Portsmouth Roman Catholic

I was taught in my school to say the Rosary.  When it came to the Rosary I said "Hail Full of Grace....."    When the passage in scripture from Luke was recited the priest read "Hail full of Grace......."    Today in Church the priest reads "Hail, highly favoured one......"   So why in a Catholic Church have we ignored Tradition and why do we read a Protestant translation? When I say Tradition I am not just saying "Well Catholics for generations have said "Hail, full of grace" so maybe they were wrong and we just changed the words, it is no significant loss.   But in Tradition it is a very significant loss.   I have a Revised Standard Version of the Bible, A Catholic translation.   If we go to Luke 1 it tells us that the Angel Gabriel said "Hail full of grace....." but it has a small 'a' beside it, and if we go to the foot of the page we see that 'a' draws our attention to an alternative translation.  Yes, you pro

I was asking first what St Jerome had to do with anything.   Then I found evidence that great scholars who were working to unite Catholics and Protestants in one Bible had claimed that St Jerome was in favour of removing the Greek books not approved by the Hebrews, and for this claim he became a focal point for the English bishops.   Certainly I can understand their fanaticism in getting rid of a purely Catholic interpretation of the Bible, but ignoring the final Council of Carthage 419 AD and trying  to promote St Jerome as a decision maker can only be called dishonest.     From the Fathers onwards the Greek scriptures had been used by ecclesiastical writers.  Yes, there were those who knew better, there always has been and there always will be, but the Church always questioned itself .   So we had the Council of Rome 382 AD,  the Council of Hippo 393 AD, the Council of Carthage 397 AD, and the final Council of Carthage 419AD which settled the question once and for all by declaring al

In a previous post I mentioned my disappointment with the National document introducing The God Who Speaks,   In particular I asked what St Jerome had to do with anything.   St Jerome was certainly a Saint and a Scholar who translated the approved Books of the New Testament and the Old into  Latin, but he made no decision as to what books or letters should be used    I had a breakthrough on this when I picked up my Family Bible.  For over thirty years I have had this Bible but I never read the introduction for it is such a beautiful Bible with so much more in it than just the Canon of Scripture.   There are pictures of the Vatican at the beginning, then throughout appears other beautiful coloured pictures of events in the Bible.    It is the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.   What it revised was the King James version of the Bible.   How did Catholics get involved?    In the UK in 1953 som catholic 'scholars' got together with the Protestants to see if they could pub

I bought my first Bible when I was 11 years old.   It was the Ronald Knox version.  Ronald Knox was an English clergyman who in the 1930's, again having examined the Catholicity of the Early Church, was covered to the Catholic Church.   It was an inspiring book to read, especially the psalms and the Song of Songs in the Old Testament and the Parables of Jesus in the New Testament..  Perhaps such readings brought out the Poet in me.    However reading the Bible was always in harmony with my love for the Catholic Church that nourished and fed my soul.  I cannot separate the two and I never have.   That is why the Church is always my guide when some passages confuse me.   In the Church it is known as reading the Bible with the tradition of the Catholic Church. I now know through my study that when at the Council of Carthage 419 AD the Church gathered together all the writings of the Early Church, and there were many orthodox writings, to put aside those to use at Mass and called the

Pilatr said "so then you are a King?",   Jesus answered "It is you who say that I am a king, I was born for this, I came into the world for this, to bear witness to the truth, and all who are on the side of truth listen to me"   "Truth" said Pilate "What is that".   Matthew 18:37 Jimmy Akin, Author of 'The Fathers know Best' was an Evangelical Minister who following the example of Scott Hahn, began to study the Early church and the Fathers of the Church.  Here is his story in one short paragraph. "Then, by God's grace, by God's grace my eyes were opened to the problems of  Protestantism.   Without question it was my discover6y of the witness of the early Church Fathers that most opened my heart and mind toward th Catholic Faith.   Fortunately God provided helpers to assist me in finding and working my way through the few available collections of the Fathers, most of which were out of print, and some badly skewed by anti-c

I had a friend who went to an ecumenical meeting last year.   She happened to say that when she found herself troubled she prayed to Mary.    At the end of the meeting three people from a certain denomination approached another catholic and asked him to tell the lady who had mentioned Mary that she must not mention her at these meetings.    So it was ecumenical, but had to be run their way. When the Reformers struck in the 60's and 70's, all devotions to Mary were stopped, and as Cardinal Heenan pointed out when devotion to Mary ends then so does devotion to Jesus, and in my diocese priests were 'taught' to remove the Blessed Sacrament from the altar, since a new Jesus and a new Church were to be formed 'in the community'. . I was therefore disheartened when the English Bishops pronounced a Year of the Bible.  Their literature spoke nothing Catholic and indeed Catholics were directed to buy their Bibles from the Protestant Bible Society. But the Bible is no

"All authority is given to me in heaven and on earth, go therefore and TEACH ALL NATIONS baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit , and teaching them to OBSERVE ALL I HAVE COMMANDED YOU.....Matthew 28 We also remember what Paul taught Timothy "Hold fast to that which I have taught you by word or by scripture, os that even if an angel from above teaches something different let him be anathema" But as more and more scripture was written disputes began right from th beginning.   There was always to be those in the Church who from pride or prejudice would know better than those appointed by Jesus.k.   Heretics and schismatics abounded.   so much so that we find St Ignatius of Antioch calling the Church Catholic.    Most heresies were confined to a certain area and the growing Church, which kept faithful to the Apostolic tradition was more and more  called Catholic until the term became normal use.   Being in the Catholic Church meant

