The Bible Societies

Simultaneously, the various Bible Societies had been inspired to print and distribute the Bible as a ministry to the common people. This was a logical next step after the “little book” was opened (Revelation 10:2) in 1452 with the first edition printing of the Gutenberg Bible. Being no longer hand copied, Bibles became small and inexpensive, making them available to the average person. The Bible was thus taken out the front of the church where it had been chained to a table, and it was placed in the homes of men everywhere.

The Bible Societies also began to translate the Bible into foreign languages to make it available to the rest of the world. The popes ranted in vain against this new development, for Revelation 3:8 had promised an open door that “no one will shut.” And so the attempts of Pope Leo XII (1823-1835) to stop the spread of Scripture were in vain. His words opposing the dissemination of Scripture are recorded in Cormenin's History of the Popes, Vol. II, pp. 426-427,

“There is a sect, my brethren, who arrogating wrongfully to themselves the name of philosophy, have rekindled from their ashes the dispersed phalanxes of errors. This sect, covered externally by the flattering appearances of piety and liberality, professes toleration, or rather indifference, and interferes not only with civil affairs, but even with those of religion; teaching that God has given entire freedom to every man, so that each one can, without endangering his safety, embrace and adopt the sect or opinion which suits his private judgment.... This doctrine, though seducing and sensible in appearance, is profoundly absurd; and I cannot warn you too much against the impiety of these maniacs...

“What shall I say more? The iniquity of the enemies of the Holy See is so increased, that besides the deluge of pernicious books with which they inundate Europe, it goes so far as to turn the religion of the holy scriptures to detriment. A society, commonly called the Bible Society, spreads itself audaciously over the whole earth, and in contempt of the traditions of the holy fathers, in opposition to the celebrated decree of the council of Trent, which prohibits the holy scriptures from being made common, it publishes translations of them in all the languages of the world. Several of our predecessors have made laws to turn aside this scourge; and we also, in order to acquit ourselves of our pastoral duty, urge the shepherds to remove their flocks carefully from these mortal pasturages.... Let God arise: let him repress, confound, annihilate this unbridled license of speaking, writings, and publishing—.”

Men had begun to translate the Bible into common languages as early as the 1400's, and many, like John Wycliff had been burned at the stake for their work.

By the late 1500's there were so many common translations in print, the Roman Church was forced to bring forth its own English translation of the Bible in 1582-1609 called the Douay-Rheims Bible. It was revised by Bishop Richard Challoner from 1749-1752. Rome claimed this Bible to be a better translation than all others, even though it was basically an English translation of the Latin Vulgate, rather than from the earlier Greek text itself.

The Roman ban on Bible translations remained in effect at least until the Roman Church officially gave up trying to suppress the Scriptures in the 1890's. Even so, it was not until Vatican II in the early 1960's that the Roman Church completely stopped trying to prevent Catholics from reading the Bible. The Church then simply stopped talking about those earlier “infallible” decrees banning the Scriptures. The Roman Church could not close this open door that God had opened, so they joined the crowd and pretended that previously-locked door never existed.