each church present their doctrines. A:"WE are the true church because our communion is the real body and blood." B:"WE are the true church because we baptize by immersion, and only after the person has reached the age of understanding." C:"WE are the true church because we do not use alcohol-based wine for communion." D:"WE are the true church because we do not allow dancing." E:"WE are the true church because we do not have instrumental music in our services." F:"WE are the true church because we recognize that the sabbath is Saturday, not Sunday." G:"WE are the true church because we baptize in the name of Jesus only." And on and on, but ALL based on their interpretation of scriptures. And if you didn't believe their way, it was a sure ticket to hell. Now, I realize this is a Catholic site, and I've attended my share of Catholic church. But I decided long ago that no one is going to give me any absolute interpretations of scriptures. I'll read it for myself, using guides to help understand the intention. What it means to me, though, is between God and me. (As another documentary pointed out, even "You shall not steal" is not straight-forward. At the time that was written, it was permissible to take from another's harvest, if one was hungry.) As far as the Pentecostal baptism, the ones I have talked with are adamant on it... Unless your "most recent" baptism is "in the name of Jesus ONLY", you will NOT go to heaven. And they have the Bible verse to "prove" it.
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Posted Friday, October 30, 2009 6:36 AM By JLS
Maguire, your deficient knowledge of the New Testament shows up in your sugary interpretations once again. Those who are not with Jesus are under the reign of Satan ... look it up.
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Posted Friday, October 30, 2009 12:31 PM By MarkF
TedN, Can I be bold enough to say that I think you're mad at something - I'm not sure what - but that you're reaching out to fight with the Church or Christianity? I don't know what your background is but I hear a lot of anger in you towards the Church, but I sincerely feel that you're masking what your real problems with the faith are with arguments of history, doctrine, etc. This is not the place to get into personal discussion, but can you try to reach inside yourself to figure out what the crux of your problems with the Church are? By the way, I don't think you're of the devil. lol
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Posted Friday, October 30, 2009 12:46 PM By MarkF
Part II - Responding to points that TedN brought up - Yes, there was this HORRIBLE show on PBS about translating of the Bible. Though produced by PBS, it could have been made by Soviet TV had not the Soviet Union crumbled into dust. This show should never have been made with my taxpayers money. The Church did not put to death anyone for owning the Bible. The did go after people who had the separatist version of the Bible in vernacular languages. The PBS show glosses over this to get to their main point - that Christianity is bad and that the Catholic Church is the enemy of mankind. A tad biased? While the Church realizes that she made serious mistakes during the Protestant revolt, there is another side to the story. Under the Church, European lives in a society that saw itself first as Christian and less as member of a tribe or nation. This is a huge accomplishment and it was directing mankind to live in peace with each other. The forces of nationalism began to grow and oppose the Church, and part of this was the development of nationalistic Christian groups. The Church wanted us to have one Bible, to have one Church, and be united in faith and the peace of Christ. Opposing this were petty tyrants and growing kings and princes. And so we have an English bible and an English group of Christians, a German bible and separate German Christians. Soon came the huge nationalistic wars, backed up by the separated Christian denominations. And this started in part with the creation of separate Bibles based on language. It would have been for the world to have one Church and to see ourselves as individual Christians and not Germans, French and English. Much of what is misunderstood about Church history comes from misunderstanding how deadly nationalism is and how the Church opposed it. So yes, it was wrong to kill people for owning an unauthorized Bible, but no, the Church was right that the stakes people were fighting over were life and death issues.
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Posted Friday, October 30, 2009 1:26 PM By John F. Maguire
JLS: Since you do not say what you mean, I have no idea what you think is sugary and what you think is salty when in comes to interpreting the New Testament.
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Posted Friday, October 30, 2009 4:35 PM By Peter K.
JFM, For Postmodernists, the Hermeneutic Circle is especially problematic. This is because in addition to only being able to know the world through the words we use to describe it, we are also confronted with the problem that "whenever people try to establish a certain reading of a text or expression, they allege other readings as the ground for their reading. In other words, All meaning systems are open-ended systems of signs referring to signs referring to signs. No concept can therefore have an ultimate, unequivocal meaning
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Posted Friday, October 30, 2009 5:43 PM By JLS
Maguire, just read your posts critically and you'll see what I mean.
