Fordham University theology professor Michael Peppard shares an interesting anecdote about when he and his publisher were trying to find the right title for his new book.
An editor suggested his book about Catholic biblical interpretation could be called How Catholics Read the Bible.
“And I somewhat cheekily said, ‘That would be a short book, because we don’t read it,’” Peppard told Catholic World Report. “But seriously, I then said ‘read’ would be misleading and [would] have a kind of Protestant framing of the topic … I eventually said, ‘I think a more honest and interesting book might be to show how the Bible infuses the whole Catholic tradition, even though the vast majority of Catholics are not reading it.’”
Thus How Catholics Encounter the Bible (Oxford University Press, 2024) came into being. It presents a compelling argument for how many Catholics experience the Bible not so much by private reading or in study groups, but more through the liturgy, Marian devotion, fine art, and even fiction.
Peppard, who recently presented a seminar on “the Spiritual Exercises of [Bruce] Springsteen” at the Catholic Imagination Conference in November 2024 at the University of Notre Dame, is a Bible scholar whose research examines the meaning of the New Testament and other Christian writing in their social, artistic, and ritual contexts.
Peppard’s book takes readers through the Catholic liturgical cycle and demonstrates how the lectionary and Sunday Mass readings are assembled with readings from both the Old and New Testaments. The author cites rudimentary studies showing that while few Catholics in the pews are intimately familiar with the Old and New Testaments, most claim they “already know the stories,” by participating in Mass and other devotional practices.
“Through all these rhythms, and especially at life’s peaks and valleys,” Peppard writes, “praying Catholics visualize the Bible with their fingers on beads, their ears on bells, their feet on pilgrim paths, their minds on Gospel stories, their hearts on Psalms, and–once in a while–their eyes on the printed page of the Book.”
Catholics are also encouraged to “encounter” the Bible through meditation and reflection on Scriptural readings, and by their exposure to religious art such as Michelangelo’s Pieta. Marian devotion, Passion plays, the Stations of the Cross, and other biblically inspired practices are other ways in which Catholics can experience the Bible without having to read and studied biblical passages in detail.
“Catholics have interpreted the Bible not only through visual arts, but through varieties of performing arts as well,” Peppard added. “One simply cannot appreciate Catholic biblical reception without pondering the scale and features of liturgical drama. The scripts for the plays enacted in cathedrals and other churches of Europe were drawn mostly from the Bible–with ample imagination between the lines, of course.”
One of the more intriguing aspects of Peppard’s new book is his argument equating certain works of art and music as forms of biblical encounter.
“Certain Catholic fiction writers, imbued with biblical stories as a native second language, have created poignant biblical encounters for their readers (whether Catholic or not)” Peppard writes. “The expansive cosmic drama of Dante remixed biblical characters in ways that influenced centuries of European theology and also, across the ocean, the prophetic parables of [novelist] Flannery O’Connor. O’Connor in turn shaped the songwriting of Bruce Springsteen and the films of Martin Scorsese.”
Peppard suggested that even popular superheroes on television have proven to be “unlikely vectors” for the Catholic biblical tradition, as the stories are re-interpreted and passed on through embodiment, performance, and re-imagination.
Elsewhere in his book, Peppard raises some concern about “bible curators” understating the role of women in the Church’s formative years, and downplaying the importance of the Old Testament in building a full understanding of Salvation history.
“As it is now,” Peppard writes, “the attentive listener at Sunday Mass will encounter the identity of God as incarnate in Jesus, but will struggle to meet the God made manifest in the stories of ancient Israel. For all these reasons, if the lectionary is functionally the Bible for Catholics, its current pairings do not reveal an adequate Catholic understanding of God.”
How Catholics Encounter the Bible is especially effective in examining the old saw about Catholics embracing the Bible without reading it in any detail. As Peppard notes early in his story, “Catholics are a people of the imagination. Catholic art, music, and literature brim forth with biblical narrative and imagery–but often not in ways that correspond strictly to the biblical text itself. For the vast majority of Catholics, the Bible is incorporated into their prayer, but they are not reading it as a book.”
