Posted on 11/11/2010 8:40:20 AM PST by marshmallow
Read the full text here.
God constantly tries to enter into dialogue with the people he created, speaking through creation and even through silence, but mainly in the Church through the Bible and through his son Jesus Christ, Pope Benedict XVI has said.
In his Apostolic Exhortation, Verbum Domini (“The Word of the Lord”), the Pope encouraged Catholics to embrace and value each of the ways God tries to speak to humanity.
The document, a papal reflection on the conclusions of the 2008 Synod of Bishops on the Word of God, was released at the Vatican today and emphasised the need to improve Catholics’ familiarity with the Bible and the need to read and understand it in harmony with the Church.
The Bible is not a dusty collection of ancient writings addressed only to ancient peoples, he said. But it’s also not some sort of private letter addressed to individuals who are free to interpret it any way they please, the Pope said in the document, which is close to 200 pages long.
The Pope said he wrote Verbum Domini because “I would like the work of the Synod to have a real effect on the life of the Church: on our personal relationship with the sacred Scriptures, on their interpretation in the liturgy and catechesis, and in scientific research so that the Bible may not be simply a word from the past, but a living and timely word”.
Pope Benedict asked for greater Church efforts to teach Catholics about the Bible, to help them learn to read it and pray with it, to treat it with great dignity during the liturgy and emphasise its importance by making sure homilies are based on the day’s readings.
For centuries, Catholic laity were actually discouraged from reading the Bible themselves. Even though that began changing 100 years ago, Bible reading often is seen as a Protestant activity.
In fact, some evangelical Christians use passages from the Bible to preach against the Catholic Church, which the Pope said is truly ironic since “the Bible is the Church’s book”.
It was the Church that decided which of the ancient Christian writings were inspired and were to be considered the New Testament, the Pope said. And it was the Church that interpreted it for hundreds of years.
“The primary setting for Scriptural interpretation is the life of the church,” he said, not because the Church is imposing some kind of power play, but because the Scriptures can be understood fully only when one understands “the way they gradually came into being”.
Obviously, he said, the key message of the Bible – the story of God’s love for his creatures and the history of his attempts to save them – can be grasped only if people recognise that the fullness of God’s word is Jesus Christ.
Jesus “is the definitive word which God speaks to humanity”, the Pope wrote, and “in a world which often feels that God is superfluous or extraneous, we confess with Peter that he alone has ‘the words of eternal life’.”
The Scriptures themselves teach that God created human beings with a special dignity, giving them intelligence and free will. In approaching the Scriptures, he said, people must use that intelligence to understand what is written.
Pope Benedict, a theologian who served for more than 20 years as president of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, said academic approaches to Scripture studies were essential for helping people understand the Bible, as long as those studies recognise that the Bible was not simply a piece of literature.
For example, he said, a lot of Catholics – including priests giving homilies – are completely at a loss when dealing with “those passages in the Bible which, due to the violence and immorality they occasionally contain, prove obscure and difficult”.
Those passages, he said, demonstrate that “God’s plan is manifested progressively and it is accomplished slowly, in successive stages and despite human resistance. God chose a people and patiently worked to guide and educate them”.
God’s education of his people continues today, for example, by helping people understand the importance of safeguarding creation and working for more justice in social and political systems, he said.
Pope Benedict said God’s dialogue with humanity through the Bible must lead to greater faith and a more powerful witness in the world.
While the papal exhortation mentioned plenty of early Church theologians and their approaches to understanding Scripture, it also included a long section about men and women who read the Bible and were inspired to live its message in the world.
“Every saint is like a ray of light streaming forth from the word of God,” he said, listing personalities ranging from St Clare of Assisi to Blessed Teresa of Calcutta and from St Dominic to St Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, the founder of Opus Dei.
Some of the Bible’s lessons are old but need to be given new attention, Pope Benedict wrote.
The Scriptures make it clear that the family founded on marriage is part of God’s plan for humanity and for human happiness.
“In the face of widespread confusion in the sphere of affectivity, and the rise of ways of thinking which trivialise the human body and sexual differentiation, the word of God reaffirms the original goodness of the human being, created as man and woman and called to a love which is faithful, reciprocal and fruitful,” he wrote.
The Bible, the Pope said, is filled with words of consolation and joy, but as God’s word it is “a word which disrupts, which calls to conversion”.