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Posted Friday, October 30, 2009 5:47 PM By JLS
Exactly, Peter K, exactly!!! St Paul did not need to know all the ins and outs of pagan philosphies and theologies in order to accomplish his task. All he needed was the Word of God and the annointing. Those in communion with God through Christ have some of the same stuff. Just as the transexuals insist on delving into the technical details of their fixations, so those of less fleshly fixations and motives are driven to delve into every fantastic detail of trivia and drivil of their false ideas. The Word of God, however, cuts like a two edged sword through all that garbage.
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Posted Friday, October 30, 2009 11:17 PM By Angelo
tedn, So you read the bible and no one else is going to tell you what God is actually saying. You will figure it out for yourself. St. Peter the first Pope has this to say to us, "There is no such thing as private interpretation of scripture, and many will wrest it to their own destruction." As for the formula for Baptism, Jesus gave it after his resurrection as, "Go to all nations baptising them In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
When the Epistles speak of being Baptised in Jesus name. It was to differentiate between the Baptism of St. John the Baptist, which was a baptism of repentance, While being Baptised in the name of the triune God is a Baptism of becoming heirs of the kingdom of God.
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Posted Saturday, October 31, 2009 1:30 PM By John F. Maguire
In reply to Peter K.: Your post at CCD Oct. 30: 4:35 PM is, I find, highly instructive. What you say about post-modernism (anyway, about the more popular, the more academically faddish forms of post-modernism) seems to me to be profoundly true, which is also to say, what you say about post-modernism seems to me to be all-too-true. Post-modernism (standard version) is involved, as you say, in a virtual-endless CIRCULARITY the primary sin of which is
NON-REFERENTIALITY. (As you point out, there is plenty of cross-referentiality within post-modernism to the effect that signs are taken by the post-modernists to refer ONLY to other signs, which other signs refer to yet other signs, etc., etc.). Peter, your post astutely identifies and rightly rejects this circularity. You state the matter exactly: For these post-modernists, "All meaning systems are open-ended systems of signs referring to signs referring to signs." COMMENT: The denial that WHAT-IS-SIGNIFIED by the SIGN can, in actuality, really be apprehended BY MEANS of the sign itself; the denial of any existential REFERENTIALITY by formal signs to what these same signs signify; the notion that signs are supposed to refer ONLY to other signs, constitutes, in my opinion, a recycling of old-fashioned linguistic idealism in a new semiotic register. [In the Catholic scholastic tradition, the field of study called SEMIOTICS pertains to the study of signs as signs. Heady stuff? Not really. I'm in a forest -- I see bear prints on the ground. These prints are an INSTRUMENTAL SIGN that a bear might be nearby. Compare another event: "Look, a bear!" Here the word *bear* is a FORMAL SIGN referring to what the sign signifies: it signifies, in all actuality, a bear. You see my point: If there are but a few if any atheists in foxholes, there are no post-modernists in the presence of a bear. In short, the formal sign BEAR is referential to the bear itself, not merely or ONLY referential to some other sign.]
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Posted Saturday, October 31, 2009 2:22 PM By John F. Maguire
In further reply to Peter K.: Let me just add this: As you know, the Catholic hermeneutic circle, rather than excluding the mind of the Church in the work of biblical interpretation, includes it. Consequently, the Catholic hermeneutic circle is free from the distortions introduced by the semiotic anti-realism of standard-version post-modernism. What, then, is the antidote to (sv) post-modernist semiotics? I think that the answer is semiotics grounded in the metaphysical realism of Thomas Aquinas and John Poinsot (religious name: John of St. Thomas). For an exellent introduction to realist semiotics, see John N. Deely, _Basics of Semiotics_ (1990); John N. Deely, _Augustine and Poinsot: The Protosemiotic Development_ (2009); John N. Deely (trans. and ed.), with Ralph Austin Powell, Tractatus de Signis: The Semiotics of John Poinsot_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985) (second corrected edition: South Bend, Indiana, St. Augustine's Press, 2010). "John Deely (born April 26, 1942) is Professor of Philosophy at the Center for Thomistic Studies of the University of St. Thomas (Houston, Texas.) His main research concerns the role of semiosis (the action of signs) in mediating objects and things" (_Wikipedia_).
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Posted Saturday, October 31, 2009 5:46 PM By JLS
Maguire, why do you suggest people study "realist" arguments instead of real arguments?
