Rome and the Bible

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 24, 1903

Rome and the Bible

It is considered by some Protestants a very surprising thing that the Catholic Church should have assumed an attitude of apparent favor toward the study of the Scriptures. They are at a loss to account for such utterances as the following, which appeared recently in the official organ of the Vatican, the Osservatore Romano:—

The reading of the Holy Scriptures is the best means for the support of the true and genuine apostolic office, and is entirely adapted to awaken in the people a truly Christian knowledge and conscience, which can then be perverted by nobody. What an inestimable blessing it would be if every Christian family would be assembled daily and read a chapter from the Gospels! In this way the divine language of the book, together with its sublime simplicity, would become common property; the image of Jesus Christ would become clearer and more deeply impressed on the hearts of the people; a thorough religious training would be imparted on all sides, and in this way the most dangerous results of ignorance and indifference would be removed.

The Catholic Church never favored the study of the Bible while Protestants made that Word the weapon of their antagonism to her; but now that the leading Protestant bodies have changed their attitude toward the Bible and toward Rome, and by their traditions and the higher criticism so nearly make God's Word of none effect, Rome sees something to be gained by standing forth as the ostensible champion of the Word. She takes advantage of Protestant inconsistency to break down the work of the Reformers, and win converts from the now broken and disorganized ranks of her old-time opponents.

It is entirely safe for Rome to advocate the study of the Bible so long as men can be held to the idea that the church is the proper teacher and exponent of the holy book. This is the idea to which the Catholic Church has always held, and to which the Protestant churches now very largely adhere. But we shall be as much surprised as any others when the Church of Rome says anything in favor of Bible study under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and in favor of the recognition of the Holy Spirit as the one true guide to spiritual truth, to be obtained by direct appeal to God, without recourse to any human teacher or authority.