The USCCB Never Misses an Opportunity to Alienate Catholics

It’s bad enough that licensing fees for it exist; it’s even worse that it’s licensing fees for a translation as bad as the NAB. I agree about the DR.

We could go further in cost savings though. The music publishers load their licensing fees into the yearly costs of the missalettes, and the three year cycle practically necessitates the need to print them yearly. There’s also the inevitable revisions to the language of the missal as language changes or as earlier translations are corrected (such as in 2011).

However, I’ll propose a few crazy, never-thought-of-before schemes to save money:

A. Gregorian chant is public domain, and thus no licensing fees. There might be up-front costs for physically printed books of it (or you could print it yourself), but since it’s largely a fixed repertoire then the future costs are only for replacing damaged or well-worn books.

B. A one-year cycle of readings means that a single volume missal that need only be printed once (excepting eventual wear and tear) is a possibility. You might even be able to have a surreal situation where the laity have their own hand missals which have both the readings for Mass and a Kyriale for the Ordinary of the mass.

C. Use a single language for the Mass that’s fixed and not in need of further revisions as it changes in contemporary use. Latin might be a good choice for this. The double-advantage here is that translations that are also older (such as the Douay-Rheims) do not need further revision, and thus further cost savings are embedded into this.

Donald is 100% right. Now I am going to go on a rant after the YouTube video below. Ted Janiszewski at St. Irenaeus Ministries gives an excellent review of major study Bibles.

https://youtu.be/70BRXzoHAdU?si=1SBohSbtYybVAZyN

He covers ancient and modern ones, Jewish, Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant. He cites six different principles to determine if a study Bible is a good one, and the Catholic NABRE with its godless, worthless, heretic study notes that the USCCB mandates for use in Novus Ordo liturgy FAILS every single criterion (but Father Leo Haydock’s Douay-Rheims Study Bible of 1859 passes with flying colors):

1. The Documentary Hypothesis: is Moses the author of the Torah, or is the Torah a product of multiple traditions compiled together at the end of the Babylonian Exile?

2. Deutero-Isaiah: did the prophet Isaiah write all of the book that bears his name, or is it a compilation of several parts put together at the end of the Babylonian Exile?

3. Pseudepigraphical Daniel: did Daniel actually prophecy during the Babylonian Exile, or was the book that bears his name put together after the Maccabean victory over the Seleucids?

4. Two Source Hypothesis: did Matthew, Mark, Luke and John really write the Gospels that bear their names, or were they developed from a hidden now lost source after their deaths?

5. Pseudo-Paul: did Paul really write all the Epistles bearing his name, or were some of them written by others using his name?

6. Pseudepigraphical Peter: did Peter really write 2nd Peter against false teachers, or was 2nd Peter written by a man falsely using Peter’s name?

As I said above, the Catholic NABRE study notes clearly falls on the side of heterdoxy. Read its study notes – what worthless freaking poop!

1. The Torah came from Elohimist, Yahwehist, Priestly and Deuteronomistic sources after the Babylonian Exile.

And oh by the way, the study notes in the Catholic NABRE deny:

God created the universe in 6 days.
There was a world-wide flood.
Moses parted the Red Sea.
Etc.

Yet as Donald pointed out, the USCCB has designated the text in the Catholic NABRE for use in the Liturgy of the Word at Holy Mass.

My disgust with the Institutional Church isn’t just because of that heretical Marxist Peronist Caudillo occupying the Seat of St. Peter. The problem started long before the election of that Argentine nitwit to the highest position of authority in the Church. Prior to Vatican Council II, the Catholic Church used to believe in the inerrancy and infallibility of Sacred Scripture. Today some 60 years after that Council the Institutional Church regards the Bible as a quaint anthropological and sociological construct to be superseded by the false gospel of environmentalism, social justice, the common good, and peace at any price. That is utterly contemptible and loathsome.

Therefore, to the USCCB, to the Vatican, and to Pope Francis, I proudly give my nuclear submarine sailor one finger salute. I would rather use anti-Catholic John MacArthur’s study Bible than what the USCCB gives us because at least he believes in Saced Scripture, however distorted his interpretation is.