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Posted Saturday, October 31, 2009 11:47 PM By Peter K.
JFM, As an example of the distinction between signification and value, Saussure notes that 'The French word mouton may have the same meaning as the English word sheep; but it does not have the same value. There are various reasons for this, but in particular the fact that the English word for the meat of this animal, as prepared and served for a meal, is not sheep but mutton. The difference in value between sheep and mouton hinges on the fact that in English there is also another word mutton for the meat, whereas mouton in French covers both'
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Posted Monday, November 02, 2009 8:26 AM By John F. Maguire
JLS: Suffice it to say that Thomist metaphysics and cognitional theory are called "realist" as a matter of propriety and universal practice. ~ REALISM then -- as against, say, Kantian "critical idealism" or Hegelian
"objective idealism" or Dawkinsian biological-materialism; etc. ~ You'll find that any introductory text in scholastic metaphysics will provide an account of the question of REALISM in philosophy. As you've surmised, there is no such thing as sound theology that is not REALIST in this universally accepted sense.
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Posted Monday, November 02, 2009 1:29 PM By John F. Maguire
Peter K.: I do not think Wikipedia is mistaken in recognizing the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857 - 1913) as (1) a preceptor of 20th century linguistics and (2) as as "having had a monumental impact throughout the humanities and social sciences." That this impact would also be felt in the biblical sciences should come as no suprise. See Michael B. Shepherd, "The Distribution of Verbal Forms in Biblical Aramaic," _Journal of Semitic Studies_, Vol. 52, No 2., pp. 227-244. ~ Peter K, I appaud your post at CCD Oct. 31: 11:47 as citing a key distinction in the word of Saussure, which distinction helps explain the importance of Saussure's contribution to both linquistics and human studies in general.
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Posted Monday, November 02, 2009 1:43 PM By Joshua
I agree one hundred percent with Bishop Walsh. Not enough Catholics read the Holy Bible. This poses a very grave situation when at some point in their lives they're asked to defend their faith. If we haven't been faithful readers of scpriture how will we be able to defend the good book at the appointed time that we are asked to do so. I particulary like his statement that the Bible isn't a book. "It's a library," packed with words of prophetic wisdom that could only come from the very hand of God through the Holy Spirit. Don't hesitate any longer read the Holy Bible each and every day of your lives beginning with a short prayer before and after you've read the bible. I for one really enjoy the The New Jerusalem Catholic Bible. I applaud Bishop Walsh in his efforts to encourage people to read the Holy Bible with some prayer reflection before and after reading the good book.
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Posted Monday, November 02, 2009 5:44 PM By John F. Maguire
Peter K.: In further reference to the WORK of Ferdinand de Saussure (sorry I wrote "word" instead of "work" above), it is certainly true, Peter, that Saussure's _Cours de linguistique generale_ (_Course in General Linguistics), which was published posthumously by Saussure's students Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye in 1916, has proved to be a major contribution to the field of linguistics. Of course, given
the pronunciation of Ferdinand's family name, to wit: SO-SURE, it is entirely expectable that a scholar such as Raymond Tallis would write a book entitled _Not Saussure: Critique of Post-Saussurean Literary Theory_ (Palgrave McMillan, 1995). If I have not entered the debate occasioned by Tallis's book, it is because in 1996, in Geneva, Saussure's lost manuscript _Ecrits de linguistique generale_ was discovered and is now published by Gallimard (2002) (English translation: _Writings in General Linquistics_ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)). Wikipedia reports: "With this new textual source, new light is shed on the work of Saussure. In particular, new elements appear that call for a revision of the legacy of Saussure, and call into question the reconstruction of his thought by his students in _Course in General Linguistics_ (1916)."
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Posted Wednesday, November 04, 2009 12:16 AM By tedn
Angelo - Actually, I didn't say that no one else is going to tell me what God is saying. I did say that I would take other people's ideas into account, to reach my conclusions. Accepting directives such as "no personal interpretation" only works if you believe that the Church is infallible. Sorry, but I ain't buyin'. The Church has been imperfect at times. No matter how many times Sister slapped your wrist with a ruler (no, that didn't happen to me, I was not raised Catholic), the Church has made mistakes. And it will continue to make mistakes in the future. I know that on this site, that attitude is in the minority. Fair enough... As far as the "baptism thing", I am not justifying any position. All I am saying is that different groups, starting with the same base set of Scriptures, reach different conclusions. Of course, each denomination uses the verses which justify their interpretation. Not only do the issues revolve around "in the name of" Trinity or Jesus-only, but also age (infant or "of understanding"), method (sprinkling, pouring, or immersion), and scope (valid for one denomination only, or for all Christian denominations).
