HERE ARE TWO major problems with the Pay-To-Pray approach adopted after Vatican II.1 First of all, selling indulgenced prayers is immoral. Remember that the USCCB—as well as the various shell corporations it uses to collect the lucre—isn’t selling physical books. Rather, it claims to own the substance (!) of the readings, prayers, and acclamations. For several years, I served on the faculty of the annual CMAA colloquium. One year, a lengthy presentation was given by an ICEL executive who explained that his organization gave a portion of their profits to Catholics in poor countries. After the talk, one of the CMAA people said to me: “It’s nice to hear they’re using some of the money for a good cause—but they shouldn’t be collecting it in the first place.” He was absolutely correct. (The same is true of bank robbers who donate some of their loot to the poor; they don’t ‘absolve’ their robbery thereby.) Those prayers and readings are needed by Catholics to celebrate Mass. Selling them is immoral, and those responsible are obligated to make restitution. But how will they make restitution after raking in millions of dollars for sixty years?
Issue #2 • But there’s still another problem. The effort to make money off of these sacred texts resulted in deals being struck “behind closed doors.” Many decisions—even those with monumental consequences—were made in secret. Because so many decisions were made covertly, many errors crept in. Had things been done out in the open, such errors would have been noticed and corrected by “crowd sourcing.” Believe it or not, companies which attempted to correct errors were threatened with lawsuits. (I personally know several of these publishers and have seen the physical letters sent to them.) Consider the Responsorial Psalm for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. There’s nothing confusing about its verses:
The 1970s version of the LECTIONARY printed the verses correctly, as you can see:
But in 1998, the LECTIONARY was “revised.” (Contradictory reasons have been given to justify this revision.) Many errors crept in—and you can see they totally botched the verses:
British Are Safe • American companies attempting to correct such errors were threatened with lawsuits. (For the record, an expert in these matters told me the USCCB would never actually file a lawsuit, because during the “discovery” phase its various shell corporations would be forced to disclose their profits.) However, as you can see the British versions were free to print the correct verses in their version of the LECTIONARY.
Still Broken • The version below is the (allegedly-forthcoming) The Abbey Psalms & Canticles which—in various iterations—has been “close to release” for almost two decades. You can see that twenty-seven (27) years after the LECTIONARY 1998 revision this psalm still hasn’t been fixed:
Unanswered Questions:
Lack Of Transparency • How long will the faithful tolerate this situation? Catholics pay all the bills through their tithes, including the widow’s mite. Why haven’t they demanded to see—immediately—the total amount of royalties which the USCCB and its shell corporations have “earned” by selling the sacred prayers and readings for Mass? Furthermore, why don’t Catholics demand that OREGON CATHOLIC PRESS, which claims to be a non-profit organization, immediately explain why it claims $53,459,465.00 in assets but only reported $27,152 in salaries and wages during 2016? That’s not even enough salary for one person; is everyone who works at OCP a volunteer? Does that seem likely? It seems bizarre to me. (I’m just being honest.)
Intolerable Situation • Why are the sacred Mass prayers and readings being sold at all? Why do Catholic companies which desire to make corrections get threatened with legal action? Some of the errors are quite serious. For example, consider the Easter Vigil:
But the 1998 “revision” of the LECTIONARY got things completely wrong—literally 100% backwards. The so-called Abbey Psalms & Canticles reproduces the error from 1998:
What possible good could come from allowing certain corporations to make a profit by selling our sacred Mass prayers and readings? Was the person who gave total control over the entire psalter (!) to a non-Christian company ever reprimanded? What is the reason for all this secrecy? Am I the only one who cares about this? I hope you will let me know your thoughts.
1 Jeffrey Tucker, former managing editor for the Church Music Association of America, publicly declared the USCCB’s actions “simony”—and it would be difficult to argue with his characterization. Back in 2008, Jeffrey Tucker desperately begged and pleaded with the USCCB not to allow a non-Christian company to administer the copyright for the mandated psalter used by Catholics in the United States. His urgent plea was ignored. Recently, Michael Hichborn’s revelations about GIA PUBLICATIONS show the situation was even more scandalous than Jeffrey Tucker realized.
