Destroying Myths

Answer to those accusing the Catholic Church
of not allowing its members to read the Holy Bible
People who make this type of accusation really know nothing about the history of books and printing. They speak from their ignorance and therefore their words are that of a fine fool.

For fifteen centuries,  common Christians did not have access to a Bible for the following reasons:

    a) The Bible was written in the Greek language and everybody spoke Latin, so they couldn't understand it to begin with. Only a limited elite and class of society had knowledge of Greek and could therefore read the Scriptures. The Christians, attending Sunday Mass, came in contact with the word of God through the homilies and explanations of their bishops, priests and deacons.
    b) Prior to the 15th century, there were no printing presses and very few people possessed the manuscripts of the Bible (only scholars and learned men).
    c) During the first three centuries of Church history, the Christians were persecuted by the Romans and had to worry about protecting their lives. They had no freedom or time to read the Bible.
    d) Even though St. Jerome had translated the Bible into Latin, most of the people were illiterate and could not read nor write. Besides, the Roman Empire (and with it civilization) had fallen. The Barbarians who roamed Europe were content to pillage, destroy and kill people, not to read a Bible. It was only until the 13th century that universities appeared again in Europe (Paris, Oxford and Bologna). There were no schools in existence for people to learn to read and write.
    e) The only ones in condition to provide Bibles for society were the monks, but many themselves were illiterate and did a horrendous job in copying. Charlemagne (in the 9th century) complained that he could not find one decent Bible in his kingdom (no punctuation, words run together, no chapters, misspelled words, no quotes, etc).
    f) In the 13th century, St. Francis, St. Anthony and St. Dominic converted thousands of people through their preaching of the word of God. St. Anthony had memorized the entire Bible and spread the Good News to everyone. That is why he is the most popular saint of all times. His explanation of the Word of God showed how much everyone hungered to hear the message of Jesus. These traveling "Evangelists" provided for and met the needs of many who wanted to deepen their union and love of God through the spoken word.
    g) St. Vincent Ferrer, St. Bernardine of Siena,  St. Antoninus of Florence, St. Joseph of Leonessa , Saint Lawrence of Brindisi were others who were "living Gospels" to the people and showed the spirit of Christ to many, as a mirror of the written word. The numberless conversions they wrought continued to witness to the perennial interest of people for the teaching of Jesus.
    h) When Gutenberg invented the press in the 15th century, both Catholics and Protestants were quick to take advantage of this new piece of technology to promote their respective interests. Luther did not waste any time, but immediately printed his version of the Bible in the German language (novelty for that period) and spread it all over Northern Europe. This was, to some extent, one of the secrets of his success in carrying through the Protestant Revolution. Calvin, too, had a printing press in Strasbourg that printed his ideas and had them distributed to various parts of the Continent. It was the printers that were, in part, responsible for the falling away of many nations from the Catholic Faith.

On the other hand, Peter Canisius, through his friendship with all the Catholic printers of Europe, was able to win back to the Church Austria, Southern Germany, Bohemia and half of Switzerland. He printed catechisms, works of the Church fathers and decrees of the Pope for everyone to read. This religious literature was responsible in saving the Faith of entire nations. The struggle between Protestants and Catholics during this period was fierce. Anglican England put a censorship on all the printing companies and allowed no Catholic literature to be published. Exiled Catholics in France had to smuggle books into England to provide the Word of God for their persecuted brothers. The truth, therefore, is that it was the Protestants who prohibited their members to read the Catholic Bible and not the Catholic Church that did it with its own faithful!

Of course, Peter Canisius would gather the writings of the Protestants and burn them publicly in the town squares. What Catholics were forbidden to read was publications that dealt with Luther's ideas and not the Bible itself. One of the reasons was due to the type of nasty literature that was printed at the time. Even with books in circulation, many people still knew not how to read and write. The companies decided, therefore, to print pictures in their books instead of words. Many books in this period ridiculed the popes and called them the "beasts of the Apocalypse". The drawing in the book would show the pope with horns and hoofs. Other images showed him with a crown of gold while on the following page; Christ was depicted with a crown of thorns. All these pictures (that stuck in the peasants' minds) were supposed to foment hate and anger towards Rome. It was for this reason that Catholics reacted vigorously and ordered the destruction of such literature. 

In the 17th century, the Catholic Church issued the "Vulgate" (the official Catholic Latin edition of the Bible), under the supervision of St. Robert Bellarmine for Catholics to read. This edition was then translated into the various vernacular languages.

 I am a Catholic and I have read the Gospels since childhood. No priest ever prohibited me from reading them. On the contrary, I was praised and encouraged to continue the practice. The Church even grants a plenary indulgence to those who read the New Testament 15 minutes everyday. I know about all the encyclicals of the Catholic Church and never saw one officially prohibiting someone to read the Bible. So it is a lie to say that the Popes or Catholic Church had prevented anyone from reading and meditating on Scripture.  Isolated cases of private individuals might have existed, but certainly not coming from the Church of Jesus Christ.

Anthony Mellace