Prior to the publication of the Liturgy of the Hours, Pope Paul VI decreed that the imprecatory psalms be omitted. As a result, approximately 120 verses (three entire psalms (58[57], 83[82], and 109[108]) and additional verses from 19 others) were removed. The introduction to the Liturgy of the Hours cites the reason for their removal as a certain “psychological difficulty” caused by these passages. This is despite the fact that some of these psalms of imprecation are used as prayer in the New Testament (e.g., Rev 6:10) and in no sense to encourage the use of curses (General Instruction # 131). Six of the Old Testament Canticles and one of the New Testament Canticles contain verses that were eliminated for the same reason.
Many (including me) believe that the removal of these verses is problematic . . . . [I]t is troubling to propose that the inspired text of Scripture should be consigned to the realm of “psychological difficulty.” Critics assert that it should be our task to seek to understand such texts in the wider context of God’s love and justice. Some of the most teachable moments come in the difficult and “dark” passages. Whatever “psychological difficulty” or spiritual unease these texts cause, all the more reason that we should wonder as to the purpose of such verses. Why would God permit such utterances in a sacred text? What does He want us to learn or understand? Does our New Testament perspective add insight?
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I might add that the Canadian Book of Common Prayer of 1962 also abridges the Psalms, but the full Psalter was returned to the Book of Alternative Services.
Liberal "Christianity" [?] wants a religion of sweetness and light.
If the Bible is truly considered to be a revelation composed by God (Heb 1:1-2), then the removal of any portion for any reason, even if regarded as a pastoral reason, is to question the wisdom of God for its inclusion. It is to exalt the wisdom of the one who removes the portion over the wisdom of God. If the Bible is merely the collected writings of human writers, then the matter of a removal of any portion matters not. The only thing the leadership of the RCC has accomplished by the removal of the Imprecatory Psalms from that which it regards as the prayer of the Church second only to the Mass and to continue in that removal -- is to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that rather than The Church began by Jesus Christ it is simply just another denomination of the religion that calls itself Christianity. A religion that freely interprets the Bible for its own ends.
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