Was there ever a time when people could read the bible easily?

What makes you 100% right over me?

I'm not. When it comes to the Apocalypse, there aren't any Catholic dogmas associated with it. It's a difficult book, and it's not something that scholars have agreed on throughout the history of the Church. So I'm not committed to the idea that I have everything correct on it either. But I will generally defer to the theologians who have studied it in line with the traditions of the Church.

All religions seem to have something wrong in their dogma.

Yet our Lord specifically said that He would send the Paraclete to guide the Church, and that He would lead the Church into all truth. This is the exact opposite of what you have just said. Our Lord didn't leave the Bible when He left. He didn't commission the Apostles to write the Bible. He left the Church, which is the pillar and bulwark of the truth. To the Church was given the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, not to individuals studying the Bible. Even the Ethiopian who met St Philip confessed that he could not understand the Scriptures without a teacher. St Peter said that Scripture is not a matter of private interpretation and went so far as to say that much of it was hard to understand and that some people misinterpret it to their own destruction.

So having said that, I don't put a lot of stock in anybody's private interpretations, mine included. I lean on the Church, because that is what our Lord said would be led to all truth. Not me, not Joseph Smith, not Charles Russell, or anybody else.

So if somebody comes up to me and says that what Christians have universally believed since the beginning of the Church and says that it's wrong, I'm not going to pay any heed to him, because the promise of the Paraclete was to the Church, not just any old Joe who happens to think he has the right idea of what the Bible teaches.

/r/Catholicism Thread Parent