Catholic Admissions on the Sabbath day

     "If we would consult the Bible only, without Tradition, we ought, for instance, still to keep holy the Saturday with the Jews, instead of Sunday..." (Deharbe's Catechism, translated by Rev. John Fander, published by Schwartz, Kirwin & Fauss, 53 Park Place, New York, Sixth American Edition, Copyright 1912, 1919, 1924, page 81)

     "Sunday...It is the law of the Catholic Church alone..." (American Sentinel, June 1893)

     "From this same Catholic Church you have accepted your Sunday, as the Lord's day, she has handed down as a tradition; and the entire Protestant world has accepted it as tradition, for you have not an iota of Scripture to establish it.  Therefore that which you have accepted as your rule of faith, inadequate as it of course is, as well as your Sunday, you have accepted on the authority of the Roman Catholic Church." (D.B. Ray, The Papal Controversy, 1892, p.179)

     "The church...took the pagan Sunday and made it the Christian Sunday.... The Sun was a foremost god with heathendom.... And thus the pagan Sunday, dedicated to Balder, became the Christian Sunday." (Dr. William L. Gildea, The Catholic World , March, 1894)

     "They [the Protestants] deem it their duty to keep the Sunday holy. Why? Because the Catholic Church tells them to do so. They have no other reason. ...The observance of Sunday thus comes to be an ecclesiastical law entirely distinct from the Divine law of Sabbath observance. .The author of the Sunday Law...is the Catholic Church." (Walter Drum, Catholic priest, Ecclesiastical Review, February, 1914)

     "The authority of the church could therefore not be bound to the authority of the Scriptures, because the Church had changed the Sabbath into Sunday, not by command of Christ, but by its own authority." (Canon and Tradition, p. 263)

     "The Roman Church chose Sunday, the first day of the week, and in the course of time added other days, as holy days."  (Vincent Jo Kelly, Forbidden Sunday and Feast day Occupations, Catholic University Press, 1943, p. 2)

     "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" (dies domini) was chosen, not from any directions noted in the Scriptures, but from the Church's sense of its own power. The day of resurrection, the day of Pentecost, fifty days later, came on the first day of the week. So this would be the new Sabbath. People who think that the Scriptures should be the sole authority, should logically become 7th Day Adventists, and keep Saturday holy." (The Pastor's page of The Sentinel, Saint Catherine Catholic Church, Algonac, Michigan, May 21, 1995)

     "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)

"Question: Which is the Sabbath day?"

"Answer: Saturday is the Sabbath."

"Question: Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?"

"Answer: We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church in the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 336) transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday."  (The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, by Peter Geiermann, 50)

     "The civil authorities should be urged to cooperate with the church in maintaining and strengthening this public worship of God, and to support with their own authority the regulations set down by the church's pastors. For it is only in this way that the faithful will understand why it is Sunday and not the Sabbath day that we now keep holy."  (Roman Catechism, 1985)

     "A history of the problem shows that in some places, it was really only after some centuries that the Sabbath rest really was entirely abolished, and by that time the practice of observing a bodily rest on the Sunday had taken its place.It was the seventh day of the week which typified the rest of God after creation, and not the first day." (Vincent Jo Kelly, Forbidden Sunday and Feast day Occupations, Catholic University Press, 1943, pp. 15, 22)

     "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)

     "Nowhere in the Bible do we find that Christ or the apostles ordered 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 seventh 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)

     " 'Our Lord rose from the dead on the first day of the week', Said Father Hourigan of the Jesuit Seminary. 'That is why the Church changed the day of obligation from the seventh day to the first day of the week. The Anglican and other Protestant denominations retained that tradition when the Reformation came along'." (Toronto Daily Star, October 26, 1949)

     "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)

     "My brethren, look about the various wrangling sects and denominations. Show me one that claims or possesses the power to make laws binding on the conscience. There is but one on the face of the earth-the Catholic Church-that has the power to make laws binding upon the conscience, binding before God, binding upon the pain of hellfire.  Take for instance, the day we celebrate-Sunday. What right have the Protestant churches to observe that day? None whatsoever. You say it is to obey the commandment, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' But Sunday is not the Sabbath according to the Bible and the record of time.

     Everyone knows that Sunday is the first day of the week, while Saturday is the seventh, and the Sabbath, the day consecrated as a day of rest.  It is so recognized in all civilized nations.It was the Holy Catholic Church that changed the day of rest from Saturday to Sunday, the first day of the week.  And has not only compelled all to keep Sunday, but at the council of Laodicea, A.D. 364 anathemized those who kept the Sabbath and urged all persons to labor on the seventh day under penalty of anathama.

