Peoria’s St. Charles Borromeo Roman Catholic Parish shared an explanation of why the Catholic Church believes the Bible to be divinely inspired in its July 12 weekly bulletin. 

The Rev. James Kalliath explained that the Bible is a formation of multiple works that human writers wrote through God’s working through them.

“What we mean by Biblical inspiration is that the authors and editors of the Bible were led or influenced by God with the result that their writings would be acknowledged as the word of God,” Kalliath wrote. 

Human writers were not the true authors of the books — God is, according to Kalliath. God worked through the human individuals to ensure that His truth was protected in these written works. 

“The Church infallibly teaches that the Old Testament books are also inspired because Jesus and his Apostles believed in them as inspired books and taught that truth,” Kalliath wrote. “The New Testament books are a recorded and inspired history of Jesus and his Church.”

Kalliath explained that inspiration of the Bible means that the Holy Spirit is the author of scripture and that God worked in three ways: first by illuminating the sacred writers’ minds; second by allowing the Holy Spirit to move the will of the writers to convey perfectly what God wished; and third by letting the Holy Spirit help the writers with the composition of the Bible. 

“Let us always remember God talks to us through the Bible, the Word of God,” Kalliath wrote.