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The Council of
Trent The Council of Trent convened in the late 16th century between 1545 and 1563 by the Catholic Church to halt progress of the Protestant Reformation and formulate the fundamentals of Catholic Creed. Many questions had been raised across Europe by the Protestant Reformers. These reformers, from Wycliffe to Luther to Zwingle, charged that the Mother Church had apostatized from "the truth delivered to the saints" and preserved "in the written word of God." Trent hurled 125 anathemas of eternal damnation against the Bible-believing Christians whose constant appeal and cry was to Sola Scriptura, "The Bible and the Bible only." Traditions established by "Holy fathers, popes and bishops" were held by the Church as equal to and even superior to Scripture. A crisis developed within the council as the ultra-Catholic party stood behind tradition as the only way to effectively condemn the Reformation, while a strong liberal segment favored abandoning "tradition" and adopting scripture as "the sole standard of appeal." Debate raged for many intense years until the Archbishop Reggio of Calabra spoke on 18 January, 1562. He suggested that Protestantism could be totally discredited by using the very scriptures they embrace and defend as evidence against them. John Eck, the Catholic priest who debated with Martin Luther in 1533, used the same argument: If you Protestants really believe the Bible, and the Bible only, then why don't you keep the Bible Sabbath instead of honoring Sunday, the day Rome chose to replace it? His speech is recorded in Heinrich Julius Holzmann's Kanon und Tradition , published in Ludwigsburg, Germany, in 1859, p. 263. In the excerpt cited here he observed that...
"The written Word explicitly enjoins
the observance of the seventh day as the Sabbath. They do not
observe the seventh day, but reject it! If they do truly hold
the scripture alone as their standard, they would be observing the
seventh day as is enjoined in the scripture throughout! Yet
they not only reject the observance of the Sabbath enjoined in the
written word, but they have adopted and do practice the observance
of Sunday, for which they have only the tradition of the Church...
The doctrine of "scripture and tradition" as essential, is fully
established, the Protestants themselves being the
judges." Some have pointed to a second recording of the 18 January presentation by Archbishop Reggio that does not allegedly reference the Sabbath-Sunday plot. The source given for this is the Nova Collectio Section 217. Session XVII. Concilium Tridentinum. Diariorum, Actorum, Epistularum, Tractuum.. Tomus Octavus. Actorum Pars Quinta . Translated by Freiburg: Published by B. Herder, in 1919, p. 293-299. On this basis, argument is made that the account given by Holzmann is spurious. Regardless of this, the tone and tack of the Catholic Church has been consistent with Reggio's oratory, apocraphal or not! For 400 years the Catholic Church has boasted of its claim to have changed the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday as evidence of its authority to do so and its supremacy within Christendom. Here is a small sampling of Catholic literature addressing this very issue: "The Sabbath, the most glorious day in the law, has been changed into
the Lord's day.... These and other similar matters have not ceased by
virtue of Christ's teaching (for He says He has come to fulfill the law,
not to destroy it), but they have been changed by the authority of the
church." "It is curious to recall that this observance of Sunday, which is the
only principle of Protestantism, not only does not rest upon the Bible,
but is in flagrant contradiction with the letter of the Bible requiring
the rest of the Sabbath, or Saturday. It was the Catholic Church which, by
the authority of Jesus Christ, has transferred this rest to
Sunday." "The Catholic Church, ... by virtue of her divine
mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday... Reason and sense demand the acceptance of one or the other of
these alternatives: either Protestantism and the keeping holy of Saturday,
or Catholicity and the keeping holy of Sunday. Compromise is
impossible." "You may read 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." "If protestants were following the Bible, they would worship God on the
Sabbath Day. In keeping the Sunday they are following a law of the
Catholic Church." "Nowhere in the Bible is it stated that worship should be changed
from Saturday to Sunday.... Now the Church instituted, by God's authority,
Sunday as the day of worship." "If we consulted the Bible only, we should still have to keep
holy the Sabbath Day, that is, Saturday." "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." "Since Saturday, not Sunday, is specified in the Bible, isn't it curious that non-Catholics who profess to take their religion directly from the Bible and not from the Church, observe Sunday instead of Saturday? Yes, of course, it is inconsistent. The custom of Sunday observance rests upon the authority of the Catholic Church and not upon an explicit text in the Bible. That observance remains as a reminder of the Mother Church from which the non-Catholic sects broke away - like a boy running away from home but still carrying in his pocket a picture of his mother or a lock of her hair." (Roman Catholic scholar John A. O'Brien, The Faith of Millions, 1974, p.400,401.) "We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the
Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to
Sunday." Sadly, Protestants have generally
followed Rome's lead in her essentially unchallenged tradition of
Sunday observance. Jesus and Tradition Jesus concluded: "Thus have you made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition...In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." (Matthew 15:6,9). The Catholic Church perpetrated tradition over the Word of God. And when Protestants endorse worshipping on the Sun-day, they support the Roman Church and her tradition. This tradition includes a revised version of the Ten Commandements as translated in the Duoay Version (shown in the table below on the right side). The second commandment is removed entirely because of its embarrassing preclusion of image worship; the fourth is severely abbreviated; and the tenth is split into two parts to maintain a count of ten. Well, here they are: Original Recipe and less filling Law Lite:
Daniel 7:25 describes a power that emerges from Rome that shall "think to change times and laws." But they really haven't. Read Matthew 5:18.
The Catholic positions have not changed in the
centuries since Trent. The New Catholic Catachism refers to Trent no less
than 99 times. At the opening of the Second Vatican Council, promoted
as the great echumenical meeting of a new spirit within the Roman church,
pope John the XXIII stated, "I do accept entirely all that has been
decided and declared at the Council of Trent."
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