Jeff,

To tackle your last question first, for us to be guilty of sin, we must be aware that something is sinful and freely choose to do it. It doesn't sound like that would be the case here with your wife and her reading.

Secondly, I find it surprising that an old Catholic Bible would expressly forbid anyone to read a Bible translated by Protestants. I have never read nor heard anything similar from Church authorities in my lifetime. Maybe it was a norm at one time, in order to protect the faithful from doctrinal errors that arose from faulty translations [and/or] footnotes.

Maybe some of my colleagues can add something to offset my ignorance on this.

Peace,

Paul

Hi, Jeff —

It is possible that in the pre-Vatican II Church, some Catholic Bibles would have such a prescription. The Church was simply trying to keep Catholics from being exposed to Protestant translations and more importantly the study notes which clearly put an anti-Catholic twist in the notes.

In recent years, the Church has changed her approach. Rather than forbidding Catholics from reading material, the Church encourages Catholics to be well-versed in the biblical roots of Catholic doctrine so when a Catholic encounters anti-Catholic rhetoric, he or she will know how to respond.

As to the question of sin:

As Paul has said, you need to know you are committing a sin in order to be guilty of sin. That said, I'd want to look at the exact language. If it says:

Catholics shouldn't read

as opposed to:

the Church forbids

then it sounds like the notes are just giving advice.

If the Church did impose such a provision, then willful disobedience would be a sin; not because reading a Protestant Bible is sinful, in and of itself, but because it would show disobedience to the Church's pastoral provision or discipline.

John