It looks like a conservative somehow snuck into the new liberal group blog bastion of the Huffington Post and he’s revealing all their secrets. Greg Gutfeld has put up the hysterically funny “HuffPo emergency Bush bash blog application.”
Do you often find yourself fantasizing about becoming a Huffpo blogger? Do you love to read other blogs, digest their info, and then expel pre-chewed nut-bag assumptions into a concerned and earnest post? If so, you might be perfect for this blog!
It’s one of those “Do you find yourself doing this…” questionnaires and some of the questions had me laughing out loud.
Caution: there’s some off-color humor in it and liberals won’t like it allan listen to the readings on their commute.
No way, says the US bishops’ conference. Don’t you know that they own the rights to the New American Bible, the official translation of Scripture for US Catholics, and thus you can’t quote even one verse without getting permission first?
I’ve run afoul of the USCCB licensing bureaucrats on this very blog before. I once had the temerity to make available a Word document of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal in an effort to help people understand the Liturgy better. No way, says the US bishops’ conference. We only publish these documents to make a buck on them, they say. These are only for the oligarchs and the privileged to peruse.
What do you say when those who claim to speak on behalf of the successors of the Apostles stand in the way of those who seek to build up the Body of Christ and spread the Word?
John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.” Jesus replied, “Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us.” Mark 9:38-40
Uh oh, now I’ve quoted the Bible without permission. What fate will befall me?
Brian’s podcast was also being listented to by shut in’s and other people unable to attend Mass. Maybe this situation will shine on light on this ridiculous action by the USCCB who takes seems to be “Go out into the whole world and license the Bible.”
The first time I heard of this was actually from a Protestant site that had created some Bible software and were making many translations available for study. They got permissions by almost everone but the USCCB for the NAB.
Charging money for such a lackluster translation as the NAB is a double shame.
The NAB translation is sorely lacking anyway (the Psalms are particularly buthchered.) The footnotes are confused and a source for scandal. Better off sticking with the tried and true Douay Rheims or New Jerusalem.
I actually like this Bible I got from the Philippines (our wedding Mass Bible)that has an imprimatur from a Bishop there but I think is shared Protestants…it has modern English, the right impact and tracks the Douay fairly closely.
I’ll go a bit further here. The reason why the USCCB put the kibosh on this pod cast is that it is tantamount to Evangelization or, worse yet, scripture study by Catholics.
Bear in mind the bloated budget of the USCCB. I recall hearing of its FY 2005 which devoted something on the order of $7 – $8 million toward ecumenical activities. $2 million toward the vocations drive and $400,000 toward evangelization activities.
What do you draw from this?
1) It is fruitless to work through the USCCB and their henchment at ICEL.
2) The USCCB is horrified (like all liberals) of evangelization.
3) The USCCB conforms to the false stereo-types of Catholics levied by Protestants .. that they have turned their back on the Word.
4) The USCCB is reluctant to participate in the new evangelization which must use every possible means to spread the Word.
5) The Catholic podcasters will resort to another translation which will ultimately bear great fruit.
6) Recipients of the non NAB podcasts will in-turn recognize the agenda behind the NAB translators.
7) A dissonance will grow between what is read by/heard by Catholics on their own and what is read to them at Mass.
High five to ThomasCoolberth!
So the USCCB thinks it can trump “fair use” U.S. copyright laws?
More insanity from the house of bishops.
Oh, and btw, Dom, did you do something to your blog today? It’s loading for me at about a quarter snail speed.
No I haven’t done anything to it. It’s loading just fine for me which means that the server is running full speed. It’s either something between you and the server or something that loads on my site from an external server like the blogads.
The publisher’s rep from Tyndale mentioned to me that all authors’ royalties from The Passion go to the Apostle Mark.
I wonder if Marks’ family is getting their checks.
JBP
We saw this problem years ago with making the Catechism of the Catholic Church text widely available. For years the only authorized version was on the web site of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle.
American Catholic web sites who sought permission were denied under any conditions by the USCCB.
I too have been particularly frustrated with the cabal at the USCCB and their snooty, petty and churlish attitude toward the NAB, the Catechism and the Missal.
I’m on vacation and trying to work on an upcoming Bible study I’ll be presenting on the Psalms. I always like to give those taking my Bible classes (for free, I might add) the ability to see the material in several translations, side by side.
Although I agree that the NAB is a generally bad translation (and, as above, the new translation of the Psalms is pure butchery!), it IS the version that folk will hear at Mass, so I wanted to include it.
While I can get nearly every other translation of the Psalms online, I can only find the NAB at the USCCB site—and it’s only one Psalm at a time! Additionally—get this—the NAB has decided to join the Protestants in numbering the Psalms (and their verses) according to the Masoretic Text, rather than to stay with the traditional numbering of the Catholic Church, which is based on the LXX (Septuagint) translation—which is arguably older (and therefore, more authentic) than the MT translation!
The USCCB has usurped the legitimate teaching authority of bishops in their own diocese. In a particularly flagrant example of this, see Dom’s posting about the newest salvo they’ve fired in the “Talking about Touching” debate. Since when, I ask you, does an episcopal conference have ANY authority? Can anybody point it out to me in canon law?
I am so fed up with these hierarchs down in DC, all of whom are “in bed” with the liberal politicians trying to undermine the nascent return to traditional values movement that is being experienced in political and ecclesiastical arenas. Something has to stop!
Sorry to post twice in succession, but here’s just a little example of their tampering with Scripture:
In Psalm 14 (LXX), the RSV (traditional Catholic version) says, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.” The NAB, in order to avoid saying “his,” makes the fool plural: “Fools say in their hearts, ‘There is no God.” There’s no reason in the original text for such a rendering; only the tender mercy of the USCCB which seeks to prevent the readers of Sacred Scripture from having to experience male pronouns.
Again, in the very next verse, the NAB substitutes “the LORD looks down from heaven upon the human race,” for the RSV’s “the LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men.” Same reasoning, I’m sure—but this one can’t stand.
You see, the word “men” or “man” in Hebrew is “Adam.”
So, in the ACCURATE (RSV) translation, we read about God’s looking upon the children of Adam—a not-so-subtle reference to The Fall. In the child-safe version that the NAB puts out there, we only get a refence to human beings NOW, not throughout salvation history.
It’s the same thing in the Missal; Eucharistic Prayer III is ICEL-translated “so that from east to west a perfect offering may be made . . .”, whereas the authentic (Latin) says, “so that from the rising of the sun to its setting a perfect offering may be made . . .” A minor difference? Perhaps, but the latter brings not only Old Testament wording but also TIME into the equation. “East to west” captures horizontal distance; “the rising of the sun to its setting” not only incorporates that horizontal distance but also TIME.
It’s the little tiny destructions that are being done to our liturgy, our birthright, even Sacred Scripture that go un-noticed and chip away at TRUTH, until Catholicism becomes indistinguishable from Unitarianism. And, “j’accuse,” the USCCB and its ICEL henchmen (great turn of phrase, above!) are the ones who are most guilty.
Are they going to patent the Eucharist next?
Bottom line—they may legally “own” the copyright, but they can never own the content.
And the more wicked behavior they exhibit, the more we all become aware of the fact they have no idea what the content actually is.
Use any translation that speaks to you. Most of them are better than the NAB anyway.
Don’t you all already have dissonance with the readings at Mass? I do. I’m a convert and the readings are really hashed, I’m sorry to say. The meanings aren’t even there part of the time…….they’ve been made “proclaimable”—to whom, I don’t know.