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Issue 01 – Easter 2020

Feuilleton

Feuilleton

One-line description.

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A priest once introduced the Cardinal’s Annual Appeal (in what diocese it does not matter) as follows: “Well, today we have to talk about the Cardinal’s Appeal. Not the most exciting subject. You might say it happens every year. Of course, you might say the same thing about Easter. But one is the Resurrection of Our Lord and one is, well, the Cardinal’s Appeal.”

If the Bible disappeared overnight, would anybody notice? It sometimes seems as if the answer is no. We are not quite as flippant as a friend of ours who once quipped that the Bible is one of St. Jerome’s now-forgotten bestsellers, not nearly as well known as the Apologiae contra Rufinum. But we do believe that for all practical purposes the Vulgate was and remains the definitive version of Holy Writ and find it slightly terrifying that the average Catholic does not realize that the so-called Nova Vulgata promulgated in 1979 is a pastiche, and a somewhat fanciful one at that, not unlike the free-and-easy Latin translations of Hebrew and Greek that children did as exercises in Milton’s time. Meanwhile, we are wondering: Is it even possible to purchase an edition of the Clementine Vulgate newer than that of 1946?


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