New American Lectionary (United States).

On November 29, 1998, Volume I of a new Lectionary for Mass went into effect in the United States. It is based on the 1981 Ordo Lectionum Missae and replaces the 1971 Lectionary in use for almost 30 years.

Like its Latin model, the new Lectionary has the three year cycle readings for the feasts of the Holy Family, the Baptism of the Lord, the Ascension and Pentecost, all missing in the old one. It also has additional prayer sets and readings for Masses on Special Occasions.

Most importantly, the translation of the New Testament is based on the 1970 New American Bible, as revised in 1986, while Old Testament texts are from the 1970 Old Testament, including the Psalms.

Pastoral Life magazine (Sept. '98) reports that "certain changes to the base text were made for increased precision and in the interest of accurately conveying a horizontally inclusive scriptural term as well as for greater ease in proclamation."

Examples of the first category are: their holocausts changed to their burnt offerings; a smoking brazier changed to a smoking pot; seahs of flour changed to measures of flower.

The new Lectionary, says Pastoral Life, is marked by very moderate inclusive language. As the Bishops on the Liturgy Committee pointed out: "The new Lectionary strives for maximum possible fidelity to the biblical text. When that text is not gender specific, the new Lectionary is not gender specific.

"While certain tools are appropriate to achieve such inclusivity (for example, whoever, the one, anyone, etc... ), other tools (for example, change of person and number) change the meaning of the biblical texts. The new Lectionary never changes the biblical text in order to make it more 'inclusive.,"

In addition, the magazine says, "the type of inclusive language found therein is merely what is called horizontal--that is, having to do with other human beings. There is no vertical inclusive language--that is, referring to any of the persons of the Trinity.

"Hence, the inclusivity found in the Lectionary is a very minimum type and one that the Vatican has approved. This is one of the reasons that the Psalms used are those found in the 1970 edition of the New American Bible rather than those of the 1991 inclusive version.

"There are, of course, alterations in these Psalms in keeping with the Bishops' Committee statement cited above. When the original is not gender specific, the 'he' of the 1970 Psalm may become 'whoever' or 'who,' etc" (emphasis added).

Comment

Clearly, the new American Lectionary has avoided the major pitfalls of the current Canadian Lectionary, whose authors pursued inclusive language with a vengeance. Based on the feminist New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), they rooted out all male nouns and pronouns. And then they published it without Vatican approval.

The Canadian version of inclusive language is apparently still being defended by Canadian bishops such as Bishop Gerald Wiesner of Prince George, B.C., and Auxiliary Bishop John Knight of Toronto.

The Catholic Church must listen to women, including those alienated from the Church, Bishop Wiesner told the Synod of Bishops for America in November 1997. The speech's context made it clear that for him emphasis falls on "alienated," including presumably the feminists whose earlier agitation brought about the adoption of the NRSV for the Canadian Lectionary. As for the women who have remained with the Church, an extensive poll among them in the United States two years ago showed little or no enthusiasm for feminist language. Similarly, Bishop John Knight, speaking at the Synod for Oceania in November 1998 also felt called upon to speak in defence of inclusive language.

The reason given by both bishops is that we must not discriminate against women. But they do not explain why this requires discrimination against men. The NRSV has suppressed the word "man" throughout the Old and New Testament by replacing it with some 64 substitutes, many of them imprecise, if not downright inaccurate (see Thaddeus Pruss, "64 shadows of man," CI, Oct 1995).

Meanwhile the Liturgical Office of the CCCB in Ottawa which supervises the annual Liturgical Calendar, continues to tell celebrants every week how to avoid "man" in as yet "unexpurgated" antiphons, prayers and prefaces.