Produced by Bryan Ness, David Garcia and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) THE IRISH ECCLESIASTICAL RECORD MARCH, 1865. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE BIBLE. There are few so foolish as to close their eyes against the brilliant rays of the mid-day sun, and, at the same time, to assert deliberately that the sun is not yet risen, and that the world is still enveloped in darkness. Nevertheless, something like this has been done quite recently by an estimable Protestant nobleman, who has assured his Irish fellow-countrymen that the Catholic Church, before the Reformation, "neither furthered the interests of science nor disseminated the knowledge of God's written word".[1] There was a time, indeed, when such a calumny would have been received by the British public with applause, and when it would have been echoed from Protestant pulpits by the predecessors of Colenso, and by the ancestors of many who now hold a place in the councils of her Majesty. But that calumny has been long since abandoned, even by the enemies of our holy faith. Our assailants have laid aside the mask, and revealed to the world the important fact, that whilst they clamoured for the Bible, they were themselves its true enemies; and that, combating the Church, their secret aim was to sap the foundations of inspired truth, and thus undermine the very citadel which they pretended to defend. It is not in England alone, but in France and Italy, and throughout the whole continent, that this striking fact is seen. Everywhere society presents the singular phenomenon of a sifting of its elements; and whilst all that aspires to the supernatural life, or clings to revelation, virtue, or truth, is gathered into the bosom of our holy Church, all that is without the Catholic pale is hurried down the inclined plane of Protestantism, and cast into the abyss of infidelity and rationalism. And yet, in the face of this social miracle, a Protestant peer is bold enough to assert that the Catholic Church is opposed to the progress of science and inspired truth;--thus insulting the memory of his own illustrious forefathers, and outraging the feelings of his fellow-countrymen. It is not, however, as a matter of controversy that we wish to enter on the present inquiry: we wish to view it merely as a matter of pure historic truth. In a future number we hope to consider the relations of the Church to science; our remarks to-day will only regard her solicitude during the ante-Reformation period to diffuse among her children a salutary knowledge of inspired truth as contained in the Holy Scriptures.