Just before my former parish closed, the diocese levied a tax on parishes, which we paid in addition to our weekly stipend. Around that time I met with the diocesan head of ccd and was ridiculed as one of those “organic people” because my wife and I promoted NFP. The bishop took no action. A few years later our parish closed and the diocese head of ccd retired on full pension to accolades in the diocese newspaper.
Yes, ordinary people in the pews aren’t seen as much more than an ATM and a nuisance to diocesan bureaucracy.

If you want to get really upset, start reading the portion of the daily readings that are cut out of the middle of the reading. Usually very important stuff.

Never forget that the “U” in USCCB stands for useless.

And pray for your bishop whenever he has to go visit with these folks – I do!

Guys, it’s every modern Catholic translation, every modern Catholic Study Bible that is suspect. I am sitting in my home office where I have a collection of about every Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant translation and study Bible. The NABRE, the NJB, the GNT, the NCB, etc.are all crap. The Catholic Study Bible 2nd Edition from Oxford, and the Little Rock Catholic Study Bible are full of modernist crap. Even the Navarre Study Bible series fails on these six principles:

1. The Documentary Hypothesis: is Moses the author of the Torah, or is the Torah a product of multiple traditions compiled together at the end of the Babylonian Exile?
2. Deutero-Isaiah: did the prophet Isaiah write all of the book that bears his name, or is it a compilation of several parts put together at the end of the Babylonian Exile?
3. Pseudepigraphical Daniel: did Daniel actually prophecy during the Babylonian Exile, or was the book that bears his name put together after the Maccabean victory over the Seleucids?
4. Two Source Hypothesis: did Matthew, Mark, Luke and John really write the Gospels that bear their names, or were they developed from a hidden now lost source after their deaths?
5. Pseudo-Paul: did Paul really write all the Epistles bearing his name, or were some of them written by others using his name?
6. Pseudepigraphical Peter: did Peter really write 2nd Peter against false teachers, or was 2nd Peter written by a man falsely using Peter’s name?

The RSV CE, the NRSV CE, the ESV CE, and the DRV are all good translations. And Scott Hahn’s Ignatius Stuidy Bible NT is great, but he never finished the OT. Father George Haydock’s 1859 DRV Study Bible is great too (I said that before), but it’s in Elizabethan English which is difficult for many to understand.

Here’s my point: all this modernist heresy out of Vatican II started when Catholic Bible translations and study aids were turned over to liberal progressive Academia. You want a good translation? The Evangelical Protestants do much better because they respect Scripture even though their interpretation is suspect. The NKJV, the NASB, the LSB are all excellent (but don’t have the Deuterocanonicals). Even the NIV and NLT are better than the Catholic NABRE. Heck, poop is better than the Catholic NABRE!

Here’s another thing you got to understand about translation: there’s literal and there’s dynamic. Literal is word for word. Dynamic is thought for thought. Each has advantages and disadvantages. RSV CE and ESV CE are literal translations. NABRE is dynamic (and a very poor one when compared to the Protestant NIV). My only objection to the DRV (Doauy-Rheims Version) is that it is a translation of St. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate which itself is a translation of the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. So the DRV is inaccurate but still way better than the NABRE crap. I typically use the NRSV CE and the New Latin Vulgate done under Pope St. JP II. Those are my favorites because my Greek is horrible and my Hebrew non-existent. But the truth is I use all good translations, Protestant and Catholic and one Orthodox translation out of the Antiochan Orthodox Church. I like comparing. BTW, it’s a rare occasion that I use the NABRE. I don’t like touching poop.

“I use both King James and Douay when I want to pin down a certain phrase or word meaning.”
Donald Link
Please stay away from the King James translation of the Bible as it treats God, the Infinite Supreme Sovereign Being as a thing, a “which”
Nothing good can come from something so bad.

Mary De Voe wrote:

Please stay away from the King James translation of the Bible as it treats God, the Infinite Supreme Sovereign Being as a thing, a “which”

QUAERITUR: Where? Cite specific examples. How does the Douay-Rheims translate those passages (since the KJV translators often but not always referred to the DRV).

I have used the KJV all my life from when I began to first read. I can recall no instance of disrespect toward God in the KJV. But remember: Elizabethan English is DIFFERENT than modern English; thus, the word “which” may not ALWAYS connote the same meaning.