     Which church does the whole civilized world obey?  Protestants call us every horrible name they can think of-anti-Christ, the scarlet-colored beast, Babylon, etc., and at the same time profess great reverence for the Bible, and yet by their solemn act of keeping Sunday, they acknowledge the power of the Catholic Church." (Industrial American, Harlan Iowa; a published lecture by T. Enright, December 19, 1889)

     "Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change [Scriptural Sabbath to Sunday] was her act... And the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical authority in religious things." (H.F. Thomas, Chancellor of Cardinal Gibbons)

     "But the Church of God [that is, the Romish church, NOT the true Church] has thought it well to transfer the celebration and observance of the Sabbath to Sunday." ('Catechism of the Council of Trent' translated by John A. McHugh and Charles J. Callan, p 402)

     "It was the Catholic Church which, by the authority of Jesus Christ, has transferred this rest to the Sunday in remembrance of the resurrection of our Lord. Thus the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is a homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Catholic] Church." (Plain Talk About the Protestantism of Today, by Mgr. Louis Segur, 1868, p.213)

"Question:  What day was the Sabbath?"

"Answer: Saturday."

"Question: Who changed it?"

"Answer: The Catholic Church."

(Rev. Dr. Butler's Catechism, revised, p. 57)

"Question: Have you any other way of proving that the church has power to institute festivals or precepts?"

"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." (Rev. Stephen Keenan's A Doctrinal Catechism, p. 174: Edward Dunigan and Brothers, New York, 1851)

     "The Sunday, as a day of the week set apart for the obligatory public worship of Almighty God...is purely a creation of the Catholic Church. It is...not governed by the enactments of the Mosaic law. It is part and parcel of the system of the Catholic Church." (John Gilmary Shea, The American Catholic Quarterly Review , January, 1883)

"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."

"Question: How can you prove that?"

"Answer: Because by keeping Sunday, they acknowledge the Church's power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin: and by not keeping the rest [of the Catholic feasts] by her commanded, they again deny, in fact, the same power."  (Rev. Henry Tuberville's, (D.D.R.C.) "An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine", p.58.  New York: Edward Dunigan and Brothers, approved 1833)

     "You will 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 [Catholics] never sanctify." (Cardinal Gibbons' Faith of Our Fathers, p. 111)

     "Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the [Roman Catholic] Church, has no good reasons for its Sunday theory, and ought logically to keep Saturday." (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. 'News' of March 18, 1903)

     "The church has changed the Sabbath into the Lord's day by its own authority, concerning which you have no Scripture." (Johann Eck, Handbook of Common Places Against the Lutherans, 1533)

     "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, in keeping Christmas and Easter, they are accepting the authority of the spokesman for the church--the Pope." (Our Sunday Visitor, February 5, 1950.)

     "The idea of importing into the Sunday the solemnity of the Sabbath with all its exigencies was an entirely foreign one to the early Christians." (Director of at Rome's Ecole Francaise, Louis M.O. Duchesne (1843-1922), Christian Worship, p.47)

     "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 dated February 10, 1920.)

     "If you follow the Bible alone there can be no question that you are obliged to keep Saturday holy, since that is the day especially prescribed by Almighty God to be kept holy to the Lord. In keeping Sunday, non-Catholics are simply following the practise of the Catholic Church for 1800 years, a tradition, and not a Bible ordinance.... With the Catholics there is no difficulty about the matter. For, since we deny that the Bible is the sole rule of faith, we can fall back upon the constant practise and tradition of the Church." (Francis G. Lentz, The Question Box, 1900, pp. 98, 99)

     "Is it not strange that those who make the Bible their only teacher should inconsistently follow in this matter the tradition of the Church?" (Bertrand L. Conway, The Question Box Answers, 1910, p. 255)

     "A history of the problem shows that in some places, it was really only after some centuries that the Sabbath rest really was entirely abolished, and by that time the practice of observing a bodily rest on the Sunday had taken its place.It was the seventh day of the week which typified the rest of God after creation, and not the first day." (Vincent Jo Kelly, Forbidden Sunday and Feast day Occupations, Catholic University Press, 1943, pp. 15, 22)

     "You will have noticed, my dear children, that the day on which we keep Sabbath is not the same as that on which it was observed by the Jews.  They kept and still keep the Sabbath upon Saturday, we on Sunday; they on the seventh, we on the first day of the week.understand how great is the authority of the [Roman Catholic] Church in interpreting or explaining to us the commandments of God-an authority which is acknowledged by the universal practice of the whole Christian world, even of those sects [i.e., protestants] who profess to take the Holy Scriptures as their sole rule of faith, since they observe as the day of rest not the seventh day of the week commanded by the Bible, but the first day, which we know is to be kept holy, only from tradition and teaching of the Catholic Church." (Henry Gibson, Catechism Made Easy (No.2), Ninth Ed., Vol. 1, pp.341,342)

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