Expert: Griff Ruby - 5/22/2010

Question
My mother in law is currently living us while she cares for our 3 month old child while we work.  She is an exceptional lady.  I have grown to love and care for her very much.  

My mother in law belongs to the Seventh Day Adventist church.  Many times she tries to explain to me how the SDA church is the only church with the message of salvation.  She constantly reminds me that the Sabbath is to be held on Saturdays. She is claims that SDA church has a belief (prophecy) that the Catholic church will persecute all non Catholic Christians towards the end of days.

Many of her sayings I know are wrong.  I was raised in the Catholic church, with a father as a deacon and my God-Father a priest, all my life I have been listening to the word of God.  However, I find it very difficult to debate with her.  I do admit that the SD Adventists are very well read and devote much time to studying the word of God.

Why aren't Catholics, on Sundays encouraged to study the bible? Yes, there are many of us that do read the bible often, but I mean why don't the priests on Sundays fervently motivate and encourage us to do more?

Can you give me some guidance as to where I can find unbiased doctrines that will help me support my arguments?  Such as, why we pray to the saints, why our Sabbath is on Sundays, etc?

Sincerely,

David

Answer
A very good book for a lot of these kind of questions would be Catholicism and Fundamentalism: The Attack on "Romanism" by "Bible Christians" by Karl Keating.
A good doctrinal source to have a better understanding of what the Church teaches and why is This Is the Faith: A Complete Explanation of the Catholic Faith by Canon Francis Ripley
As for the question of worship on Sunday rather than Saturday, the difference is not merely one of someone having "lost count" of the days, somehow, in some dim past time.  Scripture itself states that even in the Apostolic times they gathered to "break bread" (worship, the Mass) on the "First day of the week" (Acts 20:7) which is Sunday (Saturday is the seventh, the [Jewish] Sabbath, so the next, Sunday, wraps around back to the first).  This was done because of the Resurrection of Christ on a Sunday, which hallowed that day of the week for special Christian worship.  It was only a short matter of time before the "Day of rest" for Christians migrated from the Jewish "Day of rest" to the hallowed day of Sunday.
Hope this helps!