As Protestants celebrate the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation, all Christians can remember with sadness the necessary split of Christendom by the Protestant Reformation to correct some very bad Catholic theology. Pope Francis, the current Pope, has even praised Luther as a great reformer.

What is missing in this 500th Anniversary–and what has been missing for at least 500 years–are public expressions of gratitude from Protestants to Catholics for giving Protestants the New Testament!

While there are 5800 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament and another 10,000 in other languages, the main Greek manuscripts for our beloved Protestant New Testament were all copied by hand for centuries only by Roman Catholics–mostly by humble monks whose names are known only to God and others in heaven. I can’t wait to hug them and thank them in person! 

I propose that we send a Letter to the Editor of the Virginian-Pilot this month to publically thank and honor the Roman Catholic Church for giving us our priceless New Testament.

It is hard to imagine how we or the world could know about Jesus and the Gospel today without the Catholic manuscripts of the Greek New Testament from which most Bible today draw their source.