The author is optimistic that the new book will stimulate discussion in classrooms, parish discussion groups, and perhaps even seminaries. However it is received, the book is likely to inspire fresh thinking on the Bible’s overall influence in the contemporary Catholic imagination.
“Catholics sometimes suffer from embarrassment about their lack of biblical literacy and absence of zeal for reading the Bible, even when they are otherwise deeply connected to their churches,” Peppard told CWR. “Perhaps this book can demonstrate how they [Catholics] are indeed people of the Bible, that it’s not just ‘a Protestant book’–even if Catholics are not a ‘people of the Book’ in the ways their neighbors expect.”
And in a somewhat ironical denouement, the author has some fun describing how the Catholic experience of the Bible is not dependent entirely on the text itself. “The Catholic Bible exists primarily in so far as it is proclaimed, prayed, embodied, and re-imagined. In the end, the reader will see how the Bible thrives among Catholics as a proclaimed and incarnate Word, even if its printed text seems often to be missing.”
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It all sounds familiar. Reading the Bible wasn’t exactly part of our catechesis. Although the Protestants did. But they were the rebels who left the Church. Therefore, we shouldn’t read the Bible.
The first printed Bible in a vernacular language was the Mentelin Bible, published in 1466 in Middle High German (Google AI). Luther had a printed new testament in German, whereas Catholics elsewhere did not have such access. “The first printed Italian Bible appeared in Venice in 1471, translated from the Latin Vulgate by Niccolò Malermi. In 1559 Pope Paul IV proscribed all printing and reading of the vernacular Scriptures except by permission of the church” (Google AI). Luther began to break away from the Catholic Church in 1517, and was excommunicated in 1521. There’s an obvious nexus with Paul Sixth’s proscription. That pall of breakaway fear to my knowledge lasted for centuries.
While there wasn’t a prohibition to read the Bible it wasn’t encouraged. It wasn’t until 1943 that Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu, which encouraged Catholics to study the Bible. Catholics are putatively still suffering from Reformation Hangover. This article is excellent in addressing the current effort to reform, better said envigorate those of us suffering from the Reformation and its consequences [as an aside I read sacred scripture at every bedtime].
Correction: There’s an obvious nexus with Paul Sixth’s [Paul Fourth’s proscription].
You mean Protestants are mistaken in thinking they have a monopoly on the Bible?
Probably so.
I worked for Protestant that carried his to services no matter where we were working around the country. We were discussing religion once and I mentioned “that at least you folks read the Bible.” He replied that the K of C drinks too much. I eventually found another position.
Back before the printing press, it’s illuminating to know that even laypeople could “encounter” the physical bible, or parts, in monasteries where irreplaceable hand-copied editions were often chained to an open table.
Adding to Fr. Morello’s comments, here’s a summary of earlier translations, including multiple “editions” in German prior to Luther’s version in 1521, and in many other vernacular languages:
By the 2nd Century translations of scripture already had been made in the vernacular—from the Greek to Latin for those Western Christians who did not understand the original Greek. The most common was the Old Latin, or Itala. Of the complete translations, a Gothic version is dated in the 4th Century still near the same time that St. Jerome in the East translated the Vulgate from Greek to Latin. A sampling of either partial or complete and mostly early translations (copies!) are in Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon, Italian (1500), Cyrilic (9th Century and which first required Sts. Cyril and Methodius to invent a Slavic written script), German (980) Armenian (4th and 13th Century), Icelandic (1297), French (807 under Charlemagne, others in the 15th and early 16th Centuries), Russian (New Testament, 10th Century), Flemish (1210), Polish and Bohemian (six editions beginning in 1478), Italian (1471), Spanish (1478 and 1515), and Slavonick (early 16th Century). Between the invention of printing and Luther’s extolled German version, early complete German editions after 1462 were numerous, with 5 editions at Mentz, 15 at Augsburg, and others at Wittenberg, Nuremburg and Strasburg. The vast majority of other translations or copies no longer exist due either to religious wars, invasions and the pillaging of the Reformation. In the modern languages, and before the first Protestant version was issued from the press, some 626 complete or partial editions of the Bible were published by the Church, and of these 198 were in the language of the laity. (Lester Ambrose Buckingham, “The Bible in the Middle Ages,” London: Thomas Bentley Newby, 1853)
A memo for der Synodal Weg, the world didn’t begin in 1521.
