Blame Canada.

The whiny Canucks wear out Rome and get the right to use the dread NRSV as their lectionary. It's a time-honored tactic, and why not? It works.

Take note, fellow orthodox: tick-on-a-dog's-ass tenacity pays dividends.

All of this is being done to placate a tiny elite group of people whose second generation will sleep in on Sundays anyway.

The slight (think tick) good news? We can change it when they're gone. Good news part two: "With most of its inclusive language intact." "Most"?

Best piece of good news? I don't live in Canada and don't have to go to church there to listen to the cack-handed translation.

But for the most part, this decision is absolutely horrid. Not to mention mind-boggling. How on earth is this squared with Liturgiam Authenticam? For all of the banalities/general clunkiness in the NAB, and the half-hearted throw at inclusive language in the RNAB, it wasn’t an ideologically-driven project from the start.

Others in Fr. Zuhlsdorf's combox do a good job of showing the fatal problems with the NRSV (especially Kevin Edgecomb), but I’ll add the most infuriating from my perspective: the rendering of Daniel 7:13, which turns the crucial "son of Man" passage into "I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven…"

Nice. No, that "Son of Man" phrase isn't important at all. No, sir--er, ma'am--er, Ms.--er, M. Combine that with the nuking of the christological signals in the Psalms, and the NRSV does a better job of severing Christ from the Old Testament than Marcion.

And this will definitely be an encouragement for the Ministry of Inclusivity types here in the US. An amazingly bad decision.