sabbath1

Where do we find a change from the Sabbath of the Bible to Sunday worship?

      �Sunday is our Mark of authority...the church is above the Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact� Catholic Record of London, Ontario Sept. 1, 1923

      �The church took the pagan philosophy and made it the buckler of faith against the heathen. She took the pagan Roman Pantheon, temple of all the gods, and made it sacred to all the martyrs; so it stands to this day. She took the pagan Sunday and made it the Christian Sunday. She took the pagan Easter and made it the feast we celebrate during this season�.
�The sun was a foremost god with heathendom�. There is, in truth, something royal, kingly about the sun, making it a fit emblem of Jesus, the Sun of justice. Hence the church in these countries would seem to have said, �Keep that old pagan name. It shall remain consecrated, sanctified.� And thus the pagan Sunday, dedicated to Balder [the god of light and peace], became the Christian Sunday, sacred to Jesus.� Catholic World Vol. 58, no. 348, March, 1894, p. 809.

      "Some non-Catholics object to Purgatory because there is no specific mention of it in Scripture. There is no specific mention of the word Sunday in Scripture. The Sabbath is mentioned, but Sabbath means Saturday. Yet the Christians of almost all denominations worship on Sunday not on Saturday. The Jews observe Saturday. Nowhere in the Bible is it stated that worship should be changed from Saturday to Sunday." Martin J. Scott, Things Catholics are Asked About, 1927, p. 236 [Scott (1865-1954) was a Jesuit theologian and one of the foremost Catholic defenders of his time].

      "It is well to remind the Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and all other Christians, that the Bible does not support them anywhere in their observance of Sunday. Sunday is an institution of the Roman Catholic Church, and those who observe the day observe a commandment of the Catholic Church." Priest Brady, in an address at Elizabeth, N.J. on March 17, 1903, reported in the Elizabeth, N.J. News of March 18, 1903.

      "Is not every Christian obliged to sanctify Sunday and to abstain on that day from unnecessary servile work? Is not the observance of this law among the most prominent of our sacred duties? But you may search the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify." James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of Our Fathers, 92nd ed., rev., p. 89 [Cardinal Gibbons (1834-1921) was archbishop of Baltimore. This book was the most famous Catholic book in America a hundred years ago].

      "For ages all Christian nations looked to the Catholic Church, and, as we have seen, the various states enforced by law her ordinances as to worship and cessation of labor on Sunday. Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the Church, has no good reason for its Sunday theory, and ought logically, to keep Saturday as the Sabbath. The State in passing laws for the due Sanctification of Sunday, is unwittingly acknowledging the authority of the Catholic Church, and carrying out more or less faithfully its prescription. The Sunday as a day of the week set apart for the obligatory public worship of Almighty God is purely a creation of the Catholic Church." John Gilmary Shea, in The American Catholic Quarterly Review, January 1883, p. 139 [Shea (1824-1892) was an important Catholic historian, of his time].

"Question: How prove you that the Church hath power to command feasts and holy days?�
"Answer: By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of [by observing it]; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same church." Priest Henry Tuberville, An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine, p. 58 [In 1833, Tuberville received a papal approbation--a special Vatican approval--on this book].

      "Some theologians have held that God [in the Bible] likewise directly determined the Sunday as the day of worship in the New Law, that He Himself has explicitly substituted the Sunday for the Sabbath. But this theory is now entirely abandoned. It is now commonly held that God simply gave His [Catholic] Church the power to set aside whatever day or days, she would deem suitable as Holy Days. The Church chose Sunday, the first day of the week, and in the course of time added other days, as holy days." Vincent J. Kelly, Forbidden Sunday and Feast Day Occupations, 1943, p. 2 [Kelly, a Catholic priest, prepared this at Catholic University of America].

"Question: When Protestants do profane work [regular employment] upon Saturday, or the seventh day of the week, do they follow the Scripture as their only rule of faith--do they find this permission clearly laid down in the Sacred Volume?
"Answer: On the contrary, they have only the authority of [Catholic] tradition for this practice. In profaning Saturday, they violate one of God's commandments, which He has never abrogated,--'Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath day.'
"Question: Is the observance of Sunday, as the day of rest, a matter clearly laid down in Scripture?
"Answer: It certainly is not; and yet all Protestants consider the observance of this particular day as essentially necessary to salvation. To say, we observe the Sunday, because Christ rose from the dead on that day is to say we act without warrant of Scripture; and we might as well [incorrectly] say, that we should rest on Thursday because Christ ascended to heaven on that day." Priest Steven Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism, pp. 252, 254 [The catechism of this Scottish priest is widely used in Catholic schools to instruct children into their beliefs].

      "Scripture and Tradition are called the remote rule of faith, because the Catholic does not base his faith directly on these sources. The proximate rule of faith is for him the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, which alone has received from God the authority to interpret infallibly the doctrines He has revealed, whether these be contained in Scripture or in Tradition . . . If we consulted the Bible only, we should still have to keep holy the Sabbath Day, that is, Saturday." John Laux, A Course in Religion for Catholic High Schools and Academies, 1936 edition, vol. 1, p. 51 [J.J. Laux (1878-1939) was a Catholic priest, teacher, and author of many Catholic histories as well as biographies of their saints].

