Catholic Online Forum

It is surprising to find the Protestant reformer Miles Coverdale’s translation of the Psalms used in a Catholic church. His version of the Bible was burnt in Henry VIII’s reign, and even on his return from exile, when Elizabeth became queen, he did not resume his office as Bishop of Exeter.

Partly by accident, Coverdale’s Psalms are used in the Book of Common Prayer, not the version from the Authorised (sic) Version of the Bible of 1611. Now they are incorporated into the service book of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham...

Now the Ordinariate has published a Customary (Canterbury Press, £45), which is a daily prayer book, though it does not include the Mass. The editors are Fr Aidan Nichols, a Dominican theologian of a compendious mind, and Mgr Andrew Burnham, who is Assistant to the Ordinary.

The Ordinariate’s aim is “to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church”. It does not have its own liturgical rites, as it belongs to the Latin rite of the Church, but its usages reflect its patrimony.