You’re welcome, Donald Link. I want to say a few other things about translations. First, what is the base text used? The KJV used the Masoretic Hebrew text for the OT and the Textus Receptus Greek for the NT. So does the modern NKJV. The Douay-Rheims used St. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate with reference to the Masoretic and Textus Receptus. But nowadays we have discovered Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts older than the Masoretic and Textus Receptus. There are differences. So the ESV, RSV, NRSV, NASB, LSB, NIV, NLT, CSB, etc. default to the most ancient. No difference however results in any theological impact.

Let me give several big picture examples. (1) The story of the woman caught in adultery in John 7:53-8:11 is NOT in the oldest Greek texts, and its style of writing in Lucan, NOT Johanine. (2) Mark 16:9-20 is an addition that was not a part of the original Gospel of Mark, but the style is Marcan. Now the Church – Protestant and Catholic – has always believed those two additions are canonical. Did a Scribe mess up and copy Luke’s story of the woman caught in adultery into John? Maybe. Did Mark add a revision to his Gospel later on? Maybe. We don’t know. But when you guys start talking about translations, you have to be aware of those things. None of them affects our faith, yet anomalies like that exist.

Another example: parts of Wisdom and Sirach are different depending on what edition of the Septuagint Greek you use (which by the way I do have in my library along with the Hebrew OT and several editions of the Greek NT). The same is true with Baruch. I don’t have time to go into details here. But those differences do exist. Liberal progressive scholars use them to denigrate the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture. Frankly, I am surprised that with a collection of books like the Bible written over thousands of years in three different languages by scores of authors that there aren’t MORE anomalies. The consistency is amazing!

One more thing: except for Scott Hahn, Father George Haydock, and a few others, Catholic Biblical scholarship sucks. Protestant Evangelicals got us beat big time. They got interlinear Hebrew-English and Greek-English Bibles, archeological and cultural background study Bibles, etc. The USCCB gives us poop –> the NABRE. Yes, we got the new Didache study Bible, but after Jorge the heretic screwed up the Catechism, I don’t trust it. And yes, when using Protestant study Bibles, I always make allowances for the fact that they get the Sacraments and Mary completely wrong. But did you know that the Southern Baptists – of all people – came out with an Ancient Faith Study Bible (in the CSB translation) full of notes from the early Church Fathers in the 1st four centuries after Christ? Why isn’t that a CATHOLIC Bible? I will tell you why –> the freaking USCCB. I for one am appalled at Catholic Biblical scholarship. I am a dilettante when it comes to Greek and Latin. But I know more than most of those idiots in the USCCB building in Washington, DC. And BTW, I have spent thousands and thousands of dollars on study Bibles and commentaries, and thousands of hours over the years studying this very topic. Until the Catholic Church does something about this abysmal state of Catholic Biblical scholarship, NO Catholic should be taking an air of superiority by down-talking any other translation that Evangelical Protestants put out.

“Please stay away from the King James translation of the Bible as it treats God, the Infinite Supreme Sovereign Being as a thing, a “which”
I’m wondering that too. Any examples of this sort of treatment of God in the KJV?”
The Lord’s Prayer.

Mary De Voe is correct. Matthew 6:9 in the KJV says “Our Father which art in heaven….” and the DRV says “Our Father who art in heaven…” As expected, the KJV is an imperfect translation (as all translations are). The Greek says, “πατερ ημων ο εν τοις ουρανοις…” and the Latin Vulgate says, “Pater noster, qui es in caelis…”

Well I am still not throwing out my various KJV editions, nor my various DRV editions. But this anomaly is good to know. Thanks.

Regarding USCCB licensing fees on accessing Sacred Scripture, today in the English speaking world we are blessed with a bounty of Bible translations (Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox) across the spectrum from literal word-for-word to dynamic equivalency to paraphrase.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_Bible_translations#Complete_Bibles

Additionally, there are interlinear Greek-English and Hebrew-English Bibles (Protestant; Catholics have NOTHING like this, so no Deuterocanonicals).

https://biblehub.com/interlinear/

There are also many web sites like Bible Gateway that provide access to Bible translations into English and many other languages as well (Catholic Bibles are indexed here).

https://www.biblegateway.com/

There is a Blue Letter Bible web site (Protestant; Catholics have NOTHING like this) where you can click on an English word and find its Hebrew or Greek meaning. It’s Strong’s Concordance (again, Protestant; Catholics have NOTHING like this) turned into software. But sadly, no Deutercanonicals because again, modern Catholic Scripture scholarship sucks.

https://www.blueletterbible.org/

Finally, most good Bible translations done by Protestants come in a Catholic version, like RSV CE, NRSV CE, ESV CE, etc.