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Posted Wednesday, November 04, 2009 12:16 AM By tedn
MarkF - Thanks for asking, but no, I am not angry. Just expressing my opinion that based on the "religious wars" I saw while growing up, no one gets to tell me what my beliefs are. They can influence me, but not tell me. I knew one young lady (a while ago) who was told by her (Catholic) priest that she was NOT ALLOWED even to enter another church. My response: "Surely you are kidding...." But alas, it was true.
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Posted Wednesday, November 04, 2009 2:52 PM By John F. Maguire
In reply to Ted N.: There are many authoritative but NON-INFALLIBLE interpretations of biblical texts that yet can be counted as IN ACCORD with the mind of the Catholic Church. ~ That Christ communicated his own infallibility to his one and only Church through his Spirit -- namely, the Holy Spirit -- is a surpassingly important truth, but such infallibility is not coextensive with all that the Church holds AUTHORITATIVELY concerning specific texts in the Sacred Canon.
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Posted Wednesday, November 04, 2009 3:20 PM By John F. Maguire
In further reply to Ted N.: If I fight shy of your just-so story, you'll (I trust) understand why. You write: "I [once] knew a young lady...who was told by her...priest that she was NOT ALLOWED even to enter another church. My response:
'Surely you are kidding....' But alas, it was true." Ted, your
story, I venture, is more probably true than not. The question is: What, in all likelihood, did the priest mean? We should at least entertain the possibility that the priest in question MEANT that this woman should not enter a schismatic and/or heterodox church WITHOUT JUST CAUSE. That the priest might have exercised a mental reservation and not expressly said "...without just cause", is at least not implausible. In any event, Catholic priests -- who after all belong to Christ's ownmost priesthood -- cannot be expected to issue pass-and-go tickets to the schismatic and/or heterodox churches around the block. Indeed, to endorse the church-hopping / church-shopping mentality is -- impliedly -- to militate against the Catholic Church's rightful claim to be the one, true Church.
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Posted Wednesday, November 04, 2009 6:24 PM By JLS
Maguire, you are so bound up in absurdities that you cannot even see the forest for the trees. I continually provide more and more plain things for you, and you cannot see them; rather you dream that I am delving into some depths where worms travel in dusty libraries. The late Rev Malachi Martin, an exorcist, cautioned about digging into the deadness of what you are digging into. Two of the Letters to the Seven Churches of the Apocalypse also warn Catholics to keep from diving into these deceptive depths. You, eg, bring up some character Saussere or however it's spelled and make whoopee out of how great he was ... Don't you know that there are thousands upon thousands of such scholars? Again, your entire tac is to wander off in empty wastelands and never take on the truth. Your bent is called obscurity.
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Posted Wednesday, November 04, 2009 6:35 PM By JLS
I will say it again, because it is appropo: I found the Catholic Church by believing what the Bible says. There is not one thing in the Bible that opposes the Catholic Church. There is much in the Bible that does indeed criticize all other churches. The great joy I have found in Scripture coupled with prayer is the exercise or problem of figuring out how the Bible says what the Church says it says. This cannot be done by reason alone, or by faith alone, but it comes through exactly what the Bible tells us is necessary, and that is that you have to follow Jesus. How do you do that? How do you follow Jesus if you put other things first? What or who is Jesus is a question that has to be reckoned with. Read everything that Jesus is quoted as saying in the Gospels and do not dispute them, but believe them. You will begin to see. Is it a head trip only, to read the Bible? No, because the Bible demands action from the reader. One has to be humble so as to carry out the actions demanded by Jesus. Humility is the absense of vanity ... vanity blinds one to the truth. Vanity is you making up your own god. Humility is letting go and letting Jesus. You will find that it is called humility for a reason, and the reason is because it is hard to be humble. Read the Saints and find out how hard it can be, and how they achieved humility.
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Posted Wednesday, November 04, 2009 9:57 PM By Anne T.