Perhaps, just perhaps, the Bible ought not to be considered as a conventional “book”. Perhaps Scripture i.e. the Bible is, in truth, an “Encounter with Divine Persons” and should be viewed properly from that perspective.
I am a convert to the Catholic Faith, raised in the Presbyterian Church. Since becoming Catholic, I have read through the Bible twice, through Bible in a Year, but first from a reading plan that I can’t remember where I got it. I love reading the Bible and am continuing on my own. There is so much there.
I grew up Evangelical Protestant and read the Bible from the time I was a child (2nd grade). I had read it through by the time I was in middle school. My best friend and I (we’re still best friends now that we’re nearing 70 and are widowed!) had a “Bible Marathon” when we were in high school–we read the entire (Protestant) Bible through out loud, taking turns reading the chapters–it took around 72 hours. I continued to read the Bible almost every day. In my younger days, I had entire chapters, not just Psalms, memorized.
Years later, my late husband and I were asked to attend a meeting at our Evangelical Protestant church–and were told that we were “kicked out ” (my words) of that church–their reasons were vague and I suspect it might have had something to do with my late husband’s interest in the Rosary (there is a Protestant version of the Rosary and that’s what he was praying) and my developing popularity with the church children, as my children’s choir had swelled to over 60 children. Our daughters were also criticized because they missed so much church due to their figure skating practices and competitions–keep in mind that “missing church” is not a “sin” in Protestant denominations, and also keep in mind that our daughters were always in church when they were home, and also active in the youth group (at least until the youth pastor forbad boyfriends and girlfriends from sitting together at youth group or in church) and helping me with my children’s choir and also helping at VBS. My older daughter actually led a group of the church teens and parents to the March For Life in Washington D.C. (this was her way of fulfilling a high school graduation requirement for a service project–and she was actually physically attacked by fellow pro-choice students at her high school–and her sister joined the fight and threw the attackers off–don’t mess with figure skaters!!).
For a year after our “ousting” from that horrible church, I didn’t touch the Bible, let alone open it. It had been used to mistreat our family. And it has been misused in many ways by Protestants throughout history who interpret it for themselves without any authority and often without any knowledge of the history and circumstances that the Biblical writers experienced when they wrote their book that became part of the Bible.
The story ends well–we ended up becoming Catholic a few years after the ousting! I still read my Bible, but I interpret it through Holy Mother Church now. I think it’s good for today’s Catholics to read and study the Bible outside of Mass, and I’m glad that Catholic radio has so many good programs featuring Bible studies and questions/answers. But I think we need to be careful with the Bible–it has been misused time and time again throughout history to justify sinful acts and attitudes.
Yes, I’m sure you were kicked out of a church for no reason whatsoever and that you were completely innocent in the matter 🙄. If you were intentionally opposing or defying the church’s leadership, regardless of how right that may have seemed to you, then that was the right call on their part.
Protestant Churches were formed in opposing or defying church leadership, so wouldn’t opposing or defying the church’s leadership, just be orthopraxy for them?
A few years ago bought Catholic Ignatius Press Book/Bible on the New Testament. It provides a lot of supplementary info in notes and side bars. Before each book, i.e. Matthew, Mark etc., it includes a summary of its content nd related info. Wish I had this when I was growing up. It really makes understanding of the Catholic Bible easier for a lay person. Every Catholic should have it, just read a little every day, or reread as I have to help ground ones’ understanding.
