Spirit of Truth, High School > Course I > Unit 3
Chapter 8: Authentic Interpretation of Scripture
Jesus entrusted to the Church the authority to interpret Scripture, not personal interpretation.
Jesus entrusted to the Church the authority to interpret Scripture, not personal interpretation.
Scripture teaches you real truths about the world and the history of the relationship between God and man.
Until the year 1054, the Catholic Church and what we now call the Eastern Orthodox Church were one.
The early Church operated under the principle of subsidiarity.
Everyone who enters consecrated life takes solemn vows that bind them to the practices of poverty, chastity, and obedience, in the imitation of Christ.
The distinction between the Church and State became blurred during the Middle Ages.
Learning was revived in Western Europe and accelerated around 1100 when the first universities were founded.
After constant war, plague, and famine, the Middle Ages closed a tumultuous chapter in world history with a hopeful outlook toward the future.
The Renaissance was a time of rebirth in art, architecture and thought; the Gothic and Romanesque styles were replaced by a more classical realism coming from Greek and Roman statues and buildings.
Protestantism took root in Germany, and other Protestant movements quickly swept across Europe, inspired as much by politics as differences in theology.
The Council of Trent reaffirmed and again definitively established some of the principles that the Catholic Church had always taught such as the true sacrifice of the Mass, Christs Real Presence in the Eucharist through Transubstantiation, the canon of Scripture, and that we are justified by the grace of God, our good works also merit grace, and that grace is communicated through the Sacraments.
With the discovery of the New World, rich Western countries extended their territories, funded profit-making exploration, and simultaneously strove to spread the Catholic Faith to the far corners of the globe.
Spanish colonies, French missionaries, and many immigrants expanded the Catholic faith into the Americas.
The Industrial Revolution swept across the world turning societies into mass consumers and bringing economic, political, social, and spiritual challenges.
Conflict brewing between the various European powers broke out into the First World War in 1914, bringing tragedy and destruction on a scale never before seen.