Tedn, when you say PPS, do you mean the same PPS that frequently shows "The Burning Times", a supposed documentary about witch burning by Catholics and other Christians? What the video fails to mention is that the pagans started it all when they tortured Christians to death in the Roman area and early pagan Roman Empire if they would not worship their gods and goddesses. By the way the pagan myths, for the most part, were cleaned up in children's books, but in the real myths Jupiter and Zeus not only cavorted with women but men too. Kind of like some people today who call themselves Christians, but who are in reality worshipping Jupiter, Zeus and the goddess Venus instead of the God of the Church and Holy Scripture.
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Posted Wednesday, November 04, 2009 10:01 PM By JLS
Maguire, I reread some of your absurd stuff on what St Thomas consists of. Why do you make some sort of abstract out of him? He was a real man with a real message to provide to anyone who can read. There is no advantage, as you imply there is, to subjecting his wisdom and insight and grace to your arcane analytical toolbag or that of others. All you do is seek ways to escape from what anyone says, even from what such a Saint as Aquinas says. Why don't you instead stop with your schizoid meanderings and simply open yourself up humbly to the Saint? Or do you fancy yourself more elevated than he? My instinct suggests that you really know the dissemination that you do, but I'm not sure; maybe you really believe what you are saying, and maybe you really are serious about the escapism you foist on others as if it were the way to God, or maybe you serve as the unwitting tool of the evil one. Have you looked into these three possibilities?
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Posted Thursday, November 05, 2009 9:01 PM By John F. Maguire
The Catholic Church, JLS, has elevated Thomas Aquinas to a special status: not simply the already supra-elevated status of Doctor of the Church, but to the status of COMMON DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH. That said, let me reply to your various imputations. I regard "schizoid meanderings," "obscurities," "[affective] deadnesses,"
"vanities," "god-making," and the various, disparate forms of "escapism" as all running contrary to both St. Thomas's metaphysical realism and the Catholic Faith he so brilliantly articulated. ~ EX NIHILO, God, we know, wills every human person in existence INTO existence -- and God SUSTAINS every human person in existence, here and now, in that person's ownmost, absolute uniqueness. Thomas Aquinas, for his own part, is no exception to this great truth. There is no making an "abstraction" out of Aquinas anymore than there is a making of an abstraction out of any person whomsover. God's creative and sustaining Love precludes all such abstraction and reification. This truth, I submit, is an axiom of Thomas Aquinas the Church's COMMON DOCTOR no less than it is an axiom of John Duns Scotus, the Church's SUBTLE DOCTOR.
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Posted Thursday, November 05, 2009 11:56 PM By tedn
JohnFM: I appreciate the inputs. The basic difference is the acceptance of "authority". I'm just a rebel (grin). Now, at the risk of going off-topic ("what the Church is" vs. "what the Bible is"), with regards to "Catholics not allowed to go to other churches".... In the case of the young lady, I know that her priest was of the old school, and truly believed it was a sin even to step inside another church. Other examples occurred where I grew up (a different location than the young lady). When some of my friends (non-Catholic) were getting married, other friends (Catholic) were "highly discouraged", to put it mildly, from attending the ceremonies, simply because they were in churches other than Catholic. There was a fear that attending a non-Catholic church, even one time, would expose them to "wrong beliefs". Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I do have to say that those incidents were years ago, maybe 30 or so. I know that things have loosened up since then. However, I still see that attitude quite a bit. And again for full disclosure, it also exists in some non-Catholic denominations.
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Posted Thursday, November 05, 2009 11:57 PM By tedn
AnneT: I guess you are right. Since pagans and Romans tortured early Christians, that justifies Christians (and especially Catholics) torturing non-Christians (and non-Catholics) a thousand years later (plus or minus) for their difference in beliefs. After all, "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth", it is written. Unless... unless, maybe there's been an update to that....
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Posted Friday, November 06, 2009 12:59 PM By John F. Maguire
Thanks, Ted, for your gracious post. We agree that the priest in question was of the old school, which for me means that he was against visitations to other churches *without just cause* (not, however, in an absolute sense). As for attending the marriage of a non-Catholic couple, although this marriage does not involve the Sacrament of Matrimony, that is, it does not involve the seventh of the seven sacraments, nonetheless it is "sacramental" in what Fr. Augustine Lehmkhul calls "the widest sense" of the term -- and of course is respected by the Church as such. See Augustine Lehmkhul, "Sacrament of Marriage," _The Catholic Encyclopedia_ (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910).