If you wonder how I can do the Greek, Hebrew and Latin, it’s because I cheat with resources like these. There is NO reason to be ignorant any longer, and I am happy to say that Biblical literacy here at Donald’s TAC blog is outstandingly very high. You guys are the best.

Bear in mind that Bishop Challoner heavily revised Douay in the 18th cent., relying largely on the KJV. The Douay version we read now is almost a Catholic version of the KJV. The original Douay version (1582,1610) was so latinate as to be extremely difficult reading.

Most of the Catholic biblical academy is wedded to the various documentary hypotheses for the OT and NT. And you don’t get published in “prestigious” biblical journals if you don’t sing from the same deconstructionist hymnal.

I second the favorable nods to evangelical scholarship: the IVP Dictionary series books are superlative academic aids to the study of the Bible, and are quite favorable to what they consider apocrypha (our deuterocanonicals).

Even shorn of the awful introductions and notes, the NABRE is just not a good translation. It comes across as a compiled memorandum of committee-approved contemporary English. It enters the head and then leaves.

Dave G, if you’re referring to the omicron in “πατερ ημων ο εν τοις ουρανοις,” see the top of page 3 at the link below – the words “who art” or “which art” don’t exist in the Greek, and were supplied as “qui es” in the Vulgate.

https://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/mat6.pdf

What you see in the above link is a literal word-for-word interlinear translation. It’s not really very intelligible as everyday modern English (or even Elizabethan English). The ancients did NOT speak as we do. They left out a lot of words because their nouns used declensions and they assumed from context you would know what they are talking about.

BTW, we say, “Our Father who art in heaven…” but the Greek says, “ουρανοις” which means “heavens.” The word is plural in Greek. The ancients were different people, different mentality, different outlook. Therefore, NO translation (DRV, KJV, ESV, RSV, NRSV, NASB, LSB, NKJV, NIV, NLT, CSB, etc.) is perfect.

Another BTW, Dale Price is 100% correct. The NABRE notes are based on the wrong-headed documentary hypothesis (which came from the Germans in the 19th century – take note, Donald), and the translation itself is simply neither an accurate rendering of the Greek and Hebrew, nor even an elegant one. At least the KJV despite some errors is elegant.

Thanks, DJH. My Anglican 1928 Book of Common Prayer says:

“Our Father who art in heaven…”

The original Greek says:

“πατερ ημων ο εν τοις ουρανοις αγιασθητω το ονομα σου…”

Literally translated, that means:

“Father of us the in the heavens let being holy the name of you…”

You could say “who in the heavens” – that’s ok too.

Nevertheless, NOT a one of us has an English translation that matches word-for-word what the original Greek says, and the words “who art” or “which art” were added, whether by the DRV translators or the KJV translators, and the word “heavens” was made singular instead of plural.

The Latin Vulgate says:

“Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum….”

That literally means:

“Father our, who are in heavens, sacred be name your…”

Latin has no articles. And adjectives describing nouns are put after the noun.

Do you see now how NO translation can possibly match what the original says?

This is why when I see criticisms of KJV vs DRV, I get annoyed. Both are GOOD translations for their times. Each has mistakes unique unto them. But what really irks me most is when modern day scholars KNOW all these things and PURPOSELY screw up translations like the NABRE and NRSVUE (the updated NRSV) anyways! It’s one thing for the KJV translators to have an Anglican bias; they NEVER purposely mistranslated. The same is true of the DRV translators and their use of the Latin Vulgate instead of the original Greek and Hebrew; they NEVER purposely mistranslated. But the modern day translators of the NABRE and NRSVUE purposely mistranslated. I freaking HATE that.

Yes, CAG, both the NABRE and the NRSV translate the peace offering of Leviticus 7:11 incorrectly as a communal or well-being offering respectively. But there is a reason why they did this: the animal sacrifice of the peace offering was intended to be shared and eaten. The translations given by the NABRE and NRSV are still in my opinion inaccurate.

Lucius, that was what I imagined. One of those translator’s decisions. Again, not enough for me to think the KJV in any way reduces God to a ‘thing.’