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Thursday, November 1, 2007

The Catholic View of Scripture

Since Candy has removed comments to her last Catholic post, I couldn't sort through them anymore. However, I remember that one commenter said that the Catholic Church didn't view the Bible as inspired and inerrant. I thought I would post a few selections from the Catholic Catechism on Sacred Scriptures.

#103-107

For this reason, the Church has always venerated the Scriptures as she venerates Lord's Body. She never ceases to present to the faithful the bread of life, taken from the one table of God's Word and Christ's Body.

In Sacred Scripture, the Church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength, for she welcomes it not as a human word, "but as what it really is, the word of God". "In the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet his children, and talks with them."

II. INSPIRATION AND TRUTH OF SACRED SCRIPTURE

God is the author of Sacred Scripture. "The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."

"For Holy Mother Church, relying on the faith of the apostolic age, accepts as sacred and canonical the books of the Old and the New Testaments, whole and entire, with all their parts, on the grounds that, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and have been handed on as such to the Church herself."

God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. "To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more."

The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."


and #131-133

"And such is the force and power of the Word of God that it can serve the Church as her support and vigor, and the children of the Church as strength for their faith, food for the soul, and a pure and lasting fount of spiritual life." Hence "access to Sacred Scripture ought to be open wide to the Christian faithful."

"Therefore, the study of the sacred page should be the very soul of sacred theology. The ministry of the Word, too - pastoral preaching, catechetics and all forms of Christian instruction, among which the liturgical homily should hold pride of place - is healthily nourished and thrives in holiness through the Word of Scripture."

The Church "forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful. . . to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ, by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.


To summarize, the Catholic Church considers Sacred Scripture inspired by God, inerrant, and forcefully exhorts all the Christian faithful to read it frequently.

Sounds as if we agree with Bible-Believing Christians on all points to me!

4 comments:

Maggii said...

there was also a commentor that said we didn't believe in Jesus
Christ..how ridculous is that?

Tracy said...

There had also been a comment that we are like gay people (we as in Catholics) of course the comments have now been taken down, but it is all such silly ignorance that all I can do is just Pray for their eyes to be open, I'm just exhausted from all the hate generated towards Catholics, it just makes me so sad that people can be so hurtful.

kritterc said...

I have decided not to visit Candy's blog anymore. She and those like her will never get it. I will continue to visit this one, though, because it is so informative and I have such respect for all of you ladies. If anything, this whole Candy experience has made me more sure of my beliefs. I will continue to pray for Candy and those she misleads.

Sal said...

And, this is one of those situations where it would have been useful to know what Sallie herself thinks "inerrant" means, because in spite of this excellent explanation, it still might not answer her concerns.

The drawbacks of communicating on the Net, over in person...

Prayers for everybody at Adoration today!