I read the Bible cover to cover (St. James – oops) after my undergrad studies, English and French, because I realized how much that literature draws on the Bible.
More recently, I’ve walked through it again with Fr. Mike Schmitz. I appreciate the way Ascension Press structured the readings so some of those boring, seemingly interminable books are divvied up and interspersed with more readable sections.
King James, of course.
Mr. Beaulieu above – Thanks for the rundown on earlier versions of the Bible. I had no idea of this, although common sense should have told me 1517 wasn’t the introductory date of the Bible.
I find Catholic converts from Protestantism like Fr. Dwight Longenecker and Casey Chalk the best ones to puncture what I am starting to see as the Protestant arrogance that increasingly comes across to me as thinking they have a monopoly on Scripture.
Yes, Catholics have experienced the Bible through stories, art, and popular devotions since until fairly recently, few of them could read. But even after literacy became usual in developed countries and printed Bibles affordable, lay Catholics had a cultural inhibition against reading the Bible–it was felt to be a Protestant thing. That’s why Pius XII offered inducements to coax laypeople into reading Holy Scripture. Afterwards, Catholic education tried harder to teach the Bible. When I was in high school, in the 1950s, our religion textbooks (the Our Quest for Happiness series) taught us using the same Types and Figures that a medieval student would have learned but also had us reading the Confraternity translation of the NT. The Mass texts of the current lectionary and the minimal visuals of many parish churches are not equivalent to personal engagement with the full text of the Bible.
I do not recommend this book. A red flag is that Fr. James Martin, SJ provides a blurb on the back cover. The author refers approvingly to discredited, dated, and outlier biblical scholars such as Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza and Rosemary Radford Ruether. Really? In 2025 you are referring to those people whose work has not stood the test of time and is only promoted by libs stuck in the 1990s?
In his first two chapters, the author criticizes the Catholic Sunday Lectionary for being insufficiently comprehensive and pairing Old Testament readings with Gospels in ways that emphasize the Old Testament readings’ Christological sense. He laments that other and broader understandings of Old Testament stories — understood on their own rather than in reference to Christ — are excluded from the liturgy because of the way the Lectionary juxtaposes OT stories with stories about Jesus in the Gospels.
For one thing, the Mass is a celebration of the Paschal Mystery and is eminently Christological. Therefore the OT readings chosen for and proclaimed in the context of the liturgy must necessarily be understood in the sense by which the events of the old covenant prepare for the fullness of God’s revelation in Christ.
Other understandings of the OT stories can be considered in biblical studies. Liturgy has a specific purpose, which the author seems not to understand or not to agree with. He’d rather the Catholic Mass have more ecumenical sensitivities and accomplish inclusive purposes.
As for the author’s distaste for supersessionism, he would do well to read Hebrews 8. The New Covenant fulfills and replaces the old covenant. That’s elementary Christian New Testament theology.
The author seems not to want Catholicism and Catholic worship to be distinctively Catholic. He’s just another lib scholar whose work should be disregarded.
Do not recommend; do not read.
I don’t mind critical feedback, but this reader has not read the book’s chapter 2 carefully. Criticisms of the use of the OT in the lectionary are long-standing and widely shared among Catholics in both pulpits and pews. The criticism in ch. 2 are based on the Catholic Church’s own teachings, as delivered by the Pontifical Biblical Commission and the Synod on the Word of God, for example. These are intra-Catholic doctrinal and liturgical debates about the best ways to present the OT in relationship to the NT. They are not criticisms coming from outside.
As for supersessionism — yes, as a professor of NT, I have read Hebrews 8 and teach it every semester. It is strongly worded and is an outlier in the NT. There are multiple views in the NT about the understanding of how God makes covenants with Jews and Gentiles, just as there are in Catholic theology today.