Why Don't Catholics Know the Bible?

My online "Bible as Literature" class begins today and as students introduce themselves I hear a lot of this: "I was raised Catholic and, despite years of private Catholic school education, I have a limited knowledge of the Bible."

I reassure all students that it's ok to come to the course unacquainted with these ancient texts and no one should feel awkward about it. It's very common.

Still, I find it odd that this is so awfully common among 'cradle Catholics' and I wonder why this is so. I have a few thoughts about it.

First, many life-long Catholics see their Catholic ID as more of an ethnic thing rather than a personal faith thing - kinda like being Jewish but not really believing. Lacking some decisive, self-conscious moment in their lives when they made a clear commitment to belong to Christ wholly - apart from baptismal promises made on their behalf as infants - the 'religious' aspect of being Catholic is de-emphasized - except for making sure all the practices are correct. This may result from a lifelong faith education that tended to focus on traditions of behavior and practices, rather than Biblical study, theology and church history. The fervor of the convert wasn't there. This is a somewhat generalized statement, I know, and I apologize for casting such a wide net. But I find that most college-aged Catholics have been poorly 'catechized' and as a result they reject something they never really understood, and more often than not because they had it 'shoved down my throat' - a phrase I hear often. And they certainly never got any Biblical backing to what they were taught.

But leaving 'cultural' and highly secularized Catholics behind, let's consider those who take their faith more seriously. Even among these Mass-attending, rosary-praying folks, there is very little knowledge of the Bible. Part of this is a religious issue of where the 'authority' lies. For Catholics, it is found in three places:

1. The Bible (although it isn't really taught systematically). For years before Vatican II, laypeople were not encouraged to read the Bible at all, perhaps out of a concern that untrained readers might mis-interpret stuff and get odd ideas, and the Church is big on holding fast with
integrity to a passed-down body of received truths, called "the deposit of faith.' While this attitude has officially changed, there has not been a habit of Bible-reading in Catholic homes for generations, unlike devout Protestant homes.

Even so, there are 4 Scripture readings at every Mass - an Old Testament reading, a Psalm, an epistle, and a Gospel reading. These are carefully chosen and beautifully interwoven according to a theme so they relate to each other. They are selected so that a congregation gets through most of the Bible in a 3-year cycle. However, despite years of exposure, most Catholics don't know the Bible. You can really tell when the readers (lectors) get up to read and stumble all over the passages as though they'd never seen them before. This is astonishing to devout Protestants, who love the Bible, know its books and writers, the historical background, the characters and storylines of narrative sections, and commit passages to memory.

2. The second source of authority is "The Magisterium" of the church, a fancy word for the official teaching that is preserved over the centuries from error. The idea is to keep the 'deposit of faith', received from Jesus and the original 12 apostles, intact and consistent. Study of "The Catechism" is held to be more important, since this is where the teaching of the Church is clarified and systematized. The new version commissioned by John Paul II is elegantly written, by the way. There are loads of great Bible refences in the footnotes. But the discussion of those passages and the ideas in them as explained in the Catechism are considered more important. This is hinted at when 'Learning the Faith' is the phrase you hear most often, not 'learning the Bible.'

3. The third leg of this 'stool' of authority is something called 'sacred Tradition,' a religious term referring to the teaching of the apostles and their official successors under the guidance of the Holy Spirit as promised in John 14:26 (in particular, the successor to the See of Peter, the bishop of Rome). Protestants have a particular problem with this usually because they confuse it with the burdensome legalistic 'traditions' Jesus harshly criticized in Mark chapter 7. Catholics mean something different - as in 2 Thessalonians 2:15 - and this is an unfortunate area of semantic misunderstanding.

Anyway, my point really was this: The Bible is only one of three areas where Catholics derive their understanding of what is true and good in belief and practice, whereas most Protestants (especially more conservative ones) look to the Bible ALONE as their source of spiritual
authority (well, at least their denomination's understanding of it). The Protestant 'battle cry' was 'solo Scriptura' - Scripture alone. As a result, they study it a lot more regularly as individuals and in groups and know it much better. It is the Word of God and it speaks with full and final authority (II Timothy 3:16 is quoted to support this). I don't mean to say that Catholics hold
the Bible in lower regard - they affirm II Timothy 3:16 (if they know it) and regard these texts as inspired and authoritative, too. What Catholics will add is this: remember that the Church was there - and fully authoritative - before the New Testament was put together. The New Testament derives its authority from the Church, which had the final say about which books were genuine and which were spurious. The Bible's authority, historically speaking, rests on the Church's authority. It's an excellent point. But the consequence is this: less Bible reading among Catholics, because the authority is considered to be in the Church, and not so much in the Bible (even though, officially, it is the authoritative Word of God). St. Jerome said "Ignorance of the Bible is ignorance of Christ." The Living Word is found, figuratively speaking, in the written word. I wish more Catholics followed Jerome.

Well, I hope some of that made sense. I'd like to see comments from Catholics about why there is so little familiarity with the Bible among Catholics, besides the fact that way too many of them are 'nominal' and 'cultural' Catholics and simply don't care.

One final thought: even the configuration of church design says something about this issue. Protestant churches have the lectern/pulpit front-and-center, a design change since the Reformation when the "Word of God" was declared to be the only source of authority and so it took center stage. Preaching from the Bible is the central part, often the longest part, of Protestant services. For Catholics, the pulpit is off to the side and the 'homily,' usually a lot shorter than any Protestant sermon (and rarely as good), is one brief part of the Mass. Instead, the altar is front-and-center, because that's the central emphasis of worship - experiencing the atoning sacrifice of Christ as it is 're-presented' there in sacramental elements (not
'repeated,' as too many Protestants misunderstand). So Protestants emphasize "the Word," and Catholics/Orthodox divide their worship into two equal parts, the liturgy of the Word and the sacramental liturgy of the Eucharist.

Catholics really ought to become more familiar with the Bible and I'm glad to see earnest Catholic students in my class. My tone will remain objective and academic and they are free to take away whatever religious value they want. Becoming basically "Biblically literate" is important for any educated person and that's all I'm really after.

You know, there are notable efforts to get Catholics to read and understand the Bible; Dr. Scott Hahn, Jeff Cavins, Marcus Grodi and others have active ministries trying to get Catholics to read and study the Scriptures.

It isn't surprising that these guys are all former evangelicals.