SUNDAY Worship
FALSE Doctrine! or is it?
Part Three

Sunday sacredness is not commanded or practiced in the Bible?
True or False?

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hich day of the week should we rest and worship our Creator? 1. Sunday - The first day of the week. 2. Friday - The sixth day of the week. 3. Saturday - The seventh day of the week. 4. Any day of the week is just fine. 5. There is no sabbath day.

What does the Catholic Church say about the change of the Sabbath to Sunday?
----Does the bible give this authority to change the commandments to the Catholic church?-----

" 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.

  " But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify." James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of our Fathers, 88th ed., pp. 89.

" 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.

" 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 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."   John Laux, A Course in Religion for Catholic High Schools and Academies (1936), vol. 1, P. 51.

" 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. " News" , March 18, 1903.

" Question: How prove you that the Church hath power to command feasts and holy days?
" Answer: By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of, and therefore they fondly contradict
themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same Church.'  Daniel Ferres, ed., Manual of Christian Doctrine (1916), p.67.

" Ques: 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."       Stephan 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.

" Is Saturday the seventh day according to the Bible and the Ten Commandments? I answer yes. Is Sunday the first day of the week and did the Church change the seventh day —Saturday — for Sunday, the first day? I answer yes. Did Christ change the day'?  I answer no!  " Faithfully yours, J. Card. Gibbons"   James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore (1877-1921), in a signed letter.

" 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.

" The Catholic Church, . . . by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday."   The Catholic Mirror, official publication of James Cardinal Gibbons, Sept. 23, 1893.

Not the Creator of the Universe, In Geneses 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. Moana, Storia della Domenica, 1969, pages 366-367.

" For example, 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 Oct. 3, 1947, p. 9, art. " To Tell You the Truth."

" 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.

" 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."   Peter Geiermann, C.S.S.R., The Converts Catechism of Catholic Doctrine (1957), p. 50.

" 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.

" Nowhere in the Bible is it stated that worship should be changed from Saturday to Sunday .... Now the Church ... instituted, by
God's authority, Sunday as the day of worship. This same Church, by the same divine authority, taught the doctrine of Purgatory
long before the Bible was made. We have, therefore, the same authority for Purgatory as we have for Sunday."   Martin J. Scott, Things Catholics Are Asked About (1927),p. 136.

" 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 2l3.

" Regarding the change from the observance of the Jewish Sabbath to the Christian Sunday, I wish to draw your attention to the
facts:  " 1) That Protestants, who accept the Bible as the only rule of faith and religion, should by all means go back to the observance of the Sabbath. The fact that they do not, but on the contrary observe the Sunday, stultifies them in the eyes of every thinking man. " 2) We Catholics do not accept the Bible as the only rule of faith. Besides the Bible we have the living Church, the authority of the Church, as a rule to guide us. We say, this Church, instituted by Christ to teach and guide man through life, has the right to change the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament and hence, we accept her change of the Sabbath to Sunday. We frankly say, yes, the Church made this change, made this law, as she made many other laws, for instance, the Friday abstinence, the unmarried priesthood, the laws concerning mixed marriages, the regulation of Catholic marriages and a thousand other laws.
" It is always somewhat laughable, to see the Protestant churches, in pulpit and legislation, demand the observance of Sunday, of
which there is nothing in their Bible." Peter R. Kraemer, Catholic Church Extension Society (1975), Chicago, Illinois.

" 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.

" 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 a reverent obedience to the command of the holy Catholic Church."   T. Enright, C.S.S.R., in a lecture at Hartford, Kansas, Feb. 18,1884.

" 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.

Q. What is the Third Commandment? ( Remember they renumbered! )
A. The third Commandment is: Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.
Q. Which is the Sabbath day?
A. Saturday is the Sabbath day.
Q. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?
A. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday."
  The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, 1951 printing, page 50.

Q. How prove you that the Church hath power to command feasts and holy days?
A. By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday which Protestants allow of and therefore THEY FONDLY CONTRADICT
THEMSELVES, BY KEEPING SUNDAY STRICTLY, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same church."
  Henry Tubervill, An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine, 1833, page 58.

