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CATHOLICISM SPEAKS
REGARDING THE SABBATH
"…he will think to change times and laws.."
"Sunday is a Catholic institution, and its claims to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles. . .From beginning to end of Scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first."—The Catholic Press, Sydney, Australia, August, 1900.
"Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the (Roman Catholic) Church, has no good reasons for its Sunday theory, and ought logically to keep Saturday as the Sabbath."—John Gilmary Shea, American Catholic Quarterly Review, January, 1883.
"It is well to remind the Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and all other Christians, that the Bible does not support them anywhere in their observance of Sunday. Sunday is an institution of the Roman Catholic Church, and those who observe the day observe a commandment of the Catholic Church."—Priest Brady, in an address, reported in the Elizabeth, N.J. "New", March 18, 1903.
"Qes.—Have you any other way of proving that the (Catholic) Church has power to institute festivals of precept (to command holy days)?"
"Ans.—Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her: she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority."—Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism, page 176.
"Reason and common 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."—The Catholic Mirror, December 23, 1893.
"God simply gave His (Catholic) Church the power to set aside whatever day or days, she would deem suitable as Holy Days. The Church chose Sunday, the first day of the week, and in the course of time added other days, as holy days."—Vincent J. Kelly, Forbidden Sunday and Feast-Day Occupations, page 2.
"Protestants. . .accept Sunday rather than Saturday as the day for public worship after the Catholic Church made the change. . .But the Protestant mind does not seem to realize that. . .in observing the Sunday, they are accepting the authority of the spokesman for the church, the Pope."—Our Sunday Visitor, February 5, 1950.
Not the Creator of the Universe, in Genesis 2:1-3—but the Catholic Church "can claim the honor of having granted man a pause to his work every seven days."—S.D. Mosna, Storia della Domenica, 1969, pages 366-367.
"We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty."—Pope Leo XIII, in an Encyclical Letter, June 20, 1894.
"The Pope is not only the representative of Jesus Christ, but he is Jesus Christ Himself, hidden under veil of flesh."—The Catholic National, July, 1895.
"If Protestants would follow the Bible, they should worship God on the Sabbath Day. In keeping the Sunday they are following a law of the Catholic Church."—Albert Smith, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, replying for the Cardinal, in a letter, February 10, 1920.
"We define that the Holy Apostolic See (the Vatican) and the Roman Pontiff hold the primacy over the whole world."—A Decree of the Council of Trent, quoted in Phillippe Labbe and Gabriel Cossart, The Most Holy Councils, Vol. 13, col. 1167.
"It was the Catholic Church which, by the authority of Jesus Christ, has transferred this rest (from the Bible Sabbath) to the Sunday. . .Thus the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the (Catholic) Church."—Monsignor Louis Segur, Plain Talk about the Protestantism of Today, page 213.
"We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday."—Peter Geiermann, CSSR, A Doctrinal Catechism, 1957 edition, page 50.
"We Catholics, then, have precisely the same authority for keeping Sunday holy instead of Saturday as we have for every other article of our creed, namely, the authority of the Church. . .whereas you who are Protestants have really no authority for it whatever: for there is no authority for it (Sunday sacredness) in the Bible, and you will not allow that there can be authority for it anywhere else. Both you and we do, in fact, follow tradition in this matter: but we follow it, believing it to be a part of God’s word, and the (Catholic) Church to be its divinely appointed guardian and interpreter: you follow it (the Catholic Church), denouncing it all the time as a fallible and treacherous guide, which often ‘makes the commandments of God of none effect’ quoting Matthew 15:6."—The Brotherhood of St. Paul, The Clifton Tracts, Vol. 4, tract 4, page 15.
"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."—The Catholic Universe Bulletin, August 14, 1942, page 4.