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The Anti-Catholic Bible

Not so long ago people were saying that anti-Catholicism was going the way of the dinosaur. If so, itlooks like the dinosaur has made an unexpected come back, because anti-Catholicism is healthierand more widespread now than it has been for years. Since the late 1970s several new anti-Catholic

organizations have been founded, and some older ones have been revitalized. A partial lineupincludes Chick Publications, Mission to Catholics International, Lumen Productions, Research andEducation Foundation, Osterhus Publishing House, Christians United for Reformation (CURE),Harvest House, and Bob Jones University Press. Combined they turn out more anti-Catholic tracts,magazines, and books than ever beforemillions of copies each year. When one reads enough ofthis material, one becomes aware that the same points tend to be made by different writers in thesame way, even in the same words. Who is borrowing from whom? It doesnt seem that any of thesegroups relies very heavily on any other. Instead, they all fall back on one source, Loraine Boettnerswork, Roman Catholicism, a book first published in 1962 by Presbyterian and Reformed PublishingCompany of Philadelphia and reprinted many times since. This book is the origin of much of whatprofessional anti-Catholics distribute. It can be called, to use a phrase that might rankle some, the

"Bible" of the anti-Catholic movement. At first glance Roman Catholicism seems impressive. Its 460large pages of text are closely packed with quotations. The table of contents is broken down intodozens of categories, and the indices, though skimpy, at least are there. But a careful reading makes itclear that the authors antagonism to the Catholic Church has gravely compromised his intellectualobjectivity. He Swallows Them Whole The book suffers from a serious lack of scholarly rigor. Boettneraccepts at face value virtually any claim made by an opponent of the Church. Even when verificationof a charge is easy, he does not bother to check it out. If he finds something unflattering to Catholicism,he prints it. When the topic is the infallibility of the pope, Boettner quotes at length from a speechalleged to have been given in 1870 at the First Vatican Council, where papal infallibility was formallydefined. The speech, attributed to "the scholarly archbishop [sic, bishop] Strossmeyer," claims that the"archbishop" read the New Testament for the first time shortly before he gave the speech and found

no mention at all of the papacy. The speech then concludes that Peter was given no greater authoritythan the other apostles. The trouble is that the speech is a well-known forgery. Bishop Strossmeyerdid not make that speech, and, in fact, when it was being circulated by a disgruntled former Catholic,the bishop repeatedly and publicly denied that it was his and demanded a retraction by the guilty party.A glance at the Catholic Encyclopedia or a work like Newman Eberhardts A Summary of CatholicHistory would have clued in Boettner. This gross error has been repeated by many of the anti-Catholicgroups that rely on Boettner. None of them, apparently, became suspicious, though the speech reads

as though it came from a stereotypical "Bible thumping" Protestant rather than a "scholarly" Catholicbishop. Sometimes Boettners mistakes are just juvenile. He calls All Souls Day (November2)

"Purgatory Day," a term never used by Catholics because the feast is not in commemoration ofpurgatory but of the souls there. He argues that the book of Tobit cannot be an inspired book of theBible because its "stories are fantastic and incredible," and it includes an account of appearances of anangel disguised as a man. Boettner does not seem to realize that such an argument could be usedagainst, say, the book of Jonah or Genesis. Is living in the belly of a great fish any more incredible thanmeeting an angel in disguise? And then theres the more basic problem that other books inScripturebooks Boettner and all Protestants accept as inspiredalso contain references to angelsappearing disguised as men (cf. Gen. 19; Heb. 13:2).When he writes about the definition of papal

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infallibility, Boettner says that a pope speaks infallibly only "when he is speaking ex cathedra, that is,seated in the papal chair." He then points out that what is venerated as Peters chair inSt. PetersBasilica may be only a thousand years old, implying that since Peters actual chair is not present, thereis no place for the pope to sit, and thus, by the Churchs own principles, the pope cannot make anyinfallible pronouncements. Boettner entirely misunderstands the meaning of the Latin term ex

cathedra. It does translate as "from the chair," but it does not mean that the pope has to be sitting in theliteral chair Peter owned for his decree to be infallible and to qualify as an ex cathedra pronouncement.To speak "from the chair of Peter" is what the pope does when he speaks with the fullness of hisauthority as the successor of Peter. It is a metaphor that refers to the popes authority to teach, not towhere he sits when he teaches. Notice, too, that the term ex cathedra, as a reference to teachingauthority, was not invented by the Catholic Church. Jesus used it. In Matthew 23:23 Jesus said, "Thescribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses seat (Greek: kathedras, Latin: cathedra); so practice andobserve whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice." Eventhough these rabbis did not live according to the norms they taught, Jesus points out that they did haveauthority to teach and to make rules binding on the Jewish community. Where Did You Get That?Boettners Roman Catholicism contains a mere two dozen footnotes, all of the madded to recent

