WHY CATHOLICS CAN'T SPEAK ENGLISH

Michael Brendan Dougherty has lots of interesting things to say about the Knox Bible, and other versions of Scripture, over at The American Conservative. And, wonder of wonders, the comments are worth reading, too!

FR. WALSH REVIEWS THE KNOX BIBLE

It is a great joy to see the entire Knox Bible back in print.  After more than fifty years during which this treasure lay hidden in the field of second-hand bookstores, Baronius Press has made this, the only English translation of the Vulgate Bible apart from the Douay-Rheims, available once again.  The edition itself is of the highest quality, as befits the word of God, and Knox’s Bible is accompanied by a collection of essays in which he describes his approach to translation, and some of the difficulties he faced – both from the text itself, and from his intended public. 

            Today we are awash in translations of the Bible, good, bad, and indifferent, but to appreciate the boldness of Ronald Knox’s endeavor, we must recall that until the mid-twentieth century there were, for all intents and purposes, two principal English versions: the Protestant Authorized Version and the Catholic Douay-Rheims.  While it may seem tame today, Knox’s translation was a pioneering effort.  Even apart from its intrinsic worth, this translation deserves to see the light of day again because it represents a milestone in Catholic biblical scholarship.

            But what of its intrinsic worth? I would underscore three characteristics of this Bible which should make it a welcome addition both to your bookshelf and to your prie-dieu. 

1.      It is a translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible.  Within a few years of the completion of the Knox Bible, Rome gave permission for translations to be made from the original languages of Scripture. While encouraging this, the fathers of the Second Vatican Council spoke of the “place of honor” enjoyed by the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament) and the Vulgate (Dei Verbum, #22).  The Vulgate has nourished Christian piety for over fifteen centuries; it has enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with the Church’s worship and remains a touchstone for biblical texts used in the liturgy; it bears witness to how the Church has traditionally interpreted the word of God.  There can be no doubt that modern translations from the original languages are a great blessing, but certainly there should be a place among these for a modern translation of the Vulgate.   

2.      It is a translation of the entire Bible by one man, who was a master of the English language.  We know that the Bible consists of many writings composed over hundreds of years in diverse circumstances.  But we also recognize that the Holy Spirit has inspired the entire canon of Scripture, and there is a unity to the Bible as a whole for this reason.  When the work of translation is done by a committee (as most translations are) that organic unity can be obscured; to have one translator carry out the entire project emphasizes the integral unity of Scripture.  And in Ronald Knox we have a translator who was a master of English prose.  When you read any of his writings, you encounter a very careful writer indeed, who always sought the apt word, the elegant turn of phrase that would best convey his thought.  Knox brought that lifetime’s experience to the work of translation, and the result is a version of the Bible that is marked by freshness, imagination, and a profound sense of the beauty of the English language.  His translation is modern, but never pedestrian.

3.      It is a translation shaped by faith.  This is a challenging attribute to capture in words, but the way I would express it is this: most modern translations aim at conveying as accurately as possible the meaning of the texts in their original languages.  This is noble ideal, and Knox himself consulted many biblical scholars in crafting his translation.  But the Bible is more than a collection of ancient documents: it is the inspired word of God, and Knox approached his effort as a work of devotion.  When we read Knox’s sermons, we hear a preacher who was deeply immersed in Scripture; when we read his translation of the Bible, it reflects a lifetime of prayer and preaching on the word of God.  It is this, even more than his mastery of style, which imparts to the Knox Bible an atmosphere of serene majesty, and an occasional turn of phrase that goes right to the heart.

You may already have a favorite translation of the Bible that you read for spiritual nourishment; if so, I urge you to dip occasionally into Knox’s translation to gain fresh insight into familiar texts.  You may be preparing a homily or engaging in Bible study; the Vulgate translation, in this modern translation, will enrich your scholarly endeavors.  Or, you may be looking for a translation that is both accurate and original; look no further than the Knox Bible.

                                                            Milton Walsh, author of Ronald Knox as Apologist and

Second Friends: C. S. Lewis and Ronald Knox in Conversation, both published by Ignatius Press.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE NEW KNOX BIBLE

Book lovers such as me relish the prospect of spending hours in musty used-book stores and browsing online. I've done quite a bit of both over the years. But there’s always been one volume which I've dreaded searching for and that’s been Msgr. Knox’s Bible. I've dreaded it because, until now, my only options were to find an extremely rare soft-leather covered edition and pay hundreds of dollars for it, or settle for the [always dirty] cloth-bound 3 volume set, or parts thereof. So I was delighted to receive my copy of this new edition of such an important book. Others will tell you about the virtues of the text and its translator; I’ll just say that this edition is physically beautiful. The cover, the pages, the type … all make for an impressive whole. It will undoubtedly become many people’s “go to” gift book. First Communions, Confirmations, Marriages, Ordinations, Christmas, Easter … as Catholics we have so many wonderful occasions for giving beautiful things to those we love! And it’s my fervent wish that every priest should have one, especially in this Year of Faith.

