Catholic Church Catechism
The Catholic Church admits to changing the observance of the seventh day Sabbath (Saturday) to the first day of the week (Sunday). Notice the following sections from Catholic catechism:
Question: Which 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.” Rev. Peter Geiermann C.S.S.R., The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, p. 50 (1946).
Question: Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept?”
Answer: 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 [FRS No. 7.], (3rd American ed., rev.: New York, Edward Dunigan & Bro., 1876), p. 174.
Other Catholic References
”The [Roman Catholic] 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.” The Catholic Universe Bulletin ,August 14, 1942, p. 4.
“The observance of Sunday by the Protestants is homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Roman Catholic] Church.” Monsignor Louis Segur, Plain Talk about the Protestantism of Today, p. 213.
“Sunday is a Catholic institution, and… 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 , Aug. 25, 1900
“The Sabbath was Saturday, not Sunday. The Church altered the observance of the Sabbath to the observance of Sunday. Protestants must be rather puzzled by the keeping of Sunday when God distinctly said, ‘Keep holy the Sabbath Day.’ The word Sunday does not come anywhere in the Bible, so, without knowing it they are obeying the authority of the Catholic Church.” Canon Cafferata, The Catechism Explained, p. 89.
”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.” John Cardinal Gibbons, The Catholic Mirror, December 23, 1893.
The Catholic Church is saying in these references that its successful change of seventh day Sabbath (Saturday) observance to the first day of the week (Sunday) worship is proof that its authority is greater, or “above,” Scripture.
In His service,
BibleAsk Team