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Posted Friday, November 06, 2009 5:05 PM By JLS
tedn, present your proof. So far all your allegations are nothing more than rumor, hearsay, propaganda and false data.
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Posted Friday, November 06, 2009 5:11 PM By JLS
tedn, you've got a ways to go before you are going to come up with anything serious to say about Catholicism.
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Posted Friday, November 06, 2009 6:40 PM By Grisha
Tedn and JF Maguire's posts remind me of the time when I was growing up in the 50's when our neighbors were being honored at their Synagogue on their anniversary and we were invited. My mother had to meet with .. get this .. not our pastor but the bishop. She had to take off time from work , but her boss, being a good Catholic himself had no problem with that. The bishop asked after Dorothy, her best friend in high school, and told her that Sister So-&-So had finally retired and, "Oh yes, be sure to give Rabbi Such-and-Such my best" Some of small town Catholic life in the '50s was not so good, but much of it was sweet and wonderful.
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Posted Saturday, November 07, 2009 12:48 PM By John F. Maguire
Ted, as you know, torture, in its history as a concept and in its history as a practice, has long been denounced as an intentional and grave depredation against the dignity of the human person. Here, for the record, is CCC 2297:
"TORTURE which uses physical and moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and human dignity" (Catechism of the Catholic Church); also see the _Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church_ No. 404: "The prohibition against torture 'cannot be contravened under any circumstances.'"
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Posted Saturday, November 07, 2009 1:18 PM By John F. Maguire
Ted, on the topic of LEX TALIONIS ("the law of retribution"), you aver: "AFTER ALL, 'an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,' ...." (emphases mine)." REPLY: The trouble here is that "After all" might suggest that the LEX TALIONIS (the law of an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth) somehow supercedes Christ's own teaching. But what is that teaching? Matthew 5:38-39 reads: "You have learnt how it was said, Eye for an eye and tooth for tooth. But I say unto you: Offer the wicked man no resistance. On the contrary, if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the left." Now although this teaching (I agree) is not patient of a pacifist/disarmament reading, Fr. Brian Harrison, for one, has taken pains to point out this teaching's import: "Jesus as New Lawgiver....disapproves the physical brutality of the Mosaic LEX TALIONIS in the interests of a higher ethic of patience, gentleness and forebearing in the face of injury or insult. In the same vein, [Jesus as New Lawgiver] responds firmly in the negative on the only two occasions narrated in the Gospels when he is directly invited to approve or facilitate the actual infliction of a grievously painful death which, according to Old Covenant precedents, would be entirely just and appropriate." Fr. Brian W. Harrison,
"Torture and Corporal Punishment as a Problem in Catholic Theology," _Living Tradition_, No. 118 (July 2005).
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Posted Monday, November 09, 2009 8:02 PM By Sister Act
Within the context of the works of charity; within the context of what the catechism calls spiritual and corporal works of mercy, I applaud the Ursuline nun Sister Dianna Ortiz for her dedicated work the purpose of which is to include -- within the Catholic pastoral -- special solicitude for those who have undergone torture and suffered its consequences. In 1998, Sister Dianna founded Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coaltion (TASCC). In the course of her work as a missionary in Guatamala, Sister Dianna had been abducted, raped and tortured by Guatamala security forces. See Sr. Dianna Ortiz, _The Blindfold's Eyes_ (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2002). Sister Dianna's co-redemptory suffering -- like that of all those who have undergone torture -- bears witness to the relationship between all human suffering and the suffering of Christ on the Cross. *** Let us work hard and pray hard to remove the counter-human practice of torture from the world community.
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Posted Monday, November 09, 2009 11:57 PM By tedn
Grisha: Like I say, where I grew up was large enough that there were many different denominations, but small enough that "everyone knew everyone". The religious wars were truly amazing. And it was true of MANY of the denominations, not just Catholic. Schoolmates would invite each other to their churches, but often the adults would step in with "You can't go there", "You can go there but don't participate in any way", ""You can go there but you can't have communion", and so on.
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Posted Monday, November 09, 2009 11:58 PM By tedn
JohnFM: Interesting to hear about the background of this, especially the marriage ceremony. Thanks. I realize there will be chasms in the religious dogmas between denominations, but at least I am glad to see some churches' progress toward understanding.
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