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Philadelphia, Pa., Nov 8, 2016 / 06:53 am (CNA/EWTN News).-
While reading the Bible may be associated with Protestantism in the minds of
some, love of Scripture is at the core of the Catholic Church, said the
apostolic nuncio to the United States.
“The love and veneration of the Word of God is an expression
of the heart of the Catholic Church which is increasingly promoting a ‘new
hearing’ of God’s Word through the new evangelization of our cultures,”
Archbishop Christophe Pierre said Oct. 26. “This new hearing is a recovering of
the centrality of the divine Word in our Christian life and in our dialogue
with those who do not share our Catholic faith.”
The archbishop addressed a gathering of the American Bible
Society in Philadelphia,
where the 200-year-old organization is now based. The non-denominational organization
is dedicated to translating, publishing and distributing editions of the Bible.
Among those present for the nuncio’s remarks were Archbishop
of Philadelphia Charles J. Chaput and Dr. Roy Peterson, the president and CEO
of the American Bible Society.
Archbishop Pierre said Sacred Scripture is “at the very
heart of the Christian life.” He noted the ancient Catholic tradition to teach
and pray Sacred Scripture. The Church Fathers venerated God’s word and prayed
it through the practice of Lectio Divina.
“The nature of the Sacred Scriptures calls for an audience
of faith who opens the sacred texts to discover the presence of the living God
speaking to the soul of the believer,” he said.
This has helped drive the Church’s concerns for proper
renditions and translations of the sacred texts, the nuncio recounted.
Different Latin variants of Sacred Scripture in the early
Church put at risk the shared story of the Church. In the year 382, responding
to concerns about the variant texts of the Bible, Pope Damasus I commissioned St. Jerome to revise the
texts for a new version “that would embrace more faithfully the truth of the
revelation,” the archbishop noted.
“His dedication to Scripture motivated Jerome to further
study the Hebrew and the Semitic tradition involved in the sacred texts. Thus
Jerome grew in a deeper and more profound union with the mystery of God though
the knowledge of Scriptures,” Archbishop Pierre said.
Over time, the Latin language itself became an obstacle to
spreading the Biblical message, as Latin’s use became restricted to a small
group of educated people. The Latin Vulgate maintained its dominance as the
official version of Scripture in the Roman Catholic Church, while other
translations were regarded with suspicion for misleading the faithful.
“The love and devotion of the Catholic Church was, and
continues to be, the true motivation behind the faithful custody and zealous
preservation of the truth that God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake
of salvation,” the archbishop said.
He reflected on Martin Luther’s “painful separation” from
the Catholic Church. Though he praised the Protestant leader’s dedication to
accessible Scripture, he noted that Luther modified the biblical canon from 46
books to 39 and modified the Letter of the Romans’ text to add his concept of
“through faith alone.”
The response to the Protestant movement by the Council of
Trent established that all Sacred Scripture “must be read according to the
spirit in which they were written.”
“This implies that Scripture must go hand-in-hand with the
holy Tradition preserved in the ecclesiastic experience of the faith of the
apostles,” Archbishop Pierre said.
The development of different languages continued to separate
people from a close reading of the Latin Scriptures and, the archbishop said,
separated them from “having a personal encounter with the risen Lord manifested
in the Bible.”
“The separation produced by the Protestant Reform left a
painful wound in the mystical body of Christ and as a consequence of this, the
belief that a personal reading of the Bible is a typical Protestant practice
grew in the common Catholic mindset,” he said. “The reality manifested in our
Roman Catholic Tradition, however, indicates that this common assumption is far
from the truth.”
Archbishop Pierre recounted developments since the pontificate
of Pope Leo XIII. In the mid-20th century, Pope Pius XII opened the way for
translation of Scripture to help Christians return to the sources of faith,
while the Second Vatican Council opened the way to dialogue with Protestant
Christians in its main document on Scripture, “Dei Verbum.”
“During the decades after ‘Dei Verbum,’ the magisterium of
the Roman Catholic Church has insisted on the continued study, research, and
education of Holy Scripture by the faithful people of God, establishing stronger
bonds of ecumenical dialogue and relationships of unity with our brothers and
sisters of different denominations,” he said.
The archbishop cited the work of the Pontifical Biblical
Commission, the Biblical studies in Rome’s pontifical universities, and the
biblical institutes throughout the Catholic world that train pastors and the
laity to bring biblical truth “to those who are hungry for the nourishment of
God’s Word.”
The nuncio praised the American Bible Society as “a
providential instrument that exemplifies the ecumenical bonds built upon the
treasure of the Scriptures.” He welcomed its collaboration with Catholic
ministries, saying its propagation of the Word of God is “a vivid expression of
the love of God that unifies us with the purpose of inspiring hunger and thirst
for the Scriptures.”
The Bible society supported the October 2008 Synod of
Bishops and has created a polyglot Bible. It has distributed Bibles to
Spanish-language Catholic communities and has supported Catholic pastoral
activities like the World Youth Day events in Poland
and Brazil.
The society also collaborated with the 2015 World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia.
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