One Holy Apostolic Tradition

One Quotation at a Time

[akacatholicism]

Avoid Idleness

"Avoid idleness. Determine what you have to do, and then fulfill exactly the duties of your position in life. In the things that are most mortifying and opposed to your inclinations, be even more cheerful."

- The Spiritual Combat, 1589 (TAN, 2010), ch. 19

[akacatholicism]

“St. Bernard wrote in his third Sermon on the Resurrection: ‘What is it that God punishes if not self-will? Hate your own will and there is no more hell.’ There remains nothing indeed but the divine will, to which the faithful soul adheres with all its strength.”

— G.A. Simon, Commentary for Benedictine Oblates on the Rule of St. Benedict, trans. Leonard J. Doyle. Imprimatur 1947. Abbey Editions, 2024, p. 126.

[akacatholicism]

Art is a Window to the Infinite

The function of all art lies in fact in breaking through the narrow and tortuous enclosure of the finite, in which man is immersed while living here below, and in providing a window to the infinite for his hungry soul.

- Pope Pius XII, "The Function of Art," 1952, n. 5.

[akacatholicism]

Unapproved Vernacular Bibles Have Always Been the Weapon of Heretics

4. Moreover, regarding the translation of the Bible into the vernacular, even many centuries ago bishops in various places have at times had to exercise greater vigilance when they became aware that such translations were being read in secret gatherings or were being distributed by heretics. Innocent III issued warnings concerning the secret gatherings of laymen and women, under the pretext of piety, for the reading of Scripture in the diocese of Metz.[12] There was also a special prohibition of Scripture translations promulgated either in Gaul a little later[13] or in Spain before the sixteenth century.[14] But later even more care was required when the Lutherans and Calvinists dared to oppose the changeless doctrine of the faith with an almost incredible variety of errors. They left no means untried to deceive the faithful with perverse explanations of the sacred books, which were published by their adherents with new interpretations in the vernacular. They were aided in multiplying copies and quickly spreading them by the newly invented art of printing. Therefore in the rules written by the fathers chosen by the Council of Trent, approved by Pius IV,’s and placed in the Index of forbidden books, we read the statute declaring that vernacular Bibles are forbidden except to those for whom it is judged that the reading will contribute “to the increase of faith and piety.”[16] Because of the continued deceptions of heretics, this rule was further restricted and supplemented by a declaration of Benedict XIV: for the future the only vernacular translations which may be read are those which “are approved by the Apostolic See” or at least were published “with annotations taken from the holy Fathers of the Church, or from learned and Catholic authors.”[17]

- Pope Gregory XVI, Inter Praecipuas (On Biblical Societies), 1844. [See link for footnote citations]

[akacatholicism]

The Holy See Has Always Promoted the Faithful's Understanding of Scripture

For this end the same biblical societies never cease to slander the Church and this Chair of Peter as if We have tried to keep the knowledge of sacred Scripture from the faithful. However, We have documents clearly detailing the singular zeal which the Supreme Pontiffs and bishops in recent times have used to instruct the Catholic people more thoroughly in the word of God, both as it exists in writing and in tradition. The decrees of the Council of Trent even commanded the bishops to see to it that “the sacred Scriptures and the divine law” are preached more frequently in the dioceses.[4] In expanding the provisions of the Lateran Council,[5] they order that in each church, either cathedral or collegiate in the cities and better known towns, individuals able to explain and interpret sacred Scripture must be obtained.[6] Later action was taken in many provincial synods[7]concerning the establishment of an ecclesiastical benefice according to the norms of articles sanctioned by the Council of Trent,[8] and about readings to be given publicly to the clergy and also to the people by a canonical theologian. Also, in the Roman Council of 1725, Benedict XIII assembled not only the sacred bishops of the Roman province but also many of the archbishops, bishops and other ordinaries of places in no way subject to this Holy See to deal with this same matter.[9] In addition, for the same purpose he proposed several measures in apostolic letters which he wrote expressly for Italy and the adjacent islands.[l0] You customarily report on the condition of diocesan affairs at stated times to the Apostolic See.[11] It is clear from the answers of our Congregation of the Council, sent repeatedly to your predecessors or to you yourselves, how this same Holy See congratulates bishops if they have beneficed theologians who give public readings of the sacred Scriptures. The Holy See never fails to admonish and aid the pastoral care of those bishops, if anywhere this matter has not succeeded according to plan.

