Why the USCCB will vote on a new Bible

How a new New Testament translation will impact the lectionary, and the breviary

The U.S. bishops’ conference will vote this week to approve a new liturgical Bible, paving the way for a new lectionary to be used at Mass, and for the eventual publication of a new translation of the Church’s Liturgy of the Hours.

2024 USCCB plenary assembly in Louisville. Screenshot.

The USCCB official who oversaw the process told The Pillar that the approval would be a major step forward in several liturgical projects for the U.S. Church.

“The liturgical Bible that the bishops will be voting on has three components: the 2010 Old Testament, the Abbey Psalms and Canticles, both of which have been approved by the bishops already, and then this new New Testament, which the administrative committee approved in September, and the bishops will vote on in Baltimore,” explained Mary Sperry, associate director of the USCCB’s Office for the Biblical Apostolate.

The approval of the liturgical Bible, Sperry explained, will eventually see parishes in the U.S. replace their current lectionaries, approved for publication in 2002, with new Biblical translations, rather than 1970 Old Testament translation and 1986 New Testament translation currently in use.

But first, the liturgical text — specifically a new translation of the New Testament, will need to be sent to the Vatican’s Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Disciple of the Sacraments for approval. 

Sperry told The Pillar it’s not clear how long that process will take. But if the dicastery does not request changes to the text, new translations of the New American Bible could begin to be printed soon after. 

And, after the Vatican’s approval of the Scriptural text itself, the USCCB’s Committee on Divine Worship will use it as the basis of a new lectionary, which would be submitted to American bishops for a vote, and then sent to the Vatican for approval. After that, bishops would license publishers to print texts of the lectionary, before it would eventually be mandated for public use.

“It’s a Texas-two step,” Sperry explained. “Step one: Get a Bible. Step two: Make it a lectionary.”

Recognizing that the approval process on both steps could take time, Sperry emphasized that her office “will turn every available moment” to the preparation of a new lectionary. “That’s going to be a priority,” she said. 

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The approval of a new liturgical bible will also impact a different project,  underway at the bishops’ conference since 2012: the retranslation of the Liturgy of the Hours — the scripturally-based prayerbook prayed several times a day by priests, religious, and many Catholic laity. 

If the bishops’ approve the newly translated New Testament this week, the texts will be included in new translations of the Liturgy of the Hours — which, after more than a decade of work, could be sent to the Vatican for approval next month.

But Sperry said it’s not clear how long that approval process will take. And she said that even after the text is formally approved by the Vatican, it will take publishing companies quite some time to prepare new breviaries for sale.

“Publishing The Liturgy of the Hours is going to be really, really hard work,” Sperry emphasized.

“I mean, just on a practical level, it uses a special paper. Otherwise, you'd need a wheelbarrow to carry it — it would weigh like eight pounds unless they use that really, really thin paper. And that paper has to be special ordered — not everybody makes that paper,” she explained.

“Then, only certain printers can actually use that paper without turning it into mush. Then the bindings have to be sewn — they can’t be glued. And the ribbons themselves have to get hand-sewn, and the binding's materials need to be more durable.”

“With daily use and the amount of flipping pages to pray the breviary, you have to have a sewn binding with a solid cover. And the book should also have dignity — the breviary is a liturgical book,” she explained. “It deserves to be created in a beautiful, noble form, which has lasting value.”

While Sperry acknowledged that breviary apps and single-use publishers approach texts differently, she said the USCCB president will not authorize use of the new translation until publishers have had the opportunity to prepare printed copies, and make them available for purchase.

The USCCB has previously told The Pillar that a new breviary could be in use at Advent 2026.

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While liturgical use of the text — if it is approved this week — will take time, Sperry said she hopes Catholics see the significance of a new liturgical Bible’s translation. 

“You’ll be able to buy a Bible that will substantially match the lectionary,” she said. Because of the sequence of retranslations, she said: “We’ve not had a Bible that matched the lectionary in 40 years.”

Sperry also emphasized the process of retranslating the New Testament. 

In 2013, she said, “the bishops [on the USCCB Subcommittee on the Translation of the Scripture Text] approved a list of people who might serve as editors., and then we recruited editors to work on the project.”

“There were five editors and 18 revisers,” she explained. 

Editors, she explained, worked with bishops to talk about the principles for a new translation of the Scripture. 

“The bishops wanted this to be one text that would be suitable for liturgical proclamation, for personal study and prayer, for personal devotion prayer, and for catechesis and teaching. It had to be academically excellent but inspiring. You have to be able to hear it and understand.”

In the 1986 USCCB New Testament, Sperry explained, some sections had such lengthy sentences that they were very difficult for listeners at Mass, especially, to follow. 

“The primary way that most Catholics are going to experience Scripture is in the Word proclaimed to the Eucharistic assembly,” Sperry said. “If they can't understand what they hear, they are missing one of the presence of Christ in the liturgy.”

“The translation needed to be done in such a way that it would foster the people's encounter with Christ in the Word,” she said.

Sperry said she believes the work to produce a new translation has met that goal — emphasizing the hard work of translators, editors, and bishops, including those who spent time reading aloud almost the whole of the translation, to make sure it would be intelligible to listeners. 

“Otherwise, you get incidents like the famously mispronounced ‘burning brazier’ in Genesis 15,” she laughed.

“Imagine that mispronounced [as brassiere] in parishes everywhere!” she joked.

In addition, she said, the translated text was made available to bishops on the translation subcommittee in 2019 for feedback, leading to hundreds of pages worth of suggestions, and hours of work for the professional editors involved in the project. 

“I don't think people realized just how incredibly hard the bishops work on something like this,” she told The Pillar.

Sperry said that while she looks forward to seeing the newly translated text approved, the work to get it in front of the bishops has been gratifying. 

“This has been one of the most amazing experiences of my professional career,” she said. 

While she recognized that translations have a shelf life — and liturgical texts have seen several revisions since 1970 — Sperry said she hopes this one will be useful to the Church for or decades to come, if not longer.

Editors and bishops, she said, worked hard to make Scripture intelligible for all Catholics, and to produce a translation she hopes will be lasting.

“It was just an enormous gift of love for future generations,” she said.