The document, a papal reflection on the conclusions of the 2008 Synod of Bishops on the Word of God, was released at the Vatican today and emphasised the need to improve Catholics’ familiarity with the Bible and the need to read and understand it in harmony with the Church.
The Bible is not a dusty collection of ancient writings addressed only to ancient peoples, he said. But it’s also not some sort of private letter addressed to individuals who are free to interpret it any way they please, the Pope said in the document, which is close to 200 pages long.
Yesterday saw...a forceful plea from a key papal advisor [Bishop Salvatore Fisichella, the rector of the Lateran University and President of the Pontifical Academy for Life] to reject the idea of Christianity as a “Religion of the Book”...........the big debate over Dei Verbum at the time of the council pitted what was then known as the “two-source theory,” which held that Scripture and tradition are essentially two separate streams of revelation, against the “one-source theory,” which posited that Scripture is the lone source of revelation and tradition is an elaboration of it. In effect, Dei Verbum held that Scripture and tradition are interdependent and integrally related to one another.
-- from the thread Synod: Christianity not a 'Religion of the Book'
"As we begin the work of this synodal assembly, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, let us turn our gaze to Christ, the light of the world and our only teacher," Cardinal Levada encouraged.The prelate's point was further developed when Cardinal Marc Ouellet, archbishop of Quebec, took the floor to affirm that the Word is much more than the Bible. He clarified that Christianity is not a religion of the Book.
"The Word of God means before all else God himself who speaks, who expresses in himself the divine Word that belongs to his intimate mystery," he said.
This Word, he added during his Latin-language discourse, which he delivered seated beside the Pope, speaks in a particular and also dramatic way in the history of man, especially in the election of a people, in the Mosaic law and the prophets.
-- from the thread Cardinal Says Scripture Inseparably United to Tradition
The Church should combat widespread "Biblical illiteracy" among the Catholic faithful, Archbishop Eterovic said.
-- from the thread Synod to Focus on Proper Use of Scripture
...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”....
....The flip side of this embarrassment is the presumption among many Catholics that they “get” the Bible at Mass, along with everything else they need for their spiritual lives. The postconciliar revolution in liturgy greatly expanded the readings, with a three-year cycle in the vernacular that for the first time included Old Testament passages. Given that exposure, many think they do not need anything else. As Mr. McMahon put it, “The majority still say you go to Mass, you get your ticket punched, and that’s it for the week.”
-- from the thread A Literate Church: The state of Catholic Bible study today
2 Tim. 2:15: “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
God bless the Pope!
Many people forget this.
Indeed they do. Somewhere along the line, the Protestant Reformation for example, and Martin Luther in particular, all was forgotten it seems.
“For centuries, Catholic laity were actually discouraged from reading the Bible themselves. “
When non-catholics say that they are “evil anti-catholic bigots”.
How does that work??
This is the sort of talk which usually gives rise to accusations of bigotry.
FWIW, the real reason is to be found in this article:
The Bible is not a dusty collection of ancient writings addressed only to ancient peoples, he said. But it’s also not some sort of private letter addressed to individuals who are free to interpret it any way they please, the Pope said in the document, which is close to 200 pages long.
Concern, perhaps over concern, that people not place private interpretation over revealed truth was what actually underlay this practice.
Scripture is the ultimate authority.
Even our Lord Jesus Christ, when not appealing to His own inherent authority, clinched His arguments with His opponents by saying, “It stands written!” or “Have you not read” in the Bible? He said, “Ye search the scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me.” John 5:39 (ASV) In Jesus’ day, Jesus acknowledges that the appropriate approach to salvation was to search for it in the Scriptures! And you know, that in Jesus’ day, the scribes had about as much authority as has ever been given to human tradition. And yet, Jesus pointed them to the Scriptures, not to the oral tradition, not to the authority of the scribes, but to the Scriptures. And then He said, “The Scriptures bear witness of Me!”
In the New Testament, the “spirit of error” was to be identified by comparing whatever the prophets are saying to the teaching of the Apostles. In I John 4:6, the Apostle John says, “He who knows God hears us!” That’s the standard; what we have taught! In I Corinthians 14:37, Paul says, “If any man thinks himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him take knowledge of the things which I write unto you, that they are the commandment of the Lord.” And yet, even the Apostles called for the Church to test their own instruction according to the written revelation of God, according to the Scriptures which were in hand.
