



Produced by Bryan Ness, David Garcia and the Online
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THE IRISH ECCLESIASTICAL RECORD

MARCH, 1865.




THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE BIBLE.


There are few so foolish as to close their eyes against the brilliant
rays of the mid-day sun, and, at the same time, to assert deliberately
that the sun is not yet risen, and that the world is still enveloped in
darkness.

Nevertheless, something like this has been done quite recently by an
estimable Protestant nobleman, who has assured his Irish fellow-countrymen
that the Catholic Church, before the Reformation, "neither furthered
the interests of science nor disseminated the knowledge of God's written
word".[1] There was a time, indeed, when such a calumny would have been
received by the British public with applause, and when it would have
been echoed from Protestant pulpits by the predecessors of Colenso, and
by the ancestors of many who now hold a place in the councils of her
Majesty. But that calumny has been long since abandoned, even by the
enemies of our holy faith. Our assailants have laid aside the mask, and
revealed to the world the important fact, that whilst they clamoured for
the Bible, they were themselves its true enemies; and that, combating
the Church, their secret aim was to sap the foundations of inspired truth,
and thus undermine the very citadel which they pretended to defend. It is
not in England alone, but in France and Italy, and throughout the whole
continent, that this striking fact is seen. Everywhere society presents
the singular phenomenon of a sifting of its elements; and whilst all that
aspires to the supernatural life,