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Why Don’t More Catholics Read the Bible?

For many years, we were actively discouraged from reading it, lest it lead us to question or challenge any dogma officially coming from Church hierarchy.

Case and point...the other day in Corinthians I was reading a passage where Paul was responding to complaints about people who came to Church and filled up on the bread and wine, literally becoming drunk, and leaving nothing for the remaining worshippers. (ahhh...first century Corinth was a rough and rowdy place, eh?)

He responded by saying that the bread and wine was for the Sacrament of Communion....”Do This in Rememberance of Me”....and that anybody who was hungry should EAT before coming to Church.

This would seem to fly directly in the face of the one-hour fast before taking Communion. And yet the Church routinely likes to quote the advice of Paul when defending a celibate clergy.

Guys in red dresses who deign to get into discussions on stuff like that with us hoi palloi.....THAT’S why they discouraged us from reading the Bible (though I must say, the Church has changed markedly in this regard in recent years).

For many years, we were actively discouraged from reading it, lest it lead us to question or challenge any dogma officially coming from Church hierarchy.

Sounds about right. I know of a Catholic whose mother was expressly taught in Catholic school (pre-Vatican II days) that she should not read the Bible for herself, out of fear that she might form an opinion contrary to church teaching. To this day, that woman refuses to read the Bible, for fear of losing her salvation.

Your post is filled with misinformation. Catholics were prohibited from reading incorrect or heretical translations.

Not eating before Mass is a practice or a discipline, it is not a dogmatic teaching and there fore is subject to change.

also keep in mind that a majority or people were illiterate and could not read the Bible, consequently this meant that they could be subject to false teachers.

"For many years, 'we' were actively discouraged from reading it, lest it lead us to question or challenge any dogma officially coming from Church hierarchy."

I don't question your veracity here, Buckeye -- not at all, you have a rep as a truthteller --- but you should change the 'we' to 'I' or 'some of us.' I say that becdause in my 62 years, that has never been true for me or for any Catholic I know.

Though your experence may have been different. Your childhood may have been ruined by rampantly ignorant churcholics! Trahison des clercs!

When I was preparing for Confirmation --- this would have been almost exactly 50 years ago --- we were told by the nuns (SSJ's) that if we didn't have a personal Bible, we should demand our parents to get us one for our next birthday, or Christmas.

I still have mine, Confraternity-Douay translation. In the beginning are prefaces written by the publisher and by Pius XII and quoting saints from wayback, saying "YOU HAVE TO READ SCRIPTURE."

Evidently some people didn't get the memo? But it's misleading to say 'we' weren't told this.

"What mean 'we', Kemosabe!?"

He responded by saying that the bread and wine was for the Sacrament of Communion....”Do This in Rememberance of Me”....and that anybody who was hungry should EAT before coming to Church.

Actually, i do not see Paul making the communal "feasts of charity" (jude 1:12) that of simply being a piece of bread, but that of not waiting for others in what was supposed to be a communal meal, but going ahead to fill their faces while leaving late comers hungry. Eating at home would prevent them pigging out and shaming "them that have not."

"For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken." "What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not ? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not." (1 Corinthians 11:21-22)

The original Lord 's supper was itself a communal meal, which in Scripture signified oneness, covenant, and thus caring, and it was during such that the Lord broke bread signifying what He would face and do in purchasing the church with his own blood. (Acts 20:28)

However, some carnal Corinthians were hypocritically treating others contrary to Christ's sacrificial death for the body, effectually not recognizing others as part of the body of Christ, which unity Paul proceeds to expand upon in the next chapter, as the body is not one member, but many and interdependent.

See here

This would seem to fly directly in the face of the one-hour fast before taking Communion.

Indeed, though this is a discipline, but as an RC you are not to make Scriptural substantiation the basis for the veracity of RC teaching.