Where does the Catholic church procure most of its Bibles?

Question

I was recently doing some research on Bible publishing and distribution in order to compose this answer over on the Skeptics Stack Exchange site. In spite of the result being well received, I have a nagging doubt that I might have missed something. The one I'm wondering if I under-estimated is related to the Catholic church.

I realize the United Bible Societies specifically prints Bibles in many languages that include the Deuterocanon and works with both Catholic and Orthodox groups for distribution. What I was unable to determine is if this was the primary source for Bibles in Catholic circles around the world. If not, the sheer size of the Catholic church must place a pretty high demand on some other publisher.

I found some references to a Catholic Biblical Federation but didn't find any evidence that they were a major player in print or distribution of Bibles. A related article in Newadvent talks a lot about Protestant Bible societies and historical movements but doesn't specifically mention the role Catholic church. Are primarily Protestant societies listed because that was the point of the article or because that's primary what is out there?

Does the Catholic church have any in house publishing operations or an independent publishing/distribution source that handles high volume in any worldwide region or do they typically piggy back on the regional Bible societies that are summed up under the UBS umbrella?

Answer 1

Catholic Bibles do not come from just one publisher. They contract with hundreds of publishers to produce Catholic Bibles and other works. Although the Vatican does have a printing office it seems to only be used for Anthologies and other more recent publications.

Here are a few examples

http://www.catholicbookpublishing.com/about.php

http://www.firesidecatholic.com/Churches/

http://www.baroniuspress.com/

http://www.catholic.org/bible/

To sum up the church uses large and small publishers to fill their needs throughout the world. It appears that the publishers are selected by region so they can meet the needs of the local Churches quickly and reduce cost on shipping and storage. Which of these publishers is the largest would be almost impossible to determine as I doubt the Catholic church publishes that information. But I hope this helps in some way.

Answer 2

I can answer the question about Catholic Bibles in Spanish: they are published by Catholic publishing houses, which have no connection whatsoever with UBS.

I list below some of those Catholic publishing houses and the Bibles they printed, giving the year of their first edition:

Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos (BAC), created in 1943 as a branch of the privately-owned Editorial Catolica (Edica), Madrid, Spain:

• Nácar-Colunga (1944),

• Bóver-Cantera (1947),

• Cantera-Iglesias (1975) [1],

• "La Sagrada Biblia. Versión Oficial de la Conferencia Episcopal Española" (2010).

Editorial Cristiandad, privately owned, Madrid, Spain:

• "Nueva Biblia Española" (Schökel & Mateos, 1975) [1].

Editorial Verbo Divino, of the Catholic religious congregation "Society of the Divine Word" (SVD), Pamplona, Spain:

• "La Biblia. Edición pastoral, Latinoamérica", a.k.a. "Biblia Latinoamericana" (Ricciardi & Hurault, 1972),

• "La Biblia. Libro del Pueblo de Dios" (Levoratti & Trusso, 1981) [2].

Ediciones Universidad de Navarra (EUNSA), of the Opus Dei-owned Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain:

• "Sagrada Biblia", a.k.a. "Biblia de Navarra" (5 volumes, 2004).

[1] For the benefit of Spanish speakers, an article on these two remarkable 1975 Bibles by the foremost Spanish-speaking scholar on the Septuagint: http://digital.csic.es/bitstream/10261/35687/1/La_Biblia_de_Cantera-Iglesias.pdf

[2] Spanish version on the Vatican web site: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ESL0506/_INDEX.HTM

Answer 3

I should add to the other answers the Officina libraria editoria Vaticana, the official publisher of the Holy See, which has been printing bibles and other texts since 1926. Here is the current catalogue of books they produce and sell. Beside several editions of the Bible in Italian, they provide bibles in Latin, including the Nova Vulgata and the Vetus Vulgata (see page 140 of catalog).

Answer 4

I emailed the Catholic Book Publishing Company, but they haven't gotten back to me yet (not that I could award myself my bounty). I wanted to know if they could show they were the #1 supplier of Bibles to the USA.

