VATICAN—The former rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute (or “Biblicum”) and current President of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity has stated that John XXIII will not reverse his predecessor’s decision to print the new Psalter in the Roman Breviary.

Speaking with the British Catholic news weekly The Tablet on Wednesday Cardinal Augustin Bea claimed, “Pope John is not going to change the Psalter again. He will not return to using the Clementine Psalter.”

“The Pian Psalter” as it is called, has been a source of fierce debate over its elaborate deviations from the old translation attributed to St. Jerome. Given the controversy surrounding these changes over the past ten years, Bea gave his common defense of the Psalter change from a theological perspective. “The breviary should be a point of unity,” Bea claimed, “and using different translations of the Psalter is antithetical to that spirit.”

For many priests and religious who pray the breviary with frequency, the issues are more pointed and concrete. When The Tablet pressed Bea about the new translation of the De Profundis, Bea became seemingly defensive, saying, “I know. I’ve heard all of the complaints about the De Profundis. Yes, I’ve heard all of the complains about priests getting tripped up on the very first line of the Psalm because we replaced “clamavi” with “clamo” and “exaudi” with “audi.” Yes, I know that it’s an iconic Psalm. But to say that this is somehow a source of persecution is actually kinda hurtful to me, who spent so much time writing away at this translation!”

Bea finally said, “If you attack me or claim I’m persecuting you for having to recite my Psalter, you’re basically attacking both Pope Pius XII and Pope John XXIII and the Church.”