Catholics: Not Encouraged To Read The Bible? - Dismal Dramatic Dabbling Damina [II]

Mr. Abel Damina on stage going about what he does best: dismal dramatic dabbling... 

Preamble: 

In the previous article, it was established that to the extent Historical Christianity is at stake Mr. Abel Damina is at once a dismal dramatic dabbler and not a Christian and couldn't be a Christian minister. 

The present article focuses on two points. According to Mr. Abel Damina:

• If the Catholic Church encourages their members to read the Bible, nobody will be there.
• Because, if Catholics read the Bible carefully, all the things done by the Catholic Church will be exposed.

His sworn goal then is to "expose the Catholic Church" and “free people” from “deception” and rescue them from going to hell towards which they are presently hiking with all gusto.

In the list of his examples of “things done by the Catholic Church” that he wants to expose to people is “counting the Rosary”; receiving some “stupid round white thing” -blasphemously referring to the Blessed Sacrament; not allowing Priests to marry; etc. 

No doubt, Mr. Damina's calumnies and slanders against the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church are not new per se. With a dismally dramatic poise, he is just recycling and repackaging old calumnies and slanders from the trash can of the clan of the operation of error and the fellowship of falsehood, in which he is pitifully plunged. The point here is to simply show to anyone who has enlisted himself as “associate of common sense” that Damina's utterances establish him a dismal dramatic dabbler to the extent Catholic discipline on study of the Holy Writ is at stake.  

Basic Principles 

According to the Apostolic Catholic plan of salvation:

• Reading of Sacred Scripture is not necessary for all
• Nor fitting for all
• Nevertheless it is by no means forbidden
• But any sort of vernacular version is not permitted
• Nor any without notes and approbation. 

Understanding the Apostolic mission entrusted to her by her divine Founder, it is on the Catholic plan of salvation that souls may be saved and people become saints, and believe and do all that Jesus Christ meant them to believe and do in all countries and in all ages without either the written or the printed Bible. History attests to the fact that this has happened - people have come to know and do all that Christ meant them to believe and become Saints and saved without reading the scripture themselves, both before and after the production of the Bible. 

It is an Apostolic Catholic thing that:

 “Faith… cometh by hearing; and hearing by the word of Christ” ( Romans 10:17) and that 

 “...no prophecy of scripture is made by private interpretation” (2 Peter 1:20)

As many as hear the word of Christ by means of the Apostolic teaching of the Catholic Church, these without fail come to know “all things whatsoever” that Christ has “commanded” all nations to observe (Matt. 28:20) in order to be saved. 

However, the reading of Holy Scripture is permitted to Catholics, and is very profitable to them; but the text used by them must have been authorized by the Pope, the Vicar of Christ, Successor of St. Peter; and must be provided with explanatory notes. 

Why not Just choose any version? 

Now, why are Catholics not permitted to read any version of the Bible that they choose? 

•  Because the unaltered text and true explanation of it are only to be found in the Catholic Church.   
• Because the greater part of it is very difficult to understand.

Yes, it is only to the Catholic Church, i.e., to the apostles and their successors, the bishops, that Our Lord has promised the gift of the Holy Spirit, and that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Hence the Holy Scripture, out of which the Catholic Church draws her teaching, cannot possibly be altered or corrupted. 

As a matter of fact, heretics have sometimes changed the meaning of particular passages in their own favor, or have omitted whole portions if they did not please them. The classic example is Apostate Luther who rejected the epistle of St. James, because the apostle says that faith without works is dead. 

Indeed, as Pope Leo XIII notes, 

the sense of Holy Scripture can nowhere be found incorrupt outside of the Church, and cannot be expected to be found in writers who, being without the true faith, only gnaw the bark of the Sacred Scripture, and never attain its pith (Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus )

Furthermore, St. Peter, the first Vicar of Christ, himself speaks thus about some things in the Epistles of St. Paul: 

As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction. You therefore, brethren, knowing these things before, take heed, lest being led aside by the error of the unwise, you fall from your own steadfastness. (2 Peter 3:16,17)

Here the necessity of an authentic exposition of the Bible becomes evident.

 The Catholic Church is the authority that God has appointed to explain Holy Scripture; for to her the Holy Spirit has been given. It was her who collected and preserved the Books and determined the Canon of the Bible. 

Yes, 

“The same authority which made and collected and preserved these books alone has the right to claim them as her own, and to say what the meaning of them is. The Church of Saint Paul and Saint Peter and Saint James in the first century was the same Church as that of the Council of Carthage and of Saint Augustine in the fourth, and of the Council of Florence in the fifteenth, and the Vatican in the nineteenth - one and the same body -growing and developing, certainly, as every living thing must do, but still preserving its identity and remaining essentially the same body, as a man of 80 is the same person as he was at 40, and the same person at 40 as he was at 2…. The Church wrote the New Testament; she, and she alone, can tell us what the meaning of it is. (Bishop Henry Grey Graham, Where we got the Bible...)

A Come-on to Catholics to study the Bible

Contrary to Mr. Damina's shameless and false claim that Catholics are not encouraged to read the Bible, it is a fact that they are encouraged to do with a salutary “bait” if we could use that expression. What “bait”? Gaining Indulgence! 

An indulgence? What is that? Someone may ask… Well,

Indulgence is the remission before God of the temporal punishment due to those sins of which the guilt has been forgiven, either in the sacrament of Penance or because of an act of perfect contrition, granted by the competent ecclesiastical authority out of the Treasures of the Church to the living by way of absolution, to the dead by way if suffrage

Here it should be noted that God has granted to the Church the power, after the reconciliation of the sinner with God, of changing the punishments yet remaining due to sin into works of penance, or of remitting them altogether. An indulgence is partial if it remits a part of the punishment due for sin at any given moment. It is plenary if it remits all. 

