What is actually read at Mass
The Bible a Catholic hears on a Sunday is not always the Bible they read at home, and it is not the same from one country to the next. Four translations, four jurisdictions, and two of them mid-change.
The lectionary text is chosen by each bishops’ conference and then confirmed by Rome, so English-speaking Catholics hear four different translations depending on where they are standing. All four are on the diagram, marked 📖.
| Where | What is read now | Since | What replaces it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ireland | Jerusalem Bible text with the Grail Psalms 1963 — the edition sold as the CTS New Catholic Bible, not the Jerusalem Bible as published | 1981 | Revised New Jerusalem Bible with the Abbey Psalms — chosen with Australia and New Zealand; the three conferences’ approval expected early 2027, then Rome, then about 18 months to print, so realistically Advent 2028 or later |
| England, Wales, Scotland | ESV Catholic Edition, Abbey Psalms | Advent 2024 | — |
| United States | New American Bible, modified — the 1986 revised New Testament and the 1991 revised Psalms | 1998–2002 | The Catholic American Bible — text approved November 2024, name announced November 2025, Bibles due Ash Wednesday 2027; no date yet for the lectionary itself |
| Canada | New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, modified | 2007–09 | — |
Ireland and England parted company in 2024
For over forty years they shared one lectionary — the 1981 three-volume set built on the Jerusalem Bible.
England, Wales and Scotland moved to the ESV Catholic Edition at Advent 2024. Ireland did not, and chose the Revised New Jerusalem Bible instead — staying inside the Jerusalem family it has used since 1981, deliberately: “there is continuity with what we currently hear and a degree of familiarity.”
So a reader tracing the chart will find the two jurisdictions leaving the same box in 1981 and arriving at boxes on opposite sides of the diagram.
No lectionary uses its Bible unaltered
Every one of these is modified. Readings need an opening line that makes sense out of context. Inclusive-language decisions get revisited. Rome requires changes at confirmation.
The US lectionary in particular is not the New American Bible you can buy, and the England and Wales lectionary differs from the ESV-CE sold as a Bible. This is why 📖 sits on the text proclaimed rather than on the Bible it was made from.
America is mid-change too
The New American Bible, Revised Edition is being replaced by The Catholic American Bible, the point of which is a single text used at Mass, in the Liturgy of the Hours, and for private reading — three things that have not matched in the United States for decades.
The revised text was approved by the US bishops in November 2024 and the name announced in November 2025, with Bibles due Ash Wednesday 2027. No date has been given for the lectionary itself, which is a separate approval.
Canada
The New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, modified, in use since 2007–09. Which means a Bible descended from Tyndale by way of the King James, the English Revised Version, the American Standard Version and the RSV is what is proclaimed at Catholic Mass in Canada — the clearest single illustration on the chart that the Catholic and Protestant branches are not sealed off from one another.