      "Like two sacred rivers flowing from Paradise, the Bible and divine Tradition contain the Word of God, the precious gems of revealed truths. Though these two divine streams are in themselves, on account of their divine origin, of equal sacredness, and are both full of revealed truths, still, of the two, TRADITION is to us more clear and safe.� [full caps, theirs] Joseph F. Di Bruno, Catholic Belief, 1884 ed., p. 45 [Di Bruno was an Italian Catholic cleric].

      On April 30, 1922, in the Vatican throne room, a throng of cardinals, bishops, priests, nuns, boys, and girls, who had all fallen on their knees in reverence of the one before them, were addressed from the throne by Pope Pius XI, who said: "You know that I am the Holy Father, the representative of God on the earth, the Vicar of Christ, which means I am God on the earth." Pope Pius Xl, quoted in The Bulwark, October, 1922, p. 104 [Pius Xl (1857-1939) was pope from 1922-1939, and was the one who signed the Treaty of the Lateran with Mussolini in 1929, whereby Vatican City was established.

      "The Pope can modify [change] the Divine Law." Lucius Ferraris, Ecclesiastical Dictionary [Ferraris (d. before 1763) was an Italian Catholic official of the Franciscan order, highly placed in the Church].

      "The Pope is of so great dignity and so exalted that he is not a mere man, but as it were God, and the vicar of God. He is the divine monarch and supreme emperor, and king of kings. Hence the Pope is crowned with a triple crown, as king of heaven and of earth and of the lower regions." Lucius Ferraris, Prompta Bibliotheca, vol. 6, art. "Papa II" [Ferraris (d. prior to 1763) was an Italian Catholic canonist and consultor to the Holy Office in Rome].

      "We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty." Pope Leo XIII, in an encyclical letter dated June 20, 1894, The Great Encyclical Letters of Leo XIII, p. 304 [Leo XIII (1810-1903) was pope from 1878 until his death. He was one of the most forceful popes of the nineteenth century]

      "All of us believe many things in regard to religion that we do not find in the Bible. For example, nowhere in the Bible do we find that Christ or the apostles changed [the day] from Saturday to Sunday. We have the commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy the Sabbath Day, that is the 7th day of the week, Saturday. Today most Christians keep Sunday because it has been revealed to us by the Church outside the Bible." "To Tell You The Truth," The Catholic Virginian, 22, October 3, 1947, p. 9.

"Q. What is the Third Commandment? [the fourth in Protestant Bibles, because the Catholic Church took out the Second Commandment--Exodus 20:4-6]
"A. The Third Commandment is: Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.
"Q. Which is the Sabbath day?
"A. Saturday is the Sabbath day.
"Q. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?
"A. The Catholic Church, after changing the day of rest from Saturday, the seventh day of the week, to Sunday, the first day, made the third commandment refer to Sunday as the day to be kept as the Lord's Day." Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 4, p. 153.

      "The Church changed the observance of the Sabbath to Sunday by right of the divine, infallible authority given to her by her founder, Jesus Christ. The Protestant claiming the Bible to be the only guide of faith, has no warrant for observing Sunday. In this matter the Seventh-day Adventist is the only consistent Protestant." The Catholic Universe Bulletin, August 14, 1942, p. 4 [This is the political weekly newspaper at the Cleveland Catholic Diocese].

      "The [Catholic] Church, by the power our Lord gave her, changed the observance of Saturday to Sunday." The Catholic canon, H. Cafferata, The Catechism Simply Explained, 1932 edition, p.80.

      "The Catholic Church for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her Divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday . . . But the Protestant says: 'How can I receive the teachings of an apostate Church?' How, we ask, have you managed to receive her teaching all your life, in direct opposition to your recognized teacher, the Bible, on the Sabbath question?" The Christian Sabbath, 2nd ed., published by the Catholic Mirror of Baltimore, 1893, pp. 29-31. [The journal of James Cardinal Gibbons].

"Question: What Bible authority is there for changing the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week? Who gave the Pope the authority to change a command of God?�
"Answer: If the Bible is the only guide for the Christian, then the Seventh-day Adventist is right, in observing the Saturday with the Jew . . . Is it not strange that those who make the Bible their only teacher, should inconsistently follow in this matter the tradition of the Catholic Church?" Bertrand Conway, The Question Box, 1903 ed., pp. 254-255; 1915 ed., p. 179 [Conway (1872-1959) was a Paulist father in the Catholic Church].

      "Prove to me from the Bible alone that I am bound to keep Sunday holy. There is no such law in the Bible. It is a law of the holy Catholic Church alone. The Bible says 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' The Catholic Church says, No. By my divine power I abolish the Sabbath day and command you to keep holy the first day of the week. And ho! The entire civilized world bows down in reverent obedience to the command of the Holy Catholic Church." Priest Thomas Enright, CSSR, President of Redemptorist College, Kansas City, Mo., in a lecture at Hartford, Kansas, February 18, 1884, and printed in the Hartford Kansas Weekly Call, February 22, 1884, and the American Sentinel, a New York Roman Catholic journal in June 1893, page 173.

      "Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change was her act . . . AND THE ACT IS A MARK of her ecclesiastical power." from the office of Cardinal Gibbons, through Chancellor H.F. Thomas, November 11, 1895.

More Biblical facts on the Holy Sabbath Day to follow soon....

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