Yes, Our Lord conferred on St. Peter in particular, and on all the apostles in general, the power to remove whatever hindered the admission of the penitent to heaven. To St. Peter He said: 

“Whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt, 16: 19), and to the apostles He said: “Whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven” (Matt, 18: 18).

Now, concerning the reading of Holy Scripture here is the “bait” for literate and devout Catholics. The “Manual of Indulgences…, or The Raccolta, 694” states as follows:

The faithful who spend at least a quarter of an hour in reading Holy Scripture with the reverence due to the Word of God and after the manner if spiritual reading, may gain: an indulgence of 3 years.

Those, however, who read at least a few verses of the Gospel and further kiss the book of the Gospels, devoutly reciting the following invocations: “through the Gospel's words may our sins be blotted out”; “may the reading of the Gospel be out health and protection”; “May Christ, the Son of God, teach us the words of the Holy Gospel” are granted: 

-an indulgence of 500 days;

- a plenary indulgence on the usual conditions , if they perform this act daily for an entire month, as given above;

- a plenary indulgence at the hour of death, if they have frequently performed this devout exercise during their lives , provided that they have made their confession and receieved Holy Communion or are at least contrite, and invoke devoutly the most Holy Name of Jesus with their lips, if possible, otherwise in their hearts and accpet death patiently from the hand of God as the just penalty for sin. 

You see, dear conscientious reader, that when Mr. Damina says Catholics are not encouraged to read the Bible he is being a rather boring joker or someone beside himself? You see. Don't you? 

Would you, dear reader, suppose that literate and devout Catholics would close their eyes and ears to such an "enticing bait"? Think on it! 

Engaging Catholics in Biblical Discussion

According to Mr. Damina, the logical consequence of Catholics not being encouraged to study the Bible is that they cannot engage properly in bible discussion. 

Well, we have shown that literate and devout Catholics are indeed encouraged in the most irresistible manner to study the Sacred Scripture. As regards the so-called “proper engagement” in Bible discussion, let us spare a few words. 

Before anything else, it must be pointed out that it is written 

 

“Shall two walk together except they be agreed?” (Amos 3:3)

Now, Mr. Damina is an inheritor of older heretics who, relying on private judgment and repudiating the divine traditions and teaching office of the Church, held the Scriptures to be the one source of revelation and the final appeal in matters of Faith. Faithful to his forebears, he is unflinching in holding to the falsehood that the Scripture alone is the fact-checker of Christian doctrine. 

On the other hand, a Catholic Bible student is trained in the Apostolic school to know that Holy Scripture is one of the two sources of divine revelation, the other being Sacred Tradition. He is taught how to prove the integrity and authority of the Bible, how to investigate and ascertain its true sense, and how to meet and refute objections -as those raised by dabbling Damina. In order to deal with interpretation, to him is imparted the method of using the word of God for the advantage of True Religion and piety. 

The Catholic Bible student follows the analogy of faith; holds as supreme law Catholic doctrine, as authoritatively proposed by the Church. He knows that since the same God is the author both of the Sacred Books and of the doctrine committed to the Church, it is clearly impossible that any teaching can by legitimate means be extracted from the former, which shall in any respect be at variance with the latter. The Catholic Bible student knows how foolish and false any interpretation is which either makes the sacred writers disagree one with another, or is opposed to the doctrine of the Church - the very sort of interpretation Mr. Damina is well known for. 

Now, what possible “discussion” could take place between one from the brood of heretics, consumed by luciferian pride in his rejection of one of the two sources of divine revelation and in his rejection of the living magisterium divinely instituted to teach all nations; what discussion, I say, could take place between such a one and a Christian Bible student who has at his disposal the complete sources of divine revelation under the watchful providence of the Spotless Bride of Christ? How, pray tell, can the two “walk together” given that they are not “agreed”? 

In the company of a Catholic Bible student therefore, Mr. Damina must be, not a partner in biblical discussion, but a student to be properly instructed. But will his heretical, luciferian, pride let him be the student that he must be? We would have to hope for a miracle of grace, won't we? Of course what is Christian hope if it is not to hope against hope! 

The twist here is that those from whose rank Mr. Damina got started on his vowed project “to expose the Catholic Church” are only Catholics in name and in their physical occupation of Catholic buildings and camouflaging Catholic-like poise. They are, with Mr. Damina, indeed comrades in the fellowship of falsehood, being offsprings of the Modernist revolution, a logical development of the Protestant revolution which is the rotten root of Damina's shameless display. 

Second Summing up

As a true son of the old heretics, Mr. Abel Damina perpetuates their calumny and slander that 

• Catholics are not encouraged to read the Bible. 
• And that if such study were encouraged, the Catholic Church would lose all her members on account of their discovery of what he calls Catholic deception and errors. 

Well, we have shown how Catholics are enticingly encouraged to read the Sacred Scripture, though it is by no means necessary or fitting to all. 

It is clear: Mr. Abel Damina is a dismal dramatic dabbler to the extent Catholic discipline on the study of the Holy Scripture is at stake. 

Moreso, as one sprung from the heretical tradition of “Sola scriptura”, he could not in any way be a companion to a Catholic Bible student in “bible discussion” but must be a student who must be properly instructed. But we know that a miracle of grace alone could heal him of his heretical, luciferian pride so as to be the student he is and must be. For this we would dare to hope to the extent Christian Hope is not hope if it is not to hope against hope. 

In our next entry, we shall give a sample of Mr. Damina's shameless dismal dramatic dabbling in his attempt to condemn Catholic priestly celibacy based on 1 Timothy 4:3.