Could the recent apostolic letter revive historic precedent and lead to enforcement of Sunday worship?
by Mario Seiglie
On May 31, 1998, Pope John Paul
II issued an apostolic letter about Sunday keeping, titled "The Lord's
Day," which has important implications for Sabbath observers. In his
papal letter, John Paul appealed to the authority of the Fourth Commandment,
which sanctifies the Sabbath day, to give legitimacy to Sunday keeping.
He also advocated civil enforcement for a Sunday rest.
Seventh-Day Adventist historian,
Samuel Bacchiocchi, comments on the papal letter: "Historically, the
Catholic Church has taught that Sunday observance is an ecclesiastical
institution different in meaning and function from the Sabbath. John
Paul departs from the traditional Catholic distinction between Sabbath
and Sunday in order to make Sunday observance a moral imperative mandated
by the Decalogue itself" (Endtime Issues #2: Sabbath under Crossfire,
January 1999, page 3).
John Paul writes, "It is the
duty of Christians therefore to remember that, although the practices
of the Jewish Sabbath are gone, surpassed as they are by the 'fulfillment'
which Sunday brings, the underlying reasons for keeping 'the Lord's
Day' holy-inscribed solemnly in the Ten Commandments-remain valid,
though they need to be reinterpreted in the light of the theology
and spirituality of Sunday.... Jesus, as 'Lord of the Sabbath' (Mk. 2:28), restores to the Sabbath observance its liberating character,
carefully safeguarding the rights of God and the rights of man. This
is why Christians, called as they are to proclaim the liberation
won by the blood of Christ, felt that they had the authority to
transfer the meaning of the Sabbath to the day of the Resurrection....
For several centuries, Christians observed Sunday simply as a day
of worship, without being able to give it the specific meaning of
a Sabbath rest. Only in the fourth century did the civil law of
the Roman Empire recognize the weekly occurrence, determining
that on 'the day of the sun' the judges, the people of the cities
and the various trade corporations would not work" (op. Cit. pages.
22-23, emphasis added throughout).
