Unless you belong to a Church which holds no dogma, then you're in the same boat. It won't be a Catholic boat of course but it will be a boat of sorts. Or would your Church have no problem if your personal reading of the Bible led you to conclude that the Resurrection of Jesus was not a historical event but simply a story?
Unfortunately, the pluralistic American political model is not a valid model for the understanding of revealed truth. The great American tradition of custom-made churches is the result.
As always, everything comes back to the question of authority and how one views the Church. "There is one God, one faith, one baptism"(Ephesians). Now if one views the Church as the guardian of that "one faith" one positively wants to know what the Church has to say about Scripture. On the other hand, if the Catholic Church is an ogre which is trying to mislead us, then naturally, its views on Scripture are considered oppressive and something to be avoided.
Of course every Church, no matter how dogmatically challenged, has some core beliefs about Scripture which it wants to put abroad and convey to its members(except perhaps the Unitarians and some liberal Protestant churches). If it doesn't then it has no raison d'etre. So you end up back at square one.
Remind me again what is so great about trying to use one's own weak intellect to find truth in Scripture when it has been handed down to us by a faithful mother in the Church?
And the worst is, it doesn't work!!!! Look around you at the motley gaggle of "churches" all claiming scriptural "truth" as their bedrock. Yeah, right!
Related threads:
A Literate Church: The state of Catholic Bible study today [article from America: The National Catholic Weekly]
...while fewer believers know much about the Bible, one-third of Americans continue to believe that it is literally true, something organizers of the Synod on the Word of God called a dangerous form of fundamentalism that is “winning more and more adherents…even among Catholics.” Such literalism, the synod’s preparatory document said, “demands an unshakable adherence to rigid doctrinal points of view and imposes, as the only source of teaching for Christian life and salvation, a reading of the Bible which rejects all questioning and any kind of critical research”....Should We Take the Bible Literally or Figuratively? [article from Catholic Exchange]
Some may write off the whole Bible as being merely symbolic or allegorical, while others take every word as the kind of literal truth you get when you say something like, "The fire is hot." Symbolically, that same fire represents the power, warmth, and enthusiastic fervor poured into Christians by the Holy Spirit. You can approach the flame literally or figuratively, but either way, the fire is "true"....Unlike modern libraries that separate fiction from nonfiction and both genres from poetry, a single book of the Bible may contain an eclectic mix of Godly commands, historical events, poetic lines, and allegorical tales. Between genres, thin lines may overlap, but don't let them trip you up.
***Unless you belong to a Church which holds no dogma, then you’re in the same boat. It won’t be a Catholic boat of course but it will be a boat of sorts.***
Catholics may be in the same boat, but they seem to be rowing in different directions.
Well, since YOU asked....
Sorry, but if you're referring to the Catholic Church faithfully handling the truth, I would respectfully disagree. Please recall how the Jews felt THEY were the keepers of the faith until King Josiah happened to uncover the word of God hidden in the temple. They felt they could just go about worshiping God in any form they wanted. Wrong. It was when the people read the word of God hidden for all those years that they discovered their errors. Yet, once King Josiah passed the people did not follow after the ways of God, following His word.
In much the same way do I see the Reformation. Indeed I would argue there are strong parallels to King Josiah and the Reformation.
It's not an exaggeration to say that the Church (as much of Protestantism afterwards) has decided to essentially chuck the scriptures for this "feely-go" view of the gospel. Much of the Catholics on this site will cast doubts about the authenticity of scriptures as well as some Protestants. As this article (and Alex) points out, scripture is rarely used any longer. Mass does not use it much. Most Protestant churches tend to substitute anecdotal stories after reading a verse or two.
Less we forget, the holy scriptures of God is God-breathed words directly to us. At least, so thought the early Christians. In those holy scriptures is the power to save the lost and equip the saints. This power does not rest in reciting some sort of mass, reciting anecdotal stories, or listening to "mother Church". The gospel is the power of God; a miracle handed down to us that we so carelessly disregard it like manna from heaven. People who have a low view where they question the validity of God's word, might as well question the purpose of manna dropping from heaven. As we may recall from the holy scriptures, the people were so ungrateful to God's providence that God sent a plague on them.
If you believe mother Church to provide you insight, then you do not believe in the power of God to provide you insight. It's that simple and that sad.