PIUS XII LATIN VERSION OF THE PSALMS

VJMJ

THE VERSIO PIANA (THE LATIN VERSION OF THE PSALMS PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF POPE PIUS XII)
(Translation from Spanish from the Book "The New Latin Psalter" by Augustine Cardinal Bea)
On the eve of the Palm Sunday 1945, His Holiness Pope Pius XII with Motu Proprio "In cotidianis precibus" of March 24 granted the priests and all those who are bound to praying daily the Canonical Hours the authorization to use, if so they wished, instead of the Latin text theretofore used, a new version made by a Commission appointed to that effect, made up by Professors of the Pontifical Biblical Institute and published in those days under the title of Liber Psalmorum. This decision of the Pope -unexpected yet by many ardently longed for- represents an event of extraordinary importance both for the history of the Holy Writ and for the liturgical life of the Church.

This is indeed the first time since the days of Pope St. Damasus (366-384) that the Church officially faces the difficult and complicated problem of the Latin version of the psalms; a problem which is the harder as the official version of the psalms (the Gallican) with the long running of centuries had permeated the Liturgy of the Church, the patristic and theological literature, and even the popular culture and literature of many peoples.

URGENT NECESSITY OF A NEW LATIN VERSION