TRACING THE HISTORY OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH AND ITS PERSECUTION OF THE BIBLE AND OF BIBLE BELIEVERS

On December 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX issued the bull Ineffabilis Deus, which proclaimed the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. In 1899 the Pontifical Press published a book entitled Manual of Indulgences, which proclaimed: "The Virgin Mary, immaculate and always pure, never required to expiate even the shadow of an imperfection, having been always more holy than Cherubim and Seraphim." Thus the Vatican press was busy publishing books glorifying Mary, but it was doing nothing to publish the Holy Scriptures.

Writing in 1903, Alexander Robertson, who long resided in Italy, made the following observations:

On May 18, 1849, SOME THREE THOUSAND COPIES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, ACCORDING TO THE MARTINI VERSION, WERE SEIZED AND DESTROYED IN TUSCANY. Priests have told me that even they were not allowed to possess a Martini Bible without the Papal consent, and that the very fact of applying for such consent would bring them under suspicion, and so damage their prospects in the Church. Therefore, they said, 'WE HAVE NO BIBLES.'

"This is the first history ever published which details the relationship of the Roman Catholic Church to the Bible through the centuries. The author has spent thousands of dollars obtaining rare documents relevant to this history (such as a 1641 edition of Foxe's unabridged Acts and Monuments and researched the topic in important theological libraries in Canada, America, and England, including the British Library. The book covers the Roman Catholic Inquisition from the 11th to the 19th centuries, particularly the role played by the Inquisition to keep translations of the Bible out of the hands of the common people. It contains the history of ancient separated Christians, including the Waldensians and the Lollards. The book could also be titled "The Bible Through the Centuries." It gives the history of the English Bible from John Wycliffe to William Tyndale, and the history of the Spanish, German, French, and Italian Bibles. It contains amazing biographies of royal queens who loved the Bible. It gives the decade-by-decade details of papal condemnations of 19th-century Bible societies and of Roman Catholic persecution in the 19th century. It describes the 20th-century phenomenon of Rome changing tactics and joining hands with the Bible societies. It documents the similarities between the Lat in Vulgate and the modern versions. It answers the question: Has the Roman Catholic Church changed? The book contains 95 illustrations from rare out-of-print books. Click here for more information