Re: Catholic teaching document

Michael is correct. The story would get a big yawn from Catholic biblical scholars in the US. Unfortunately, there is often a gap between what the bishops and scholars hold and what the people in the pews know and think, although Bible study in RC parishes has improved since Vatican II, compared to what it used to be. The latter was summed up by novelist Mary Gordon (a writer admired by Archbishop Rowan, Michael), a Roman Catholic, in the opening of her essay on the Gospel of Mark. She described how as a young girl rummaging through her grandmother's attic, she found a copy of the KJV. It was a new revelation to her (no pun intended): "We didn't read the Bible. We were Catholics. We heard the Truth."

Bob Schneider
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Michael Roberts
  To: Randy Isaac ; asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Saturday, October 08, 2005 2:27 AM
  Subject: Re: Catholic teaching document

  I read the article carefully as the Times is delivered to our house at 8.30 each morning - very English of course. I nearly wrote to them and pointed out that there is nothing new here in RC thinking as Cardinal Wiseman argued as much in 1837 and Fr J Needham in the 1750s.

  The reporter Ruth Gledhill often gets her facts wrong and has a very weak knowledge of Christianity. She is better at dancing!

  Michael
    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Randy Isaac
    To: asa@calvin.edu
    Sent: Saturday, October 08, 2005 3:34 AM
    Subject: Catholic teaching document

    Does the report in The Times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0%2C%2C13509-1811332%2C00.html indicate a shift in Catholic thinking? Or is this consistent with previous interpretations, only getting a media twist and emphasis?

    Excerpt: But the first 11 chapters of Genesis, in which two different and at times conflicting stories of creation are told, are among those that this country's Catholic bishops insist cannot be "historical". At most, they say, they may contain "historical traces".

    Randy
Received on Sat Oct 8 07:36:22 2005