" You will tell men that Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath, but that the Christian Sabbath has been changed to Sunday. Changed! but by whom? Who has authority to change an express commandment of Almighty God? When God has spoken and said, Thou Shalt keep holy the seventh day, who shall dare say, Nay, thou mayest work and do all manner of worldly business on the seventh day but thou shalt keep holy the first day in its stead. This is a most important question which I know not how you can answer.  " You are a Protestant, and you profess to go by the Bible and the Bible only and yet in so important a matter as the observance of one day in seven as a holy day, you go against the plain letter of the Bible, and put another day in the place of the day which the Bible has commanded. The command to keep holy the seventh day is one of the ten commandments you believe that the other nine are still binding: who gave you authority to tamper with the fourth? If you are consistent with your own principles, if you really follow the Bible and the Bible only, you ought to be able to produce some portion of the New Testament in which this fourth commandment is expressly altered." [ Library of Christian Doctrine. Why Don't You Keep Holy the Sabbath Day? page 5. ]
 

  Thomaston, Georgia
      May 22, 1954

      Pope  Pius XII
      Rome, Italy

      Dear Sir
      Is the accusation true, that Protestants accuse you of?  They say you
      changed the Seventh Day Sabbath to the, so-called, Christian Sunday:
      Identical with the First Day of the week.  If so, when did you make the
      change, and by what authority?

      Yours very truly,
      J. L. Day

                                                                                                                The Reply:

                                                                                    THE CATHOLIC EXTENSION MAGAZINE
                                                                                          180 Wabash Ave., Chicago, Illinois
                                                                                        (Under the Blessing of Pop Pius XII)

      Dear sir:
      Regarding the change from the observance of the Jewish Sabbath to the
      Christian Sunday, I wish to draw your attention to the facts:

        (1) That Protestants, who accept the Bible as the only rule of faith
      and religion, should by all means go back to the observance of the Sabbath.
      The fact that they do not, but on the contrary observe Sunday, stultifies
      them in the eyes of every thinking man.

          (2) We Catholics do not accept the Bible as the only rule of faith.
      Besides the Bible we have the living Church, the authority of the Church,
      as a rule to guide us.  We say, this Church instituted by Christ, to teach
      and guide men through life, has the right to change the Ceremonial laws of
      the Old Testament and hence, we accept her change of the Sabbath to Sunday.
      We frankly say, " yes, the Church made this change, made this law, as she
      made many other laws, for instance, the Friday Abstinence, the unmarried
      priesthood, the laws concerning mixed marriages, the regulation of Catholic
      marriages, and a thousand other laws.

          (3) We also say that of all Protestants, the Seventh-day Adventists are
      the only group that reason correctly and are consistent with their
      teachings.  It is always somewhat laughable to see the Protestant Churches,
      in pulpit and legislature, demand the observance of Sundays of which there
      is nothing in the Bible.

      With best wishes
      Peter R. Tramer, Editor

" Finally, at the last opening on the eighteenth of January 1562, all hesitation was set aside. The Archbishop of Reggio made a speech in which he openly declared that tradition stood above scripture. The authority of the church could therefore not be bound to the authority of the Scriptures, because the church had changed... Sabbath into Sunday, not by the command of Christ, but by its own authority." [ Heinrich Julius Holtzmann, Kanon und Tradition (Ludwigsburg: Druck and Verlag von Ferd Riehm), 1859, page

Pope Declares Seventh-day Sabbath-keepers Cannot Be Saved!
It [the Roman Church] firmly believes, professes, and teaches that the matter pertaining to the law of the Old Testament, of the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments, because they were established to signify something in the future, although they were suited to the divine worship at that time, after our Lord's coming had been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began and that whoever, even after the passion, placed hope in these matters of the law and submitted himself to them as necessary for salvation, as if faith in Christ could not save without them, sinned mortally. Yet it does not deny that after the passion of Christ up to the promulgation of the Gospel they could have been observed until they were believed to be in no way necessary for salvation but after the promulgation of the Gospel it asserts that they cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation. All, therefore, who after that time observe circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the law, it declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation, unless someday they recover from these errors.  Source: Pope Eugene IV, Papal Bull  Cantate Domino, dated February 4th, 1442, Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma, Translated by Roy J. Deferrari, from the Thirtieth Edition of Henry Denzinger's Enchiridion Symbolorum, published by B. Herder Book Co., Copyright 1957, page
228, #712

Our Sunday Visitor, January 13 2001

JOH 14:15  If ye love me, keep my commandments.

~The Beast from the Sea

Part V - Will the Sunday Law be enforced in the United States and World-wide by laws?