Why did Paul commend the Bereans? What were the Bereans doing? In Acts 17:11, you’ll read of this commendation because (he says) “they examined the Scriptures daily whether these things were so,” i.e., the things taught by Paul. Paul commends that; and he’s an Apostle! He’s got ‘Power of Attorney’ for the Lord Jesus Christ. He speaks with the authority of the Savior Himself! And yet, even with that Apostolic authority, Paul commends them, because when they wanted to test what he was saying, they went to the written Scriptures to see if these things were so.
I Corinthians 4:6, Paul says, “Now these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes; that in us you might learn not to go beyond the things which are written; that no one of you be puffed up for the one against the other.” Paul says, “Brothers, I have applied (I’ve used a figure of speech) I’ve applied these things (I think he’s referring here “these things” about pride in men, or in their ministries) — I’ve applied these things to myself and to Apollos for your benefit in order that you might learn by us,” the saying, “not to go beyond the things which are written.
"Ultimate authority" on what?
Who is the ultimate authority on scripture??? That is the issue!
And you know, that in Jesus’ day, the scribes had about as much authority as has ever been given to human tradition. And yet, Jesus pointed them to the Scriptures, not to the oral tradition, not to the authority of the scribes, but to the Scriptures. And then He said, “The Scriptures bear witness of Me!”
Um..........yes he did point them to the authority of the Scribes.
"Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to his disciples, [2] Saying: The scribes and the Pharisees have sitten on the chair of Moses. [3] All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do: but according to their works do ye not; for they say, and do not."
Matt: 23, 1-3
Translation: observe their teaching but do not follow their example for they are hypocrites.
There goes that theory.
Condemning unauthorized translations, some of which came complete with heretical commentaries? Okay, I'll buy that.
Prohibiting lay ownership of Bibles? That happened, but only for about 50 years during the suppression of the Albigensian heresy in southern France, and the decree was only valid for that area.
Of course private ownership of books of any kind was a rarity prior to Gutenberg.
>>Translation: observe their teaching but do not follow their example for they are hypocrites.<<
>>There goes that theory.<<
How does Matthew 23 not support the Scriptures being the ultimate authority for us today? The Scribes and Pharisees being hypocrites by not doing what they were teaching surely does not. If they were demanding that the people follow scripture but then not follow them themselves certainly doesn’t lesson the authority of the Scriptures. He didn’t say the Scribes and Pharisees “bare witness of me”.
Does a Priest reduce the authority of the Scripture by not following what scripture teaches?
Of the Scribes and Pharisees, Jesus said; (and I re-post the above passage)........."Saying: The scribes and the Pharisees have sitten on the chair of Moses. [3] All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do:"
Did you get that?
Are we in agreement that Jesus is instructing the people to follow their (the Scribes and Pharisees) teaching?
Which totally undermines everything you said in post #10.
The fundamental misunderstanding of Protestantism. Many Catholics see us as a bunch of libertines who simply want to do whatever they feel like doing and then seek to find a basis for it in the Bible.
I can imagine no greater insult to Bible-believing Christians. It stands truth right on its head.
I once saw a group of Arabs laughing at a booth at the book fair that said "Jewish Books." In order to be a proper bigot, the truth must not only be denied but stood on its head and the exact opposite believed.
Well, if a church cannot get it right on abortion, homosexuality, divorce and remarriage, and contraception, then is a charge of being libertine correct or not?
Divorce — The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience
Christians examine morality of birth control
Not talking about a church. Talking about individual Christians. The more fervently they seek the Lord, the more likely they are to have the right opinions on all the subjects you mention.
Oh yeah, that will work - Jerry Seinfeld
“I have the only interpretation of the bible”
Google About 1,290,000 results (0.21 seconds
I’m dense? Come now. Were not the Pharisees the Jewish sect that taught a strict adherence to the Old Testament Law? The Law that had been written as part of Scripture? Were they not demanding of the people to follow the Law and Jesus was telling the people that following the law was something they should do? The Pharisees themselves however were not following the law as they were telling the people to do so Jesus was saying they were hypocrites for telling people to follow the law but not following it themselves.
Let’s see what they were teaching but not doing themselves.
23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
So you see, the Pharisees were indeed teaching from written Scripture but were not following it completely themselves.
Might I suggest that suggesting one is dense is perhaps not wise?
Catholics were discouraged from reading unauthorized translations which flourished during the era of the Reformation.
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