I’m also delighted to see that Baronius Press is including a very nice paperback copy of “On Englishing the Bible” with every order. It contains several essays by Msgr. Knox in which he explains all the trials and tribulations of undertaking such a mammoth work. It includes: 1. Thoughts on Bible Translation 2. Some New Testament Problems 3. Justice and Scandal in the Gospels 4.Challoner and the Douay Version 5. Some Reasons Why 6. Nine Years' Hard 7. Morsu Amarissimo 8. Farewell to Machabees and a Preface by Knox written in 1949. This volume is very dear to me personally because it was in reading an excerpt from one of these essays that I first discovered Msgr. Knox over 25 years ago. I was so impressed with his intelligence, his knowledge, his insight and, of course, his wit. It was love at first read!

So, go to the Baronius Press website where they have all kinds of great information on this new edition and Msgr. Knox, and then spread the word!

Vicki McCaffrey

President, The Ronald Knox Society of North America

GREAT NEWS!

KNOX BIBLE

Available for the first time in more than fifty years

Msgr. Knox's translation of the Latin Vulgate into elegant, timeless English is one of the greatest treasures of the 20th century Church. His translation is spiritual and literary, graceful and lyrical, making it one of the most beautiful vernacular versions of the Holy Bible.

"Mgr. Knox's version continues to merit attention, and I welcome the publication of this new edition, as his remarkable work is likely to continue to be of interest for many years to come. I sincerely hope that many will read and profit from this new edition." Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor "Msgr. Knox had a profound love for Sacred Scripture, a passion was to make the Bible accessible to as many people as possible … In the Knox translation, clarity is paramount." Dr. Scott Hahn "A masterful translation of the Bible" Time Magazine

Monsignor Ronald Knox was commissioned in 1939 by the Bishops of England and Wales to produce a fresh translation of the Holy Scripture and, for the next nine years, he worked alone to achieve this task. He used Pope Clement VIII's edition of the Latin Vulgate as a base for his translation, diligently comparing it to Greek, Hebrew, Syriac and Chaldean manuscripts to determine the meaning of ambiguous passages. He aimed at a Bible that was understandable to modern audiences and yet rooted in Catholic tradition and "written in timeless English". He wanted a Bible that did not merely translate the original but made it read as if an Englishman had written it. Knox's Bible received great acclaim when it was first published. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury of the time recommended it, and it became the preferred translation of Fulton Sheen. The Bishops were so pleased with the completed version that it was authorized for liturgical use, and the Knox translation of the Bible was used as the official version in the churches of Great Britain, Ireland and Australia for the decade leading up to Vatican II – and the first version sanctioned for liturgical use in England and Wales.

For more information or to order please visit our website at 
www.baroniuspress.com/KnoxBible

FAMOUS HOAXES

by Fr. George W. Rutler

   Monsignor Ronald Knox, probably the most inspired preacher and apologist of the twentieth century, wrote an essay satirizing some skeptical Biblical literary critics, in which he used their methods to “prove” that the real author of Tennyson's In Memoriam was Queen Victoria.

   Many who doubt the plausibility of the Scriptures are gullible about hoaxes. I don't just mean the rabbit with antelope horns called a “jackalope.” There was the Cardiff Giant of 1869 promoted by P.T. Barnum, and John Payne Collier's forgery of Shakespeare’s letters. Some pretended to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, and far earlier was the hoax of a lady pontiff named Pope Joan. The New York Zoo hoax of 1874 convinced many that animals had escaped. In 1912 there was the Piltdown Man. Henry Ford promoted the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” There were the aliens landing in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, and the Balloon Boy hoax in 2009. The Da Vinci Code claimed an albino monk hid corpses nearby on 34th Street. I confess that I keep a warm spot in my heart for the Loch Ness Monster, which also intrigued Pope Pius XII who discussed it with the above-mentioned Monsignor Ronald Knox. Unfortunately, Nessie's primary witness was an English vicar, and such testimony is not potent in courts of law.

   Hoaxes gain credibility when they use respected sources. In 1938, Orson Welles’ adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds convinced thousands because it was broadcast on radio. Monsignor Knox did something similar on the BBC. People today are inclined to believe hoaxes because they are mentioned witlessly in the mainstream media.

