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A new English translation of the Bible will be called the "Catholic American Bible" and will be available starting on Ash Wednesday 2027, Bishop Steven Lopes said on Tuesday, November 11.
Bishop Lopes, the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB) Committee on Divine Worship, made the announcement during the conference's Plenary Assembly in Baltimore, Maryland. Lopes is also the bishop and ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter.
From Mass to home
The Catholic American Bible will "be the common text between the lectionary at Mass, the Scripture that is used in the Liturgy of the Hours, and a Bible text that you can have as a physical Bible for your own private prayer and devotion,” explained Bishop Lopes.
Last year, the bishops overwhelmingly approved the use of a revised New American Bible for liturgical use.
Lopes joked that the name "Catholic American Bible" was decided upon after others "tired of me calling it the 'Newer New American Bible.'"
"Here on, it will be the 'Catholic American Bible,'" he said. It will be published in a "variety of formats" from a number of publishers, he said.
The Catholic American Bible serves as the replacement text for the New American Bible—Revised Edition (NABRE). The NABRE was published in 2011, and was the first update to the New American Bible translation in two decades.
The New American Bible was first published in 1970.
Ascension, one of the publishers of the forthcoming Catholic American Bible, said the company was "honored" to work with the USCCB to publish the book.
"Approved by the bishops of the United States and rooted in the most faithful scholarship, the Catholic American Bible seeks to make the Word of God clearer and more accessible to all the faithful," said a statement from Ascension published on the company's website.
"The [Catholic American Bible] features a modified version of the Old Testament from the NABRE, with the Book of Psalms replaced by the Abbey Psalms and Canticles alongside a new introduction and notes, a newly revised New Testament, and appendices to both the Old and New Testaments containing the Abbey Psalms and Canticles," said Ascension.
The Abbey Psalms and Canticles are the Revised Grail Psalter and the Old and New Testament Canticles translated by the monks of Conception Abbey in Missouri.
Ash Wednesday 2027 falls on February 10.
