The Holy Bible: Catholic Public Domain Version Original Edition

he Catholic Public Domain Version (CPDV) is a fairly-literal modern English edition of the Bible, translated from the Pope Sixtus V and Pope Clement VIII Latin Vulgate, using the Challoner Douay Rheims version as a guide. The CPDV is specifically a Roman Catholic translation, which translates both the Old and the New Testaments in the light of Roman Catholic doctrine, in order to make the text more accessible to the Catholic reader. The CPDV carefully avoids inclusive language, instead translating each noun that refers to human persons in accordance with the gender and number of the source text. The word meaning 'sons' is translated as 'sons', the word meaning 'brothers' is translated as 'brothers', and so on. The Vatican norms for Bible translation reject the use of inclusive or gender-neutral language. And yet many modern translations have thoroughly integrated this type of language into the text of the Bible to make it politically-correct.

The CPDV attempts to conform to the Norms for the Translation of Biblical Texts for Use in the Liturgy, as promulgated by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith when that office was under the leadership of then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI). The CPDV rejects the idea that scholarship should take precedence over faith. Some scholars do not think that the Old Testament should be translated or interpreted in the light of the New Testament, nor do they think that the whole Bible should be translated (or even interpreted) in the light of the Catholic Faith. To the contrary, the CPDV seeks to clarify the Christian and specifically Roman Catholic meanings found throughout the entire Bible. Faith should always take precedence over scholarship.