The St. Ignatius Catholic Study Bible
Ignatius (1491 – 1556) was a Spanish
knight, priest since 1537, and
theologian, who founded the Society of
Jesus (Jesuits) Ignatius emerged as a
religious leader during the CounterReformation. Loyola's devotion to the
Catholic Church was characterized by
absolute obedience to the Pope.
A good Catholic Bible study will
• Be in conformity with Catholic
doctrine concerning the Bible, its
origin, and its interpretation
• Be open to multiple methods of
biblical studies and a judicious
application of them
A good Catholic Bible study will
• Quote biblical passages or
explain them in their context in
the Bible
• Will not claim to be the only
Catholic approach to the Bible
A good Catholic Bible study will
• Never advocate for a single
understanding or theory of
biblical inspiration, which the
church has never definitively
settled
A good Catholic Bible study will
• Make no definitive judgments about
matters that the church leaves
open. This includes the date and
authorship of biblical books and
translations or interpretations of
specific passages of the Bible
A good Catholic Bible study will
• Acknowledge the rare instances
when the church has declared a
given interpretation as the correct
one, or has proscribed specific
interpretations such as the passage
on the brothers and sisters of Jesus
(Mk 3:32), where the church teaches
that they are not blood siblings of
Jesus.
A good Catholic Bible study will
• Avoid fundamentalist
interpretations or improper literal
or fanciful interpretations
• Recognize the complex and dynamic
relationship between the Old
Testament and the New Testament
A good Catholic Bible study will
• Will “stay-on-track” to cover the
assigned material in the allotted
time
• Will inspire participants to read,
study, and pray Holy Scripture every
day
Francis Hook
[The Church] holds that the books
of both the Old and New
Testaments in their entirety, with
all their parts, are sacred and
canonical because written under
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
they have God as their author and
have been handed on as such to
the Church herself. (Dei Verbum)
The Bible is…
• The Inerrant Word of God
• Written by humans with the total
inspiration of God
Senses of Scripture
• Literal – understanding the words
used as the writers understood them
in their original settings
• Spiritual
–Allegorical
–Tropological
–Anagogical
Interpretation Criteria
• Unity of the whole Scripture
• The living Tradition of the whole
Church
• Analogy of faith
Perspective
Unless we are living a sustained
and disciplined life of prayer, we
will never have the reverence, the
profound humility, or the grace we
need to see the Scriptures for
what they really are.