How accurate is the text in the Bible?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If 'the word' isn't so important, than maybe Catholics should have women priests and people who claim to be religious should stay out of trying to legislate on abortion and other issues.

These aren't good examples of Controversial Stances that are actually based on the text of the Bible, though, or are even generally claimed to be. They're based mostly on other early Christian sources, interpretations of those other sources, and/or post facto justifications for choosing those interpretations.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If 'the word' isn't so important, than maybe Catholics should have women priests and people who claim to be religious should stay out of trying to legislate on abortion and other issues.

These aren't good examples of Controversial Stances that are actually based on the text of the Bible, though, or are even generally claimed to be. They're based mostly on other early Christian sources, interpretations of those other sources, and/or post facto justifications for choosing those interpretations.

Nor ordaining women priests certainly is. According to a number of sources, women were the earliest priests, but as Christianity became the powerful religion in Rome, women were relegated and subjugated.
https://www.ncronline.org/spirituality/researcher-artifacts-show-early-church-women-served-clergy
"But for most Catholics, the research will confirm what they suspected all along — that the ban on female clergy has always been about the silencing and suppression of women and never about true tradition."

I don't know as much about abortion, but there are certainly reasons to believe that abortion was practiced in Rome after Rome bacame Christian.
In the early Roman Catholic church, abortion was permitted for male fetuses in the first 40 days of pregnancy and for female fetuses in the first 80-90
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12340403/

I recommend seeing the PBS Frontline series From Jesus to Christ, and not simply following the Catholic line of teaching.
https://www.pbs.org/video/jesus-christ-first-christians-part-one-uosmze/

Sure, but what I said isn't really meant to dispute any of this. Ask a conservative Catholic what the rationale is for these particular teachings and they're not very likely to resort immediately to biblical proof-texting; instead they'll make points that derive from other sources than the text of the Bible itself. That's all I was saying.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If 'the word' isn't so important, than maybe Catholics should have women priests and people who claim to be religious should stay out of trying to legislate on abortion and other issues.

These aren't good examples of Controversial Stances that are actually based on the text of the Bible, though, or are even generally claimed to be. They're based mostly on other early Christian sources, interpretations of those other sources, and/or post facto justifications for choosing those interpretations.

Nor ordaining women priests certainly is. According to a number of sources, women were the earliest priests, but as Christianity became the powerful religion in Rome, women were relegated and subjugated.
https://www.ncronline.org/spirituality/researcher-artifacts-show-early-church-women-served-clergy
"But for most Catholics, the research will confirm what they suspected all along — that the ban on female clergy has always been about the silencing and suppression of women and never about true tradition."

I don't know as much about abortion, but there are certainly reasons to believe that abortion was practiced in Rome after Rome bacame Christian.
In the early Roman Catholic church, abortion was permitted for male fetuses in the first 40 days of pregnancy and for female fetuses in the first 80-90
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12340403/

I recommend seeing the PBS Frontline series From Jesus to Christ, and not simply following the Catholic line of teaching.
https://www.pbs.org/video/jesus-christ-first-christians-part-one-uosmze/

Sure, but what I said isn't really meant to dispute any of this. Ask a conservative Catholic what the rationale is for these particular teachings and they're not very likely to resort immediately to biblical proof-texting; instead they'll make points that derive from other sources than the text of the Bible itself. That's all I was saying.

Given that the Bible has been altered on these things, most likely these other sources have been altered through time as well. Or these sources have been promoted while other contrary sources have been censored or suppressed.

So, having a discussion on how the Bible has been altered might force conservative Catholics to rethink the other sources that they would cite.

Except that's not how Catholic theology sees the Bible; it's seen (correctly, if one looks at what's known of the history) as having been produced, in its current form, by the Church hierarchy, not as preceding and legitimizing that hierarchy.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Let's try to stay on-topic, please.