   Five years ago The New York Times spent a lot of printer’s ink on a bogus ossuary reputed to be that of a “brother” of Christ. Recently the same journal announced on its front page the discovery of a parchment claiming that there was a Mrs. Jesus. Shortly thereafter the parchment was adjudged a forgery. If a correction ever appears, it will be in fine print back in the shipping news section.

   Since journalists often invoke pretentious scholarship to question the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin and the Tilma of Guadalupe, the question begged is: “Why do these people suddenly become naive about phenomena that contradict Christian inspiration?” The answer speaks for itself. The New York Times would be delighted to find that Christ did not radically contradict the norms of His age by forsaking all else and calling others to do the same as a proclamation of the Mystical Union between Christ as Bridegroom and the Church as Bride.

   The media should take the counsel of St. Paul, who probably would be fired after his first day at work as an editor of The New York Times: “I say again what we have said before: If anyone preaches any gospel other than that which ye received, let him be anathema” (Galatians 1:9).

Sign up to receive Father Rutler's weekly column; he always has something interesting to say!

THE END OF MAN

Msgr. Ronald Knox died on August 24th, 1957, which makes today his feast day. May he, and the souls of all the faithful departed, rest in peace.

"... the moment you allow people to read history in the light of their own prejudices, you must despair of finding any agreement of opinion as to what is higher and what is lower in the scale of development. One believes that our international politics are tending towards world peace and world brotherhood; another sees a progressive and a salutary growth of the sense of separate nationality going on all around us. One holds that our psychic gifts are the latest flower of our civilization, and through them lies the gateway to all further human advancement; another will tell you that these psychic gifts are a mere survival of the beast in us, and that the ordinary horse or dog is far more sensitive to uncanny spiritualistic impressions than is the ordinary man. And as to the widespread neglect of organized religion in our day, you will find some writers who regard it as merely backwash of an intellectual movement, others who hail it as the beginning of a purer, more spiritual conception of religion; others, again, who take it as evidence that the whole Christian superstition is tottering to its downfall. It's odd, isn't it, that we all agree in proclaiming that man evolves, yet no two of us can agree how, or since when, or into what?
It's odd, and it's worse than odd, it's tragic. For the world is full of young men who go about wanting to evolve as they ought to evolve (though why they shouldn't let the world evolve without them, if they think it gets better ever day, is sometimes a puzzle to me) and to them it is a life-and-death question, "Where is all this progress of the human species leading to?"  And when, wearied of debate, and baffled by a thousand unanswered questions, they cease to worry about the remote future, and determine to let civilization go its own way and save itself or damn itself as it pleases, what is left to them?
There is left to them one movement still which remains untried, a movement so purposeful that it is easily mistaken for a conspiracy, yet so sure of itself that it needs no program and no platform, begs no support from the presumed approval of a shadowy posterity. Such is the Catholic Church, which has no theories as to whether mankind is moving, and if so in what direction; nor, if it were assured that there were any such tendency, would swerve aside for one moment from its appointed path. For the message which the Church of God preserves is a message not to the human race in the aggregate, but to each solitary, individual soul. Its hero, God's hero, the character in the world's drama which holds the Angels breathless with expectation, is not mankind but Man: this man or that man, you and I, with our hopes and ambitions, our difficulties and strivings, our falls and recoveries.
"Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is all man"; the human race exists to make heaven populous, and that end has to be achieved by us singly, in the dreadful loneliness of our dual destiny. Whether Christendom is marching forward to fresh world conquests, or whether the Son of Man, when he comes, is to find but little faith on the earth, the end of Man will be achieved - is daily being achieved, according to the plan of his creation. The end of Man is realized whenever the gates of heaven open once more, and one more pardoned soul struggles to the feet of its Creator."

Excerpted from The Beginning and End of Man, a series of sermons delivered by Ronald Knox at Our Lady of Victories, Kensington, in October, 1920

VACATION TRIALS

"Against my better judgment, and at the urging of numerous people with mixed motives, I took a vacation in July."

Fr. George Rutler, the literary descendant of Ronald Knox and G.K.Chesterton, writes with both wit and clarity. And he's been on vacation! Read his highly entertaining account of his trials and tribulations.

THANK YOU

Many thanks to all of you who have been using the Amazon Search Box on this blog and the Amazon links (images and text links) on the Society website. Any time you go to Amazon via one of our links they give us a percentage of what you buy: socks, books, foodstuffs, anything!

It's just one extra "click" and it helps keep us going!

