A Portsmouth Catholic

Now let me make something clear. I have no authority whatsoever in anything I may publish. I am not self taught. I bought my first Bible, the Catholic Bible, the Douai Rheims Bible when I was 11 years old. It was published before the King James Bible and has no relationship with that Bible whatsoever. I say this because there is misinformation going around that RSVs of this Bible are actually related to King James. Before the Reformation there were 8 Catholic Bibles published in Europe and the Douai-Rheims bible was one of them. But let us turn to this Bible which Catholics allegedly never read. In Matthew 28 we have an account of the Ascension where the disciples ran to the hill where Jesus was and when they saw him they fell to their knees. Jesus then said “All Authority is given to me in Heaven and on earth go you THEREFORE to all nations baptising then in them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (with my authority} and (with my authority) teaching them to observe ALL I have commanded you, and I am with you always even to the end of the world” So the Apostles went out to the world to teach nations on the Authority of Jesus, an authority that would last until the end of the world through those the apostles wold appoint in their place in a line we call the Apostolic Church. The Bishop of Portsmouth was therefore appointed by another bishop in this Apostolic line, who was appointed by another, and the line goes back unbroken to the Apostles. Now that is why I have no authority, it is my bishop if he is true to the teachings of Christ who is my authority. When Jerome wrote he Latin Vulgate he was not changing the Bible into Latin because there was not Bible. There was only manuscripts written by different people including the evangelists and many others could not be relied on. If a letter was signed by Luke, was it the real Luke the evangelist. Jerome sorted a number of them out, deciding that only contemporaries of Jesus should be included. But he did not include all he genuine like Ignatius of Antioch, or Pope Clement since he size of the Bible had to be workable. The Pope at the time, who was in the lineage of Bishops who were Apostolic, referred to Jeromes work as The Word of God.