Basically, my thinking was that in every church I've ever been in (unless they have a plethora of student Bibles published by various sources) has the St. Joseph Bible (ISBN 0899429505) with a picture of the Holy Land on it and the plain bible with a red cover (ISBN 0529064847).

These are both published by the Catholic Book Publishing Company and available from Bibles by the Case. In fact, it appears that all the Bibles on that site are ones coming from the Catholic Book Publishing Company, so I'd say that in English, for North America, at least - that's where the Catholic Church procures most of her Bibles.

Answer 5

The question implies that the Roman Catholic Church itself procures Bibles for its members and then distributes them. While there may be some number of Bibles that are procured and distributed this way, either directly by the Vatican or by local dioceses and parishes, I don't believe that the majority of Roman Catholics acquire their personal Bibles in this fashion (I am speaking a bit from experience here).

There is also the matter of what exactly should be considered a "Catholic" Bible. Another answer correctly stated that any "authorized" Catholic publication must have a Nihil Obstat and an Imprimatur, in accordance with Title IV of the Code of Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church. While Canons 822-824 specify the conditions for all publications in general, Canon 825 sets out special conditions for Bibles:

§1. Books of the sacred scriptures cannot be published unless the Apostolic See or the conference of bishops has approved them. For the publication of their translations into the vernacular, it is also required that they be approved by the same authority and provided with necessary and sufficient annotations.

§2. With the permission of the conference of bishops, Catholic members of the Christian faithful in collaboration with separated brothers and sisters can prepare and publish translations of the sacred scriptures provided with appropriate annotations.

Given the formality specified in the canons, I would have thought a centralized list of approved Bibles would be available, but I hadn't been able to locate one. This explanation, from a director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, addressing the question, "Which Catholic Bibles have been approved by the Vatican?", may explain why:

Any Bible which bears an imprimatur may be used by Catholics for personal study and devotion. While the 1983 Code of Canon Law does include a provision for the Holy See to grant the imprimatur for translations of Scripture, I am unaware of any instance in which it has done so.

In addition to the Holy See, the 1983 Code allows conferences of bishops to grant the imprimatur to Scripture translations, a change from previous practice wherein the bishop of the place where the translation was made or published could grant the imprimatur.

Thus it would seem that not even the Vatican keeps track of all the Catholic Bibles that have been published or who published them. There do seem to be centralized lists of approved translations (like this one, from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops), in keeping with the letter of 825 §1, but no list or lists of publishers or specific ISBN's.

I think the correct answer to your question, assuming you mean Catholic Bibles procured both privately and by the Roman Catholic Church, is that they come from some of the same sources that Protestant Bibles do, as well as some dedicated Catholic publishing houses. The English-language Catholic Bibles sold on Amazon, for example, include offerings from Catholic publishers like Ignatius, St. Benedict, and even from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops itself, but there are also ones published by Oxford, Harper, and Zonderavan.

Answer 6

Oxford University Press prints large numbers of Catholic Bibles, But each diocese, Catholic Book/Bible supplier purchases such from their preferred supplier, there are 1.2 billion professed Catholics the sheer volume of Catholic Bibles and their various languages translation means there are numerous printers of bibles. Many Catholics myself included who are fascinated with Biblical translations have many different Bibles "Protestant" and "Catholic". Some "Protestant" (churches not in communion with Rome) still use the Catholic Canon (have all the "Catholic" books of the Old Testament in their Bible). A Catholic Bible translation must have a Nihil Obstat and an Imprimatur indicated to be an authorized Catholic Bible. We have free will but if we profess we are Catholics that also means we profess a belief in the historical teachings of the Church and as such our studies include what the Church teaches on a particular subject. Catholics believe the Revelation of Christ was complete at the time of His Death and Resurrection and the end of the Apostolic Age (i.e. scripture) but our understanding of that Revelation shall continue to deepen throughout time (tradition).