ROMAN CATHOLICS AND THE BIBLE.
(To THE EDITOR Or THE "SPECTATOR:] Snt,—In your issue of April 28th, which I have only just seen, you state in your article on "Churchmen and the Bible": "The Roman authorities have always regarded the Bible as a dangerous book when not interpreted by the Church." Permit me to point out that the Catholic Church has never regarded the Bible as a dangerous book in any circumstances. On the contrary, she has always preserved it most faithfully, and guarded it most jealously from the hands of the spoilers, and handed it down from generation to generation as inspired in every part as the Word of God, and merely as containing the Word of God. What she has always regarded as dangerous is the interpreters when not guided by her infallible voice and teaching. Nor has she ever condemned Bible Christianity or simple Bible teaching. But she has claimed that she alone has been commissioned by Jesus Christ, her Founder, to teach what is Bible Christianity and what is Bible teaching. It is the unauthorised Bible teachers, and man's fallible explanation of the Bible, she guards her children against. Hence the reason she can never accept the proposed solution of the education question, or undenominationalism, which is as perilous to her teaching of Christianity as secularism. She can no more accept the new Oath of Supremacy to the local education authority than she could the old one to Henry VITT. or Queen Elizabeth.—Hoping you will find room for this explanation of what was a very misleading way of stating, though, of course, unintentionally, our position, I am,
Previous page