reprintings to reflect minor changes in the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council. Withinthe text, biblical passages are properly cited, but references to Catholic works are so vague as todiscourage checking by making it difficult or impossible to locate the work or the reference. Many timesthere is no reference. A certain pope will be alleged to have said somethingbut thereis no citationgiven to support the claim. A Catholic author of the seventeenthcentury is alleged to have claimedsomethingbut again no reference that can bechecked. Sometimes there may be mention of aCatholic book, but no page number orpublication information given.By contrast, when non-Catholicauthors are cited, the reference usually includestitle and page number. One suspects that Boettenertook his alleged Catholicquotations and citations from Protestant works and then deliberately failed toreference them in order to conceal the extent to which he is dependant onsecondary sources. This is acommon tactic among writers who have not done primarysource research and rely on second-handsources.What is even worse, Boettner seems to have no appreciation of the Catholic Churchfrom theinside. He seems to have made little effort to learn what the CatholicChurch says about itself or howCatholics answer the objections he makes. His"inside information" comes from disaffected ex-priestssuch as Emmett McLoughlinand L. H. Lehmann, or outright crackpots like the nineteenth-centurysensationalist Charles Chiniquy.The bibliography lists more books by ex-Catholics withgrudges than by Catholics.Of the mere seven books he cites written by Catholics, one is aninspirationaltext (by Archbishop Fulton Sheen), one concerns Catholic principles of politics (atopichardly touched on by Boettner), three are overviews of the Catholic faithwritten for laymen (one datesfrom 1876), and the last is a one-volume abridgmentof Philip Hughess three-volume work, A Historyof the Church, from which Boettnertakes a few lines (out of context) because, in isolation, they lookcompromising.These books are all fine in themselves, but refer to only a fraction of the topicsBoettnerwrites about, and none of them were written as a response to Protestantarguments. On most issueshe provides only a statement of the Fundamentalistposition, which he contrasts to a caricature of theCatholic position as set outby one of the ex-priests he cites.It may be that a man leaving one religionfor another can write fairly, withoutbitterness, about the one he left behind. John Henry Newman did soin hisautobiography, Apologia Pro Vita Sua. But some people have an urge to write abouttheir changeof beliefs to vent their frustrations or justify their actions. Theirbooks should be read and used withdiscretion, and if they show signs of rancor orbitterness, they shouldnt be regarded as trustworthy,unbiased explanations ofthe religion they abandoned. Alas, Boettner cant keep away from such

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books. Heeven uses works by the notorious anti-Catholic writer, Paul Blanshard, whosewritings wereso contorted they were disavowed in the 1950s by other anti-Catholics.Do Your Homework FirstWhenwriting about his own faith, Boettner remarks that the Evangelical orFundamentalist position "camedown through the ante-Nicene Fathers and Augustine,"which suggests that he accepts as in someway authoritative Christian writingsprior to 430, the year of Augustines death. But Boettner shows

virtually nofamiliarity with the patristic writings of the first several centuries of theChristian era. His bookincludes only six references to Augustine and nine toAugustines contemporary, Jerome. There is onemention of Pope Gelasius I, wholived a century later, and the next oldest writers cited are from theMiddle Ages.Boettner could have examined Patrology, Johannes Quastens four-volume work onthewritings of the early Church, composed in the decade before Roman Catholicism waswritten; orJoseph Tixeronts History of Dogmas, an older but standard Catholicwork on historical theology. Evena casual reading of these works would havedemonstrated to him that from the earliest years distinctiveCatholic doctrineswere held and taught by the Churchbelief in the Real Presence of Christ intheEucharist, baptismal regeneration, a hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons,the Mass as asacrifice, the special authority of the bishop of Rome, prayers for

the deadand he would have seen that the contrary Fundamentalist positions heespouses are notsupported. He thinks he knows what Augustine and the otherFathers wrote, but he gives noimpression that he is at all familiar with theirwritings.In the chapter on Mary he claims, "The phraseMother of God originated in theCouncil of Ephesus, in the year 431." Boettner makes a score ofblunders here.Does he expect his readers to believe that the phrase "Mother of God" was neveruseduntil the day it became a dogma? He presupposes that his readers trust himwith a blind obedience,never bothering to do the homework that he failed to do.By suggesting that a doctrine is not taught untilit is infallibly defined, onecould equally argue that no one believed that Jesus was God until the CouncilofNicaea defined the matter in 325. The divinity of Christ was taught centuriesbefore Nicaea, just asthe phrase "Mother of God" permeated the writings of theChurch Fathers long before Ephesus.Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Cyril ofJerusalem, Athanasius, Ambrose, Jerome, and numerous

others took for granted thatMary could rightly be given this title. Boettner curiously omits referencetothese, as they would decimate his argument.In his introduction, Boettner boasts: "Let Protestantschallenge Rome to full andopen debate regarding the distinctive doctrines that separate the twosystems, andit will be seen that the one thing Rome does not want is public discussion." Thecuriousthing is that many of the anti-Catholic groups that rely so heavily onBoettner are unwilling to engage inpublic debates.Many representatives of such groups will give talks at Fundamentalist churches tostokethe fires of anti-Catholicism, and those in the audience will be sent tostand outside Catholic churchesand distribute tracts. But challenge any to adebate and what happens? The people with the tracts willsay they have to checkwith their pastors. Besides, they say, they arent professional debaters anddontwant to be set up. Their pastors refuse to sanction any public forums because theysay they "dontsee the need," or they worry about heat from their congregationsfor consorting with papists. Is this the

"full and open debate" Boettner callsfor?Many Protestantswhether or not they realize howinaccurate and unscholarlyBoettners work islook to Roman Catholicism for their arguments againsttheCatholic Church. Catholics should prepare themselves for discussions withProtestants by studyingScripture and Church history and by reading solid books onapologetics. That way they will beprepared to heed Peters exhortation: "Alwaysbe prepared to make a defense to any one who callsyou to account for the hopethat is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence" (1 Pet. 3:15).NIHILOBSTAT: I have concluded that the materialspresented in this work are free of doctrinal or moralerrors.Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004IMPRIMATUR: In accord with 1983