FAITHFUL SQUIRES HONOURED

From the archives of the Catholic Herald, July 17, 1953, here's a terrific article: some great English Catholic history, and a sermon from Msgr. Knox.

FAITHFUL SQUIRES HONOURED

Papal Delegate reopens famous Lulworth Chapel

The memory of the Catholic squires who kept the embers of the Faith alive in England through the twilight years of the 18^th century was honoured on Saturday and Sunday at Lulworth Castle in Dorset, the ancestral home of the Weld family.

Lulworth Chapel was the first Catholic church to be built for public worship. It was here that Bishop Walmesley, Vicar Apostolate, consecrated the first member of the Hierarchy of the United States, Archbishop Carroll of Baltimore, on August 15, 1790.

The chapel has been redecorated and restored as far as possible to the original state when it was built by Thomas Weld in 1786, and Archbishop Godfrey, Apostolic Delegate, reopened it by consecrating its altar and singing Pontifical Mass.

Request to King

Bishop Grimshaw of Plymouth and Bishop Parker of Northampton assisted at the ceremony, and Mgr. Ronald Knox preached.

To build the chapel Thomas Weld sought the personal permission of King George III who, when at Weymouth, often visited him at Lulworth Castle.

The restoration, based on two sketches by the original Georgian architect, has been carried out under the guidance of a former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Mr. H.S. Goodhart  Rendel.

It is now flooded with light from the large Georgian windows which have been inserted, and the interior is a glory of white, green and gold decoration, with a blue dome.

Col. Joseph Weld, the present squire, has been responsible for the whole enterprise, and tribute was paid during the week-end celebrations to his generosity and to the fidelity to the Church in the long and unbroken tradition of his family. The Bishop of Plymouth described him as “a model Catholic layman.”

The altar was re-consecrated because it had been moved in the restoration, to its original position.

New signature

In a recess in the altar is a document written in 1786 by Bishop Walmesley certifying the authenticity of the relics enclosed there.

On the reverse side the document bears an endorsement written by Bishop Collingridge, who re-consecrated the altar when it was moved in 1809, and Bishop Grimshaw has now added his signature to record the latest ceremony.

A treasured link with the penal days – a chair reputed to have belonged to Fr. Hugh Green, one of the martyrs of Chideock in Dorset – was brought from Chideock to be used by Archbishop Godfrey. At the Elevation at the Pontifical Mass on Saturday and again on Sunday when Bishop Grimshaw was the celebrant, seven trumpeters of the Royal Tank Regiment sounded a fanfare from the gallery.

Dom Charles Pontifex, Prior of the Ealing Benedictines, to whom Col. Weld has lately given the pre-Reformation Bindon Abbey ruins a few miles from Lulworth, was present, and the Society of Jesus, with which the Weld family has had close ties since Thomas Weld gave them Stonyhurst, was represented by Fr. Fitzgibbon and Fr. N. Dennis, of Bournemouth.

The Cistercians were represented by Fr. Eugene, chaplain to the nuns of Stapehill Priory in Dorset.

Gesture of faith

Pontifical Mass was celebrated by Bishop Grimshaw on Sunday in the presence of the Apostolic Delegate and a large gathering of relatives and friends of the Weld family, including Lord and Lady Clifford, Lord and Lady Iddesleigh and Mr. Alfred Noyes, the poet.

Mgr. Ronald Knox said in his sermon on Sunday: “Today, like our brethren all over England, we Catholics of the West are celebrating the martyrdom of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More – a Cardinal and a great English layman.

“Here, with a more intimate sense of nearness to the events, we are also celebrating a gesture of faith made 250 years later.

“It was in the year 1786 that a great English layman, Thomas Weld of Lulworth, laid the foundations of the church in which we stand – and perhaps on that occasion one of the altar boys would be his eldest son, a boy of nine years old, who was destined to achieve the purple.

“From Thomas More to Thomas Weld – what a fascinating interval of Catholic history is bounded by those landmarks.

“Fifty years of struggle, during which it was not apparent whether the old order would not reassert itself against the new; then 100 years of intermittent, unrelenting persecution, during which the Faith was kept alive by heroic resistance; then – more sad than either – 100 years of slow decline, during which the Catholic body, no longer persecuted but still disabled, discouraged and shouldered out, dwindled almost to nothing, only kept alive where a handful of Catholic squires – Welds, Petres, Blounts and the rest of them – still practice in secret the medieval rites of long ago.”

Then converts came

“At Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire you can still make your way into a Catholic place of worship that dates, they say, from 1730; but it nestles at the back of the squire’s house so that you mistake it for a dairy or a laundry.

