Logos at the National Catholic Bible Conference

Today’s guest post is by Greg Hoerter, manager of strategic partnerships for Catholic Products.

It was a sold-out crowd of 1200 enthusiastic Catholics gathered to apply the riches of Scripture to their everyday lives. And Logos was there to help show them how! The 2012 National Catholic Bible Conference was held at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown, PA, on June 15 and 16.

The list of speakers and authors ensured that this event was sold out well in advance. Among the speakers were Jeff Cavins, Scott Hahn, Tim Gray, Edward Sri, Sarah Christmyer, Sean Innerst, Thomas Smith, Fr. Patrick Brady, Matthew Pinto, and others—many of whom use and endorse Logos Bible Software and make their books available through our collections.

The two-day conference featured talks that focused on how to, in light of the Deposit of Faith, read and study Scripture, apply that Wisdom to our everyday lives, and transform the Catholic Faith by God’s Word.

It was a match made in heaven to be able to demonstrate how easily Logos lets you research Scripture in light of Church Teaching and Tradition. With speakers like Jeff Cavins giving his personal endorsement and a suggestion to see Logos in action, I had a busy weekend! Attendees were amazed that Logos could display hours of research in seconds, showing pages of Church Teaching on any Scripture passage searched. Church Fathers, Church Councils, Catechism of the Catholic Church, Encyclicals of the Popes—whatever reference they desired, Logos showed them what they wanted to know. I love to see the astonished grins on their faces; it’s like a child looking at the toy store window on Christmas Eve!

I never get tired of seeing such excitement about Scripture study—about the ability to gain a deeper relationship with the Word of God. As Josemaría Escrivá said, “An hour of study, for a modern apostle, is an hour of prayer,” and I think we must approach Scripture, the Word Incarnate, with the humility (and the grin) of a child. (Matthew 18:3–4)

This was an event that showed just how valuable Scripture is to our Faith and how important the Church is to the proper interpretation of Scripture. In The Size of Chesterton’s Catholicism, David Fagerberg said about G. K. Chesterton, “Perhaps he thought: Scripture is of chief importance to the Christian Religion, just as the head is of chief importance to the body, but the head is part of the body and works more efficiently when left attached.”

Just as if it had come right from the mouth of Chesterton himself, you can’t remove Scripture from the Church any more than you can remove the head from the body; they work best as they were intended, as a unified whole! Logos Catholic Libraries unite Scripture and the Deposit of Faith so that they can be studied as one unified whole.

I hope to see you this weekend in Lafayette, LA, for the Fullness of Truth Conference—June 23 and 24 with Dr. Michael Barber, Dr. Brant Pitre, Patrick Madrid, and others! It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it!