Protestants Say Catholics Ignore the Bible

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]What is the second biggest Christian denomination in the world? Roman Catholics.

[00:00:06]Question. What is the biggest Christian denomination in the world? Fallenway Catholics. A recent nationwide survey in fact showed now that an estimated one out of every 10 Americans is a fallen away Catholic.

[00:00:24]This is where we are. I want to encourage all of you most strongly to read the Bible. Every Catholic should must read the Bible, study the Bible, know the Bible, and love the Bible. The saints have taught us it is impossible to grow in the spiritual life, to draw closer to God without the practice of spiritual reading and meditation.

[00:00:49]We have got to be immersed in the inspired word of God. The words of the Bible are written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. That is to say, then when it is correctly, properly read and understood and interpreted, it communicates no errors. We've got to read the Bible the way the church reads the Bible. If we don't read it that way, we're going to get it wrong. This is what we call the analogy of faith. The Bible is divinely inspired and it it is inherent.

[00:01:22]That is a defined article of our Catholic faith. To deny that is heresy.

[00:01:28]>> For years, Catholics have heard the same accusation repeated over and over again.

[00:01:33]Catholics are not allowed to read the Bible for themselves. Maybe you have heard it from a Protestant friend. Maybe somebody said it online or maybe someone told you the Catholic Church kept the Bible away from ordinary people because they wanted control. And honestly, if you do not know the history, that accusation can sound convincing. It paints this picture of priests hiding Bibles, ordinary Christians being forbidden from reading scripture, and the church trying to control what people believed. But once you slow down and actually look at history, and even the Bible itself, the story starts looking very different.

[00:02:11]>> That Catholics don't read the Bible. A lot of Protestants say this over and over and over in my comment section.

[00:02:18]Well, my Protestant friends, I'm sorry, but that's just not true. Catholics do read the Bible, and in fact, we read the Bible more than you do. You see, at every single mass, every single week, there are four readings from scripture.

[00:02:31]We have two readings from the Old Testament and two readings from the New Testament. One of the two Old Testament readings always includes a psalm and one of the two New Testament readings always includes the Gospel. and then one of the writings of the apostles. If you go to mass every single week for three years straight, just once a week, you will have read the entire Bible. That's right. So, every 3 years, Catholics read the entire Bible just by going to mass.

[00:02:57]Ask yourself, when was the last time you read the entire Bible all the way through?

[00:03:01]>> The first thing we need to clear up right away is simple. Catholics are absolutely allowed to read the Bible. In fact, the Catholic Church encourages it.

[00:03:11]The church wants Catholics reading scripture, praying with scripture, and growing closer to Christ through God's word. Think about Catholic mass for a second. Every single mass is filled with scripture. Catholics hear readings from the Old Testament, Psalms, New Testament letters, and the Gospel itself. Week after week, Catholics are surrounded by the Bible. So, right away, the claim that Catholics somehow are forbidden from reading scripture does not really match reality.

[00:03:39]I just interviewed a Catholic couple who just converted to Catholicism and the Easter Vigil three weeks ago. I'm editing their interview now. And one thing that really struck me was I asked them if they ever had any hang-ups about the Catholic Church before they came in.

[00:03:54]And Mike uh the husband said that he had an understanding and somebody brought it to his attention that um they thought that Catholics weren't allowed to read the Bible personally. And he has this really funny line where he says, "Okay, but if that's true, why was the first thing they gave us in OCIA a Bible?" And then it got me thinking, also, if you want to look, here's a whole shelf of Bibles. Look at that. Catholics are allowed to read a Bible. Crazy. So, where did this misunderstanding even come from? A lot of it comes from people looking at history through modern eyes.

[00:04:30]Today, almost everyone owns books. Most people have multiple Bibles in their homes or Bible apps on their phones. But for most of human history, books were incredibly rare and extremely expensive.

[00:04:43]Before the printing press, every Bible had to be copied entirely by hand.

[00:04:49]Imagine trying to write the whole Bible word for word without modern technology.

[00:04:53]It could take months or even years.

[00:04:55]Because of that, most ordinary Christians, Catholic or otherwise, simply did not own personal Bibles. That was not because the church hated scripture. It was because the world was completely different.

[00:05:08]Quick pause for just a second. If you've ever heard a Catholic claim challenged and thought, "Wait, what's the actual answer to that?" Make sure to visit catholicexplain.com.

[00:05:18]We created it to be a place where everyday Catholics or curious Catholics can search and learn simple biblical answers to the biggest claims and misconceptions about the Catholic faith.

[00:05:28]Whether it's Mary, the Pope, salvation, confession, purgatory, priests, or really anything you've heard challenged, almost everything we offer is essentially free because our mission is simple. Help Catholics know what to say when their faith is challenged. So check it out at catholicexplain.com.

[00:05:46]All right, back to the episode.

[00:05:47]>> Have you ever heard the misconception that Catholics do not read their Bibles?

