HE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL famously declared in paragraph 23 of Sacrosanctum Concilium: “There must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them.” But have you noticed they changed all the memorable passages of Scripture? What was so unsuitable about the old versions?
“Therefore, what God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” — Mark 10:9
CURRENT: “Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.”“Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” — II Corinthians 6:2
CURRENT: “Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s . . .” — Matthew 22:21
CURRENT: “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar . . .”
Did the good of the faithful “genuinely and certainly” require these changes? I’m fairly certain the piccoluomini would claim that these are not truly an “innovation” since Scripture has always been updated to some extent, but I’m not buying it. I cannot shake the feeling that our Pastor was correct years ago when he commented, “Jeff, if they don’t make changes like that, how do you expect them to keep copyrighting the Bible?”
I believe these changes have confused the faithful, helping create a situation where so many of our Catholic brethren possess a meager knowledge of the Bible. How we can expect anything else, when the translations are constantly changing?
A FEW WEEKS AGO, one of our readers emailed me an interesting quote. A former president of Universa Laus (a “progressive” group formed to counteract Pope Paul VI’s organization, CIMS) made the following statement on 27 June 2013:
DO NOT KNOW how many of you actually lived through the preconciliar period, but it is true to say that Catholics were an unbliblical people. Growing up before the Council, the prevailing mentality was one of “only Protestants read the Bible, Catholics don’t need to” — almost Calvinist in its arrogance. Yes, we knew the basic Gospel and Old Testament stories, but nothing apart from that.
When I left primary school in England, several years before the Council was summoned, every child in the class was given a copy of the Bible, courtesy of the local county council. This happened in every school. Because it was a Catholic school we received the Knox translation — very daring in those far-off days, because Douay-Rheims held sway for Catholics. (Every home had one, but no one ever opened it.)
When we were presented with our bibles, we were told “Whatever you do, don’t read it!”
I was born in the early 1980s, so I wasn’t there . . . but this statement just seems bogus to me. I have a hard time believing that nuns told young Catholics, “Whatever you do, don’t read the Bible!” Really? If anyone reading this was alive back then and recalls a teacher uttering such an injunction please let us know in the combox.
Click here to read Part 2.
