By Fr. Bill Kneemiller
In the past couple of weeks I’ve been intrigued by the letters and the editorial comments on how Catholics interpret the Bible. I wanted to add a few thoughts on this subject because I’ve had the opportunity to live for a year in Iraq, the ancient biblical land of the Chaldeans. During that time I also had numerous opportunities to travel and know military chaplains of different backgrounds ranging from conservative Jews to evangelical Christians. First, I have a little story that helps me understand why, as Catholics, we do not take a Fundamentalist view of the Scriptures.
A couple of years ago, I had to travel to the U.S. Army Chaplain School in South Carolina. Near the Kentucky border, I saw a sign for the Creationist Museum. I stopped in and the first display I saw was a fossil that was a sample of the Fundamentalist view of Creation. It read: “Rock fossil, believed by Modern Science to be about four million years old, but according to The Bible, it is 5,500 years old.”
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