- Pope Gregory XVI, Inter Praecipuas (On Biblical Societies), 1844, n. 3. [See link for footnote citations]

[akacatholicism]

Errors in Translation Lead Souls Away from God

Nor finally are you ignorant of the diligence and knowledge required to faithfully translate into another language the words of the Lord. In the many translations from the biblical societies, serious errors are easily inserted by the great number of translators, either through ignorance or deception. These errors, because of the very number and variety of translations, are long hidden and hence lead the faithful astray. It is of little concern to these societies if men reading their vernacular Bibles fall into error. They are concerned primarily that the reader becomes accustomed to judging for himself the meaning of the books of Scripture, to scorning divine tradition preserved by the Catholic Church in the teaching of the Fathers, and to repudiating the very authority of the Church.

- Pope Gregory XVI, Inter Praecipuas (On Biblical Societies), 1844, n. 2.

[akacatholicism]

Avoid Heretical Bible Translations

But you know the aim of these [Bible] societies. In his sacred writings, Peter, after praising the letters of Paul, warns that in these epistles “certain things are difficult to understand, which the unlearned and the unstable distort just as they do the rest of the Scriptures, which also leads to their destruction.” He adds at once, “Since you know this beforehand, be on your guard lest, carried away by the error of the foolish, you fall away from your own steadfastness.” Hence it is clear to you that even from the first ages of Christianity this was a skill appropriate for heretics. Having repudiated the given word of God and rejected the authority of the Catholic Church, they either interpolate “by artifice” into the Scriptures or pervert “its meaning through interpretation.”

- Pope Gregory XVI, Inter Praecipuas (On Biblical Societies), 1844, n. 2.

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16: As also in all his [St. Paul's] epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction.

17: You therefore, brethren, knowing these things before, take heed, lest being led aside by the error of the unwise, you fall from your own steadfastness.

- 2 Peter 3:16-17, Douay-Rheims.

[akacatholicism]

False Translations of Scripture Endanger Faith and Morals

16. Furthermore, quite apart from the flood of evil books which are intrinsically hostile to religion, the wickedness of our enemies has gone so far as to try to turn against religion the sacred writings divinely given to us for the building up of religion.

17. You have noticed a society, commonly called the Bible society, boldly spreading throughout the whole world. Rejecting the traditions of the holy Fathers and infringing the well-known decree of the Council of Trent, it works by every means to have the holy Bible translated, or rather mistranslated, into the ordinary languages of every nation. There are good reasons for fear that (as has already happened in some of their commentaries and in other respects by a distorted interpretation of Christ’s gospel) they will produce a gospel of men, or what is worse, a gospel of the devil!

18. To prevent this evil, Our predecessors published many constitutions. Most recently Pius VII wrote two briefs, one to Ignatius, Archbishop of Gniezno, the other to Stanislaus, Archbishop of Mohileu, quoting carefully and wisely many passages from the sacred writings and from the tradition to show how harmful to faith and morals this wretched undertaking is.

19. In virtue of Our apostolic office, We too exhort you to try every means of keeping your flock from those deadly pastures. Do everything possible to see that the faithful observe strictly the rules of our Congregation of the Index. Convince them that to allow holy Bibles in the ordinary language, wholesale and without distinction, would on account of human rashness cause more harm than good.

20. Experience also shows that this is true, and aside from other Fathers, St. Augustine states it in the following words: “Heresies and other wicked teachings which ensnare souls and cast them into the deep, arise only when the good scriptures are badly understood and when what is not well understood in them is affirm, d with daring rashness.”

21. Such is the object of this society and it leaves no means untried to achieve its objective. For it delights in printing its own translations, as well as in dashing through every city to distribute them itself to the common people. Indeed, to seduce the minds of the simple, it is careful to sell them in one place, while elsewhere it wants to give them as a gift with calculating generosity.

- Pope Leo XII, Ubi Primum (On His Assuming the Pontificate), 1824.

[akacatholicism]

Divine Charity Rules the Marital Relationship

28. Again, this subjection of wife to husband in its degree and manner may vary according to the different conditions of persons, place and time. In fact, if the husband neglect his duty, it falls to the wife to take his place in directing the family. But the structure of the family and its fundamental law, established and confirmed by God, must always and everywhere be maintained intact .

29. With great wisdom Our predecessor Leo XIII, of happy memory, in the Encyclical on Christian marriage which We have already mentioned, speaking of this order to be maintained between man and wife, teaches: “The man is the ruler of the family, and the head of the woman; but because she is flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, let her be subject and obedient to the man, not as a servant but as a companion, so that nothing be lacking of honor or of dignity in the obedience which she pays. Let divine charity be the constant guide of their mutual relations, both in him who rules and in her who obeys, since each bears the image, the one of Christ, the other of the Church.”

- Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii (On Christian Marriage), 1930, n. 28-29.

