In the last post I made it clear that what the majority of the institutional church has been practicing for 1700 years is NOT a Sabbath that has been moved from the 7th day to the 1st day; instead it is an entirely different celebration established by the Roman Church at the Council of Laodicea in 364 AD at the command of the then current emperor of Rome, Constantine.

Let’s take a look at an excerpt from the “Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine”

QUESTION: What day is the Sabbath day?

ANSWER: Saturday is the Sabbath day.

QUESTION: Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?

ANSWER: We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.

What’s really refreshing about this situation (and makes it much easier for me to do my research) is that the Catholic church is perfectly upfront and out in the open about what they’ve done.

They make it very clear and openly say…

….”That’s right homies,we’re the ones who changed the day from Saturday to Sunday”.(That’s a paraphrase).

The following are some quotes from Catholic scholars attesting to this.

“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 Ness, Elizabeth, New Jersey, March 18, 1903.

“Sunday is a Catholic institution and its claim 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.” -Catholic Press, Sydney Australia, August 1900.

“Nowhere in the Bible do we find that Christ or the Apostles ordered that the Sabbath be changed from Saturday to Sunday. We have the commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy the Sabbath day, that is the 7th day of the week, Saturday.

Today, most Christians keep Sunday because it has been revealed to us by the (Roman Catholic) church outside the Bible.”-Catholic Virginian, October 3, 1947 article “To Tell You the Truth.

“I have repeatedly offered $1,000 to anyone who can prove to me from the Bible alone that I am bound to keep Sunday holy. There is no such law in the Bible. It is a law of the holy Catholic church alone. The Bible says ‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy’.

The Catholic Church says: ‘No! By my divine power I abolish the Sabbath day and command you to keep holy the first day of the week. ‘ And lo! The entire civilized world bows down in reverent obedience to the command of the holy Catholic church.”-Father T. Enright, C.S.S.R of the Redemptoral College, Kansas City, in a lecture at Hartford, Kansas, February 18, 1884 printed in History of the Sabbath pg. 802.

“Perhaps the boldest thing, the most revolutionary change the church ever did, happened in the first century. The Holy day, the Sabbath, was changed from Saturday to Sunday. ‘The Day of the Lord’ was chosen not from any direction noted in the Scriptures, but from the (Catholic) church’s sense of its own power. People who think that the Scriptures should be the sole authority, should logically become 7th day adventists, and keep Saturday holy.” -St. Catherine Church Sentinel, Algonac, Michigan, May 21, 1995.

“Most Christians assume that Sunday is the biblically approved day of worship. The Catholic church protests that it transferred Christian worship from the biblical Sabbath (Saturday) to Sunday, and that to try to argue that the change was made in the Bible is both dishonest and a denial of Catholic authority. If Protestantism wants to base its teaching only on the Bible, it should worship on Saturday.”-Rome’s Challenge, www.immaculateheart.com/maryonline Dec 2003.

“Some theologians have held that God likewise directly determined the Sunday as the day of worship in the New Law, that He Himself has explicitly substituted the Sunday for the Sabbath But this theory is now entirely abandoned. It is now commonly held that God simply gave His church the power to set aside whatever day or days she would deem suitable for holy days. The (Roman Catholic) Church chose Sunday, the 1st day of the week, and in the course of time added other days as holy days.” -John Laux, A Course in Religion for Catholic High Schools and Academies, 1936 edition Vol. 1, pg. 51.

“Unquestionably, the first law, either ecclesiastical or civil, by which the sabbatical observance of Sunday is known to have been ordained is the Sabbatical edict of Constantine, AD 321.- Chambers Encyclopedia, Article “Sunday”

“Where are we told in Scripture that we are to keep the first day at all? We are commanded to keep the seventh, but we are nowhere commanded to keep the first day. The reason why we keep the 1st day of the week holy instead of the 7th is for the same reason that we observe many other things. Not because of the Bible, but because the church has enjoined it.” -Isaac William, Plain Sermons on the Catechism, Vol.1, pp. 336, 338.

“You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday.”-James Gibbons, The Faith of our Fathers, pp. 72–73.

“But 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?”-Father John A. O’Brien, The Faith of Millions, pp. 400–401

Personally, I agree with the Catholics on one point.

Most definitely there is NOT one line of Scripture that warrants changing the Sabbath from the 7th day (Saturday) to the 1st day (Sunday).

The Catholics laugh at the Protestant sects who claim Biblical support for their Sunday worship practices.

However, where I vehemently disagree with the Catholic Church is I’ll be damned if I’m going to accept the idea that church authority supersedes the plain teaching of Scripture on this issue or any other issue.

So this is what it comes down to: Scripture or Tradition.

Which one are you going to choose?

© Richoka