It seems paradoxical that a system like the Catholic one, which should be based precisely on the Bible, speaks of this book as a closed, hidden text, unapproachable by the majority of people and that only now, thanks to some publishing house, it is finally dissolved from secular chains.
As believers and simple Christians, we are undoubtedly pleased with this event, even if we cannot help but note that it was the Roman Catholic Church itself that was wary of Bible reading for centuries, persecuting those who wished to approach it without the indispensable imprimatur Catholic (1) .
A bit of history
In general, the repressions and persecutions cited are justified by asserting that "they were other times and that now the Catholic Church has profoundly changed".
However, we ask ourselves perplexed: was not the Roman church that produced those actions led by "infallible" popes just like today? John Paul II replies in the affirmative to this question. In the introduction to the New Catechism we read that the Roman Church guards the deposit of faith "at all times". Let's take a look at history to confirm it.
The Dictatus Papae of Gregory VII (1075) and later the Bull Unam Sanctam of Boniface VIII (18-11-1302) asserted the absolute authority of the pope, his holiness and the impossibility for anyone to criticize his work. It is singular that this custody, this sanctity, this infallibility, have been exercised by discouraging and forbidding the reading of the biblical text.
Persecutions
A first official act against biblical reading dates back to the thirteenth century. The Council of Toulouse (1229), in agreement with Pope Gregory IX, decreed in canon 14 the prohibition for the laity to possess a copy of the Bible. In 1234 the Council of Tarragona ordered that all the versions of the Bible in the languages spoken be, within 8 days, delivered to the bishops to be burned!
Similar prohibitions were enacted throughout Europe by bishops and provincial councils until the sixteenth century. An intense activity took place above all between the 16th and 17th centuries, aimed at curbing the spread of the Protestant reform in Europe. The new Roman Inquisition, established by Pope Paul III with the bull “Licet ab initio” of 1542, had among its tasks also that of controlling the production, sale and distribution of printed matter. The first Index of forbidden books was compiled in December 1558 under the pontificate of Paul IV. It listed, among other things, 45 prohibited editions of the Bible and the New Testament and the names of 61 printers responsible for publishing heretical books.
Even the Council of Trent, while not pronouncing itself openly on the reading of the Bible, composed a catalog of books whose reading was forbidden (sess. 18, 26-2-1562). A couple of years later, on March 24, 1564, that catalog was published in a papal bull ( Index librorum prohibitorum ). This document introduced ten Rules, the fourth of which forbade the reading of the Bible in the vernacular, except with special permission from the bishop.
Gregory XV, in 1622, eliminated even this remote possibility by revoking all the licenses granted by his predecessors. In 1631, Urban VII again ordered all owners of copies of the Bible to hand them over to the authorities to burn them , under penalty of being reported to the "holy" Inquisition. More recently, Pius VII (1820) condemned the Italian translation of the Bible by decree, including that of Msgr. Antonio Martini (1776), archbishop of Florence. And the Bible was again placed on the index of forbidden books!
Today, 30 years after the Second Vatican Council, publishers are thinking of allowing the distribution of the Bible. An opening that appears belated and that remains stained with the blood of many whose biblical text has been closed by the Roman Catholic Church for centuries. Forgiveness has never been asked of that blood.
We hope that advertising the Bible today as a good and fascinating novel will not sweeten its message, and that the urge to read it does not pass as quickly as a buying advice.
1) Note: Until the early 1900s, various popes spoke out against the spread of the Bible. Furthermore, in 1849, the first initiative of Pope Pius IX once he regained power was to burn all the "evangelical" copies of the New Testament (Diodati version) introduced in Rome. Even in the 1930s, the burning of evangelical Bibles was frequent.
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