Sep 15, 2017

Letters to Editor

Supreme Thanks 

Great article on Summorum Pontificum 

Kenneth Solak
California 


Century of Blessings 

Dear Friends at Adoremus, 

I just celebrated by birthday on July 15th. I was born in 1917 so I am now 100 years old. God has blessed me in so many ways. My mind is still as clear as can be. Thank you Jesus! 

I love reading the Adoremus Bulletin. I received $50 as a gift so I want to give this to you in appreciation for sending me this marvelous paper every time you publish it. 

I also pass it on to the pastor of the Cathedral here in St. Augustine. 

God bless you all. 

Sister St. Margaret Zapf 

Sisters of St. Joseph 

St. Augustine, FL 


Charitable Response 

Dear Folks at Adoremus, 

Please accept our gift to you, as a meager offering for all the good your work does. We have been blessed for years to receive your publication. It has always been a vital and instructive part of our family’s faith formation—becoming ever more necessary as our children grew. 

There have been long periods of time when we have not reciprocated your steady mailings to us—that kindness is a tribute to your publication’s charity. We resolve to be more reliable benefactors. 

Greg and Annette Boyle
Poughkipsie, NY 


 Kudos for Carstens 

Dear Mr. Carstens, 

You have really done a great job with Adoremus Bulletin and I commend you wholeheartedly. It is a tribute to Helen Hitchcock, a very faithful founder. 

May the Lord be with you and your assistants. 

Herman Belz
Rockville, MD 


Letters from Nigeria I: Continental Bridge 

Dear Adoremus, 

I am a Catholic priest from Nigeria about to complete my doctoral studies here in the U.S., and hopefully returning home in no distant time to teach in the seminary and/or work in my diocese. Coming to the U.S. has offered me a lot of learning and academic opportunities which a majority of my brother priests never enjoy and some do not even know that it is possible. I have been thinking on how to help bridge this gap. More recently I have been focused on establishing a functional library to be at their disposal for better pastoral ministry. To this end I have been buying and collecting books, CDs/DVDs and other reading materials to stock the library within my limited power as a student. 

I know yours is not a charity organization but I was wondering if there is any way you can gift us with some books and materials, in the form of a donation, especially publications in the areas of theology, liturgy, philosophy, ecclesiology, liberal arts, etc., to help us set up this library.  

If it will be possible I will greatly appreciate it. 

Thanks,
Father Peter O. 


Letters from Nigeria II: Seminal Work 

Dear Christopher, 

Permit me to begin by introducing myself. I am Father Alfred Emeka Okakpu, one of the Formator/lecturers at the Blessed Iwene Tansi Major Seminary in Onitsha Nigeria. 

We were glad when Father Dennis Gill proposed to arrange with you to send us copies of the Adoremus Bulletin for our seminarians. We cannot thank you and Father Dennis enough. May the good Lord continue to bless and guide you all. 

Should you need some more information about the seminarians (about 300 of them), such would be provided. So, feel very free to ask me for whatever information you will be needing. 

With high esteem and prayerful best wishes,
Rev. Alfred Emeka Okakpu
Blessed Iwene Tansi Major Seminary
Onitsha, Nigeria 

Adoremus replies: We are grateful to our many benefactors who give to the Bulletin for precisely this reason, to help form seminarians, as well as clergy and the faithful, according to the liturgical mind of the Church. We are especially pleased to know Adoremus’s reach extends more and more often beyond our North American borders. 


New American Bible Update 

I have been reading The Politics of Prayer: Feminist Language and the Worship of God, edited by Helen Hull Hitchcock, and am concerned about the New American Bible (NAB). What are the latest developments regarding the NAB? 

Mark Vatuone
Via email 

 Susan Benofy responds for Adoremus: 

A lot has happened since the publication of The Politics of Prayer in 1992. The best review of developments up to 2012 is an article published in Adoremus Bulletin in November 2012: “Chronology: Bible translations, U.S. Lectionaries.” It is mostly the work of Mrs. Hitchcock, and gives a timeline of various revisions of scripture translations. You can find it online at Adoremus.org. (Use the Search button and type in the title.) Many of the entries give a reference (and sometimes a link) to other articles in AB giving more detail on each development. Together they provide a quite comprehensive account of Scripture revisions in general and the NAB in particular. The present edition of the New American Bible was published in 2011. It includes the 1986 edition of the New Testament and a newly-revised version of the entire Old Testament. It is most often referred to as the New American Bible Revised Edition, or NABRE. 

The last item on the list links back to a report on the June 2012 USCCB meeting, and includes a full transcript of the discussion of plans to further revise the NAB. After 2012 it seems the project has not proceeded very fast, at least as far as can be determined from public reports (such as the Newsletter of the Bishops’ Committee on Divine Worship (BCDW)). 

The revision of the NAB is linked to two other projects: a new translation of the Liturgy of the Hours (LOTH), and the production of the “liturgical Bible” called for by the 2001 instruction on translation Liturgiam authenticam §36: “The Conferences of Bishops are strongly encouraged to provide for the commissioning and publication in their territories of an integral translation of the Sacred Scriptures intended for the private study and reading of the faithful, which corresponds in every part to the text that is used in the Sacred Liturgy.” 

But it has already been decided that the Psalms in official US liturgical books will not come from the NAB translation, but will be taken from the version of the Grail Psalter revised by Conception Abbey. It was also decided to have Conception Abbey translate the biblical canticles for the Liturgy of the Hours, and this translation was approved by the USCCB after their June 2015 meeting. Thus the committee in charge of the new edition of the “liturgical bible” and the LOTH would incorporate these Conception Abbey translations, rather than do its own revision of the current NAB versions. 

Another thing that may be complicating the revision project is suggested in a comment by Archbishop Wilton Gregory, Chairman of the BCDW, in an address to the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions as reported in the BCDW Newsletter for November 2015: “The Holy See has been gently encouraging the English-speaking Conferences to try to come to a consensus on Scriptural translations for the liturgy. The growing ease of international travel and communication and the growing worldwide influence of the English language obviously are factors here. The possibility of finding a Psalter that could be adopted in common will be discussed in the upcoming International Commission on English in the Liturgy meeting. We look forward to hearing the observations that the representatives of various groups will have about this question. This is a project that may or may not come to fruition. Therefore, it is premature to say what impact, if any, it would have on our new breviary.” 

I expect any impact on the breviary would also be reflected in the new version of the NAB. I suppose the NAB could even be replaced by a new common translation of Scripture for English-speaking countries. (Almost no other English-speaking country uses the NAB for liturgy.) 

There doesn’t appear to be any timeline for the completion of the project of producing the “liturgical Bible.” A short update in the BCDW Newsletter from May-June 2017 announced simply that “As work continues toward a liturgical Bible for use in the United States, the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine requested the Committee’s assistance concerning a review of the New American Bible Old Testament” (18). 

Official announcements of further developments should appear in issues of the BCDW Newsletter, which can be found on the USCCB web site. Adoremus Bulletin will continue to publish news items on translation progress as well. 

The Editors