The Second and final Council of Carthage dealing with what books the Catholic Church would choose to be read in the Churches, decided that the books of the Septuaginta, a Greek translation of the Old Testament, because they were widely used in the Church, would be used in the new Canon of Scripture.   ,What this meant is that certain books 1st and 2nd Maccabees, Sirach, Wisdom, Baruch,   Tobit and Judith; as well as parts of Daniel and Esther would be used.    A thousand years later at the Protestant Reformation these books were removed from the Protestant translation of the Bible and the reason is not clear.   In the New Testament the letter of James was removed from the New Testament by some Protestants because it conflicted with their "Faith alone is needed" doctrine.   Be that as it may, after nearly 400 years of Church History and the writings of the Fathers, we had a Bible which was put together by Catholics Bishops and declared trustworthy and using its infallibility o

We have seen how the Early Church embraced the Real Presence in describing the consecrated host as the Flesh of Jesus and the Blood of Jesus.   But let us look at the setting in which this took place.   I will return to my Protestant Historian J.N.D Kelly.    "the eucharist was seen as the distinctively Christian SACRIFICE.........Malachi's prediction (Malachi 1:10-11) that the Lord would reject Jewish sacrifices and instead would have a pure offering made to Him by the Gentiles, was seized upon by the Christians as a prophecy of the Eucharist.   Didache actually applies the term THUSA or sacrifice to the Eucharist.   It was natural for christians to think of the Eucharist as a sacrifice.    The fulfilment of prophecy demanded a SOLEMN Christian offering and the RITE itself was wrapped in a sacrificial atmosphere WITH WHICH OUR LORD INVESTED THE LAST SUPPER". The prophecy of Malachi is repeated throughout the early Christian Church.  St  Clement a contemporary of the Ap

There were two important Councils of Carthage.   I wrongly wrote about the Council of Carthage in 397 as being the second of these.    In fact there was a Council of Carthage in 419AD which was the second and final one.   So I apologise for my misleading information.   It is interesting though that St Jerome was now on the scene and in a letter he wrote in 401 he was obviously being criticised for including certain texts from the Old Testament which were disputed by the Jews of Jerusalem and those who were known as the Jews of the Dispersal, those who had travelled to other parts of the world.    Jerome dismissed  the attacks on him using the Texts as the work of a foolish sycophant and carried on with his work.  At the Council of Carthage the Church gave him full backing, as indeed did the First Council of Carthage.  At no time in the early Church did the Church make any distinction between the Protocanonical texts and the Deutrocanonical Texts and the Church Fathers and Eccleiastical

One of the results of the Reformation was that by seeing the bible as 'sola scripture' the only authority by which we can come to God, the Reformers cut themselves off from the early history of the Church.   To know and love Jesus Christ all you needed to do was read the Bible.   I find it strange after 500 years of disputes and divisions that there are very few people who actually question this approach and yet I acknowledge that it is only through their reading of the Bible that the Holy Spirit can see their desire to love Jesus, and make them the holy people they want to be, and I further acknowledge the wonderful faith of so many of my Protestant neighbours. Yet how sad I feel that so many will not have  the joy of receiving Jesus in that most personal and intimate way which Jesus intended for all his followers - the Body and Blood of Jesus in Holy communion.   But this is where 'sola scripture' lets them down.   They interpret the Bible passages for themselves an

I just recently read about a Protestant Church in America which had a 'pro-gay faction' and an 'anti-gay' faction'.   The argument went along the usual lines of one group saying that homosexuality was condemned by scripture and another claiming that this was not so.   Both sides would have prayed about the matter and concluded that the Holy Spirit was guiding them in their decision.   But disagreement among Protestants is nothing new.   Indeed after the Reformation there was a meeting at Geneva of the Reformers and they could not agree on a Common Translation.   The years after this saw split after split until we now have over 25,000 Protestant denominations and sects. Now if in Matthew 28 when Jesus said to the Apostles "All authority is given to me, go therefore and teach all nations" he had actually meant for them to put some scriptures together through which everyone would understand his teaching and act on them, then the mission of Jesus has been al

Not so long ago I was puzzled by an announcement that the year 2020 was a year in which they would rededicate England as the Dowry of Mary.  'They' of course, were the Bishops of England and Wales.   But I remained positive that perhaps those who had sacrificed devotion to Mary as an unecumenical truth, had actually changed.   I did however have my reservations and plunged into trying to get an organised devotion going in my own parish.   At Masses I gave a talk to say how worried I was about the situation and how it may turn out to be an insult to her since there did not seem to be the same devotion to her as in days of the past.   But I was not talking about personal devotion which in my own parish is beginning to flourish.   My talk was about commitment to Mary as a parish.   It got praise this speech, but I was unable to turn the idea into something concrete. Now on this feast of the Mother of God,  the bishops were to prepare this year of rededication of England as the D