“Thomas Weld built out in the open; the last despairing gesture, you might conceive, at a doomed and still un-emancipated religion.

“Gossip tells us that his friend King George III counseled him to make it look like a mausoleum, a mausoleum perhaps of the old Faith which had been on its death bed since the days of Thomas More.

“But it was not to be. Scarcely more than half a century had elapsed when the Oxford converts began and the Church emerged from her twilight …

“Today, when the piety of a later generation has done its best to make Lulworth what it was – not by laborious word-for-word imitation of the past but by recovering and re-embodying its spirit – today let us be glad to remember those old 18^th century Catholics and to pronounce their epitaph.

“Theirs was the task, neither easy nor glorious, of preserving what was left of English Catholicism in a time when persecution was dead but freedom still tarried and the love of many had grown cold …”

Like cricketers

“May we dare think of those very English forbears of ours in terms of a peculiarly English sport and say that they were like cricketers with no hope of victory and playing out the innings for a draw?

“When evening comes there shall be light, but only the faint glimmers of it were showing when Thomas Weld made his act of faith in the future.

“On his soul and the souls of all his kinsfolk that have gone before us may Our Lord have mercy and raise up still in his family worthy descendants of a great name.”         

RONALD KNOX & THE SPY THRILLER

One of our readers ran across this casual reference to Ronald Knox:

"The village was one of those half-urbanised Georgian settlements on the edge of Bath where English Catholics of a certain standing have elected to gather in their exile. The cottage lay at the country end of it, a tiny sandstone mansion with a steep narrow garden descending to a stretch of river, and they sat in the cluttered kitchen on wheelback chairs, surrounded by washing-up, and vaguely votive bric-a-brac: a cracked ceramic plaque of the Virgin Mary from Lourdes; a disintegrating rush cross jammed behind the cooker; a child’s paper mobile of angels rotating in the draught; a photograph of Ronald Knox. While they talked, filthy grandchildren wandered in and stared at them before tall mothers swept them off. It was a household in permanent and benevolent disorder, pervaded by the gentle thrill of religious persecution. A white morning sun was poking through the Bath mist. There was a sound of slow water dripping in the gutters."

John Le Carre, A Perfect Spy, Penguin Books, 1986


It strikes me that there's more than a touch of Graham Greene about this passage.

HYMN FOR THE FORTNIGHT FOR FREEDOM

ST. THOMAS MORE AND ST. JOHN FISHER

                                                When Herod, for an impious bride,

                                                      His eager lust would fain fulfil,

                                                John in that hour a martyr died,

                                                     Unschooled to serve a tyrant’s will.

                                                Nor less resolved, when Norman rage

                                                     The rights of holy Church gainsaid,

                                                That wanton fury to assuage

                                                     Thomas his glorious blood must shed.

                                                So, when a tyrant fiercer yet

                                                     His wedlock and his faith forswore,

                                                A second John his sentence met,

                                                     A second Thomas witness bore.

                                                Time-serving priests their aid might lend,

                                                     Smooth courtiers tremble at his sway;

                                                Two loyal hearts no force could bend

                                                     Their God, their conscience to betray.

                                                O love that burned when love grew cold,

                                                     O faith that shone when faith was dim,

                                                The Cross your Master bore of old

                                                     You bore to Calvary with him.

                                                Twin beacon-lights, serenely set

                                                     At God’s right hand for all the earth,

                                                Look down on England, nor forget

                                                     The thankless home that gave you birth;

                                                To freedom and to wisdom friends,

                                                     Look on a world unwisely free;

                                                To bear the cross our Master sends

                                                     How slow, how frail, how faint are we!

                                                To God, who crowns his saints above,

                                                     Be praise henceforth as heretofore,

                                                Who throned in perfect truth and love

                                                     Liveth and reigneth evermore.

                                                                                                R. A. KNOX

Westminster Hymnal (1939)

A NEW KNOX BIBLIOGRAPHY

From James Chappel: "I've just completed a PhD in History at Columbia and will be taking a job as assistant professor at the University of Chicago in the Fall. My dissertation was on European Catholic intellectuals, and part of my preparatory work was preparing this bibliography of Knox, which I'm happy to share with the world. Most of the work was done decades ago by a woman named Patricia Cowan, but her work only exists in a few copies; primarily what I've done is transcribe, organize, and update her work."

This new bibliography will be of great interest to Knox scholars. May I speak as a representative of the world and thank Mr. Chappel for his hard work and suggest that from now on we refer to this document as 'The Chappel Bibliography'?
Here it is in PDF.