“Gay-Washed” Bible’s imprimatur should be withdrawn. Here’s why.

Michie said:

am grateful to OSV News for reporting on my concerns about the USCCB’s granting of an imprimatur to the New Revised Standard Version updated edition (NRSVue) Bible. I appreciate USCCB Scripture scholar Father Pablo Gadenz responding directly to my concerns. But I found his responses unpersuasive, and I still think the imprimatur should be withdrawn, for the reasons below.

First, a recap for readers unfamiliar with the issue. The updated edition of the NRSV, the flagship Bible of Mainline Protestantism, was published in 2022. Protestant Scripture scholar Robert A.J. Gagnon (who literally wrote the book on The Bible and Homosexual Practice) immediately flagged it for having “gaywashed” the “clear reference to homosexual practice in the offender list in 1 Corinthians 6:9 (and 1 Tim 1:10 where the same Greek term appears).” I wrote a Catholic Answers article shortly thereafter arguing that the USCCB should not grant an imprimatur until those two verses are fixed. Two weeks ago I wrote a column for Catholic Culture on the announcement that the USCCB had granted an imprimatur to an NRSVue, Catholic Edition, with no change to those verses.

You can read Dr. Gagnon’s 2022 post here and my Catholic Answers article here. You can read my Catholic Culture column here and the OSV News article here. I also discussed the issue in an appearance on Steve Bannon’s War Room, which you can view here.

As OSV News reports, the “primary translation” of the Catholic Church in the U.S.—the one we hear at Mass—is the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE). The NRSVue, Catholic Edition, has been approved only “for private use.” So it’s not a big deal, right?

Wrong. For several reasons. As one commenter recently noted at the Catholic Bible Talk Blog:

Continued below.

“Gay-Washed” Bible’s imprimatur should be withdrawn. Here’s why.

The NRSVue, Catholic Edition, has been approved only “for private use.” So it’s not a big deal, right? Wrong.

www.catholicculture.org

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I have stayed away from any of the NRSV bibles. I will stay away from this one in particular. I have no issue with the RSV or the RSVCE or RSVCE2 by Ignatius Press. Their new study Bible is in fact something I greatly recommend as a best in a generation kind of thing.

This is the Douay Rhiems translation of Hosea 4:6

6 My people have been silent, because they had no knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will reject thee, that thou shalt not do the office of priesthood to me: and thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I also will forget thy children

Protestant bibles I have read say, for lack of knowledge, my people perish.


What does this have to do with the “Gay-washed” bible? If we had proper knowledge, this so called translation would not be an issue. If we had proper knowledge of sex aka the marital act

Scripture as well as the Church teaches us that we must FLY fornication ( fly is a medieval form of to word flee to give greater emphasis) we are to mortify the deeds of the flesh and persue chastity.

The marital act is to be oriented towards children. It is improper to say we have had a ceremony in church and have in mind that we are using it to justify treating our spouse with lustful intent. Contraception in intent or practice prevents the consummation of the marital act. The ceremony in Church is therefore licit but not consummate if the intent is contraceptive, and it is subject to annulment because no binding marriage has taken place. This is because the two have not become one flesh and the couple had made their vows in vain. If the couple continues to have intercourse with contraception in practice or intent, they are in mortal sin and need to repent
Yes mortal sin requires full knowledge and consent and we were not explicitly taught this, so we can claim ignorance. God has mercy on whom He has mercy and I cannot judge someone
Once we do have this knowledge, we cannot unknow it and are liable to follow it under pain of mortal sin.


Pope Leo says all are welcome, and it is not for us to judge who wants to come into the Church, but once they are here we need to teach them proper knowledge of the marital act.
We do not teach them to “pray the gay away” as if heterosexual acts are better because they are heterosexual. They are not, and contraceptive heterosexual acts are just as guilty of profaning the marital act as homosexual acts, maybe more so, and they are both mortal sin. If we wish to argue that pleasure in heterosexual acts is superior to homosexual acts, we may as well be arguing that the taste of chocolate is superior to vanilla. It is personal preference and has no baring on the mortal sin involved.

We need to teach and have faith that sex is for children. All Catholics should read the book of Tobit to understand this fact. In the story a woman is widowed seven times because each of her previous husbands, although having a licit marital ceremony, desired her for lust rather than true marriage. In the end Tobias repents and sees it is for children that the marital act is given by God


If we teach sex is for children, then homosexual acts are sterile and their sin is obviously mortal.