[00:05:52]But actually, Catholics do read their Bibles. and is actually on the contrary to that misconception that Catholics don't. The Catholic Church encourages its members to read and engage with sacred scripture. In fact, the entire mass is scripture. So, if you've ever made the claim that Catholics don't read the Bible, you probably one never been to a Catholic mass or two have failed to research even the tiniest bit about Catholicism because you would know it's very found in scripture. And there is another important truth people often forget. Most people could not read.

[00:06:28]Literacy rates throughout history were incredibly low. So how did Christians learn the faith? They learned through hearing scripture publicly proclaimed, through preaching, through prayer, and even through art. This is actually why Catholic churches became filled with stained glass windows, biblical paintings, statues, and scenes from scripture. People today sometimes see those things as decoration, but for centuries they were actually teaching tools. When people could not read, they learned the story of salvation visually.

[00:06:59]They saw Moses parting the Red Sea, David defeating Goliath, Jesus carrying the cross, the resurrection, and the lives of the saints. The church was teaching scripture long before most people ever held a Bible in their hands.

[00:07:12]Now, here is the uncomfortable question many critics often overlook. If Catholics hated the Bible, then who preserved it? Before Protestant churches existed, before the King James Bible, before modern Bible publishers, who was preserving scripture, the Catholic Church. Catholic monks spent centuries copying biblical manuscripts by hand.

[00:07:35]Monasteries protected sacred texts during wars, political collapse, and times of chaos. If the church wanted people separated from scripture, why spend centuries preserving it, protecting it, and carefully copying it generation after generation? And here is another important question people rarely stop to think about. Who decided which books belonged in the Bible? Because nowhere inside the Bible do you find a page listing the exact books that belong in scripture. The Bible does not come with a divinely inspired table of contents. The early church had to wrestle with that question. Church leaders gathered, prayed, debated, and carefully examined writings to recognize which books truly belonged in scripture.

[00:08:20]In simple terms, the Catholic Church helped preserve and recognize the very Bible Christians read today. Now, to be fair, people sometimes point to moments in history when church leaders restricted certain Bible translations.

[00:08:34]And yes, that happened. But the reason matters. The concern was not ordinary people cannot read the Bible. The concern was false teachings and dangerous mistransations spreading confusion. Think about it this way. If somebody deliberately twists God's word or changes biblical teaching, should church leaders care? Of course they should. Even scripture itself warns about this. In 2 Peter 3:16, St. Peter says, "Some people twist scripture to their own destruction."

[00:09:04]Honestly, that sounds pretty relevant today because if we are being honest, Christians disagree about the Bible constantly. One person reads the Bible and says baptism saves. Another says it does not. One person says salvation can be lost. Another says once saved, always saved. One person says communion is symbolic. Another says Jesus meant it literally. Same Bible, different conclusions. And that leads Catholics to ask a very fair question. If the Bible alone is enough, why are there thousands of competing interpretations?

[00:09:37]That question matters because Catholics do not believe scripture should be ignored. Catholics believe scripture should be understood correctly. That is why Catholics believe in scripture, sacred tradition, and the teaching authority of the church working together. Not because Catholics distrust the Bible, but because Catholics believe Jesus founded a church to help guard truth. In 1 Timothy 3:15, St. Paul calls the church the pillar and foundation of truth. That is important. Paul does not call the Bible the pillar and foundation of truth. He calls the church that because Jesus did not leave behind only a book, he also established a church, gave authority to the apostles, and sent them out to teach. And the apostles taught in more than one way. In 2 Thessalonians 2:15, St. Paul tells Christians to stand firm and hold to the traditions you were taught either by word of mouth or by letter. Did you catch that? Paul says Christians should hold firmly to teachings passed on by word of mouth and by letter.

[00:10:40]In other words, Christianity was never meant to function as Bible only. Now before somebody misunderstands this, Catholics are not saying do not read the Bible. Actually, Catholics should probably read the Bible more. Let's be honest there. Many Catholics grew up hearing scripture at mass but never really opened a Bible at home.

[00:10:59]Thankfully, that is changing. The church strongly encourages Catholics to pray with scripture, study scripture, and know God's word deeply. St. Jerome, one of the greatest biblical scholars in church history, famously said, "Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ." That is a Catholic saint saying that the church wants Catholics in scripture because the Bible matters. The Bible strengthens faith, teaches truth, and helps us know Christ more deeply.

[00:11:28]But Catholics also believe scripture should be understood within the fullness of Christian teaching, not separated from the church Christ founded. So the next time somebody says, "Catholics are not allowed to read the Bible," you can answer confidently, "Actually, Catholics are encouraged to read the Bible. The Catholic Church preserved it, protected it, and proclaimed it long before most people even owned one." And maybe the better question is not do Catholics read the Bible, but rather without the Catholic Church, who preserved the Bible in the first Nice.