"bibles"

In my room here at the retreat house, there are two "bibles". I use lower-case and quotation marks because I am hesitant to refer to them as actual Bibles. Why, you may ask? They are both protestant. Yup. I am in a Catholic retreat house and it has protestant bibles in the rooms.

One is the Revised Standard Version -- no, not the Catholic Edition. It says on the cover "includes the Apocrypha". This means they added a few books that were in the original King James version of the Bible in 1611 (but no longer included in modern editions), but they are not considered actual Scripture by the publishers. This also means, however, that there are a couple books included with the "apocrypha" that the Catholic Church does not consider as part of the Scriptures either. Yet, if you do not know the difference, you are left in the dark.

The other version is -- get this -- a modern King James "placed by the Gideons" (a group that is distinctly un-catholic). In other words, there is not a Catholic Bible in the room except the one I brought with me. Aside from the confusion it will create in the minds of Catholics who visit here, this reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Catholic faith is. Years ago it was forbidden for Catholics to read or even own unapproved translations of the Scriptures because they were translated by people who do not hold to the Catholic faith and are therefore not in submission to the truth as revealed by God through the Church.

Now, I can only come up with two explanations as to why these "bibles" would be here. First, it could be because those in charge here do not care whether the Catholic faith or the protestant sectarian faith is taught. I find this unlikely, but I do not know the minds of all men. Second, it could be because they are ignorant of the problem. This is the most likely explanation; sadly. It means, as I have said before, that vast numbers of Catholics are unaware of what the Church teaches, what the faith is, and how we live out that faith. Jesus once said, "O you of little faith, how long must I endure you?"

Know your faith, and know how to discern what is not your faith; and do not let the devil take it away from you.