Wrong information about the Church

Monday, December 2, 2024

A friend sent me the following link to an allegedly “thought provoking video” in order to explain me why he refuses to trust in the Church:

• Alan Watts Opens Up About Religion

Hey! This is defamation. The Roman-Catholic church does not say that “the Bible is literally true and that it was actually dictated by God to Moses and the prophets and the apostles”. Biblicists say this, but the Church doesn’t. The Catholic Church officially renounced from biblicism during the Second Vatican Council in 1965.

The Church should more clearly identify and criticize such disinformation. Because it causes normal humans of good will to turn away from anybody who mentions the Bible, making people unable to learn about the Gospel.

Alan Watts is not stupid. I like his way of thinking. For example I fully agree with his observation that the Roman-Catholic church says “We are giving you these scriptures on our authority and by the authority of the informal tradition that has existed among us from the beginning, inspired by the Holy Spirit” and that “that the Church collectively, speaking under the presumed guidance of the Holy Spirit, has the authority to interpret the Bible”.

It’s only these few words about the Bible being “literally true” and “actually dictated by God” that make the whole building, the final result, turn from “true” to “wrong”. A flicflac. That’s why it’s actually a waste of time to discuss these things.

P.S.

Two days after writing above blog post, I had the idea of looking up who this Alan Watts is, and I was surprised: he lived from 1915 to 1973. The form of presentation had given me the impression that this text was a recent one. So my defamation reproach does not go to Watts but to this presentation, which kind of forgets to mention that these words have been written before the Second Vatican Council.