response 6 of 66:

Oct 9 19:38 UTC 2003

You worry me, Jamie

response 10 of 66:

Oct 9 22:11 UTC 2003

A friend of mine who grew up Catholic told me that in some Catholic
churches, you're not 'allowed' to read it; it has to be taught to you
in church ("spoon fed" was the word she used).  Is this true?

response 12 of 66:

Oct 9 22:27 UTC 2003

10:  Maybe a holdover from the middle-ages tradition that the Bible had to
be in Latin, thus avoiding any corruption of meaning by translating it 
into English (giggle giggle snort snort because of course all the disciples
and prophets were spekaing in Latin) and only the priest could read Latin,
thus necessitating that all Bible lessons go through the priest.  
Although, come to think of it, I believe it's part of Catholic dogma that
all communication with God must go through the priest/cardinal/pope because
they're closer to God.  Catholic dogma is awfully dogmatic.  I noticed
a BBC article today on the Catholic church and its insistence that since
HIV virus particles are smaller than sperm, the virus can penetrate the
condom (it can't) and therefore condoms don't protect against HIV (when
used properly, they do.)  Obviously educated and informed people wouldn't
believe this patently false propaganda, but it can and probably will do
real harm among less-informed populations.
<set drift = off again>

response 14 of 66:

Oct 9 23:06 UTC 2003

Certainly Katie has seized upon one of the key differences between 
Catholic ideology and Protestant ideology.  Remember that for the first
1400 or so years of the Christian faith, the idea that the average 
Christian would read the Bible herself was simply not imaginable.
Literacy was rare, and books were handwritten -- incredibly valuable
objects.
 
In the Catholic system of things, everything flows from the top down:
from God through the Pope and the church hierarchy down to the local
priest.  So yeah, the idea developed that only trained minds should 
read the Word of God directly, lest they form heretical independent ideas.
And this idea conformed to the available technology, for over a thousand
years.
 
The Protestant revolution required the invention of the printing press,
which was necessary before the idea that everyone should read the Word
of God themselves could take hold.   Disclaimer: I was raised Protestant,
Lutheran.
 
Many of the early people who translated the Bible into local languages 
were punished, often executed, for heresy.

response 18 of 66:

Oct 10 05:48 UTC 2003

 re #10: 
 > A friend of mine who grew up Catholic told me that in some Catholic
 > churches, you're not 'allowed' to read it; it has to be taught to you
 > in church ("spoon fed" was the word she used).  Is this true?

 If this was ever actually true (I doubt that it was officially prohibited,
 though for many hundreds of years the Church certainly didn't make it
 easy for the laity to read and intrepret the bible for themselves..) it
 certainly isn't official Catholic doctrine any longer, nor has it ever
 been in my lifetime.  The Church has such a long history I won't rule it
 out but I can't guess how far back you'd have to go to find an official
 policy against laity reading the bible.

 It's hard to say with certainty whether your friend was mistaken about
 the policy she though existed in "some Catholic churches" or whether she
 was familiar with some wacky backwater that considered itself Catholic
 but operated at odds with the rest of the Church (because despite the
 Church's insistence that it is one single universal church there can be
 quite a wide variation from place to place) but the policy she describes
 is pretty much directly at odds with the direction the Church took in
 the twentieth century and some high-profile changes it made to get the
 laity more directly involved in the practice and interpretation of the
 religion, particularly the abandonment of the Latin Mass and many of
 the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.


 re #12:
 > Although, come to think of it, I believe it's part of Catholic dogma
 > that all communication with God must go through the priest/cardinal/pope
 > because they're closer to God.

 Not to the best of my knowledge, and totally at odds with my experience
 in the Catholic Church, though perhaps it bears some resemblance to the
 pre-Reformation Church of 500 years ago.  But frankly this sounds like
 the same grade of information about Catholicism that I'd expect from a
 Jack Chick tract.

response 20 of 66:

Oct 10 10:17 UTC 2003

An "approved" Catholic bible will have a little three or four letter
abbreviation in the front. I can't remember what the letters are, but my mom
said it's one way to distinguish a "Pope-approved" bible from the others.

response 22 of 66:

Oct 10 11:56 UTC 2003

That's it! They abbreviate that sometimes. :) I knew it had an "i" in it.
Thanks.

response 24 of 66:

Oct 10 15:06 UTC 2003

re 18:  Actually, the source for the #12 quote was the PHS humanities class,
which indeed dealt with Catholicism primarily before the Protestant
revolution.  I took the class some 9-10 years ago, hence the vagueness, but
am quite sure that this was a long-standing church policy.  I am pleased
to hear that it is no longer the case.  Why is such an extensive papl
hierarchy still in place, if the original function has been dropped and
Catholics are now encouraged to think and worship for themselves?
(Who is Jack Chick?)