[akacatholicism]

Limits of Wifely Submission

This subjection [of wife to husband], however, does not deny or take away the liberty which fully belongs to the woman both in view of her dignity as a human person, and in view of her most noble office as wife and mother and companion; nor does it bid her obey her husband’s every request if not in harmony with right reason or with the dignity due to wife; nor, in fine, does it imply that the wife should be put on a level with those persons who in law are called minors, to whom it is not customary to allow free exercise of their rights on account of their lack of mature judgment, or of their ignorance of human affairs. But it forbids that exaggerated liberty which cares not for the good of the family; it forbids that in this body which is the family, the heart be separated from the head to the great detriment of the whole body and the proximate danger of ruin. For if the man is the head, the woman is the heart, and as he occupies the chief place in ruling, so she may and ought to claim for herself the chief place in love.

- Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii (On Christian Marriage), 1930, n. 27.

[akacatholicism]

Mutual Love Allows for the Proper Ordering of Marriage, Including the Marital Debt and the Husband's Headship

24. This mutual molding of husband and wife, this determined effort to perfect each other, can in a very real sense, as the Roman Catechism teaches, be said to be the chief reason and purpose of matrimony, provided matrimony be looked at not in the restricted sense as instituted for the proper conception and education of the child, but more widely as the blending of life as a whole and the mutual interchange and sharing thereof.

25. By this same love it is necessary that all the other rights and duties of the marriage state be regulated as the words of the Apostle: “Let the husband render the debt to the wife, and the wife also in like manner to the husband,” express not only a law of justice but of charity.

26. Domestic society being confirmed, therefore, by this bond of love, there should flourish in it that “order of love,” as St. Augustine calls it. This order includes both the primacy of the husband with regard to the wife and children, the ready subjection of the wife and her willing obedience, which the Apostle commends in these words: “Let women be subject to their husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife, and Christ is the head of the Church.”

- Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii (On Christian Marriage), n. 24-26

[akacatholicism]

Husband and Wife Offer Each Other Mutual Help

This outward expression of love in the home demands not only mutual help but must go further; must have as its primary purpose that man and wife help each other day by day in forming and perfecting themselves in the interior life, so that through their partnership in life they may advance ever more and more in virtue, and above all that they may grow in true love toward God and their neighbor, on which indeed “dependeth the whole Law and the Prophets.” For all men of every condition, in whatever honorable walk of life they may be, can and ought to imitate that most perfect example of holiness placed before man by God, namely Christ Our Lord, and by God’s grace to arrive at the summit of perfection, as is proved by the example set us of many saints.

- Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii (On Christian Marriage), n. 23.

[akacatholicism]

Love Is Proved By Deeds

This precept [that husband and wife must love each other deeply with holy and pure love] the Apostle laid down when he said: “Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the Church,” that Church which of a truth He embraced with a boundless love not for the sake of His own advantage, but seeking only the good of His Spouse. The love, then, of which We are speaking is not that based on the passing lust of the moment nor does it consist in pleasing words only, but in the deep attachment of the heart which is expressed in action, since love is proved by deeds.

- Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii (On Christian Marriage), n. 23.

[akacatholicism]

Husband and Wife Should Be Joined in a Pure and Holy Love

This conjugal faith, however, which is most aptly called by St. Augustine the “faith of chastity” blooms more freely, more beautifully and more nobly, when it is rooted in that more excellent soil, the love of husband and wife which pervades all the duties of married life and holds pride of place in Christian marriage. For matrimonial faith demands that husband and wife be joined in an especially holy and pure love, not as adulterers love each other, but as Christ loved the Church.

- Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii (On Christian Marriage), 1930, n. 23.

[akacatholicism]

Marriage Is Essentially Monogamous

Nor did Christ Our Lord wish only to condemn any form of polygamy or polyandry, as they are called, whether successive or simultaneous, and every other external dishonorable act, but, in order that the sacred bonds of marriage may be guarded absolutely inviolate, He forbade also even willful thoughts and desires of such like things: “But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Which words of Christ Our Lord cannot be annulled even by the consent of one of the partners of marriage for they express a law of God and of nature which no will of man can break or bend.

- Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii (On Christian Marriage), 1930, n. 21.

[akacatholicism]

The Conjugal Union Is Exclusive to Marriage

Nor must We omit to remark, in fine, that since the duty entrusted to parents for the good of their children is of such high dignity and of such great importance, every use of the faculty given by God for the procreation of new life is the right and the privilege of the married state alone, by the law of God and of nature, and must be confined absolutely within the sacred limits of that state.

- Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii (On Christian Marriage), 1930, n. 18.