Mass Readings Podcast Available

Zenit reports:

The daily Mass readings are now downloadable from the Web site of the U.S. bishops’ Catholic Communication Campaign.

The program was prepared in association with the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine using audio recordings of the readings from the New American Bible.

Information on downloading the audio can be found on the "Daily Readings" section of the bishops’ Web site at www.usccb.org/nab.

"The Internet is now a part of our lives and a medium which can help provide for spiritual enrichment," said Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Communications. He said the new service "responds to the many requests for ‘podcasts’ of the readings."

The committee approved a $30,000 grant for the podcast project last June.

Patricia Ryan Garcia, project coordinator, noted: "Several readers, including bishops, clergy, and laity from different ethnic backgrounds, have lent their voices to the project so listeners will hear at least three different voices on any given day."

The audio recordings are accessible free of charge through several popular Internet audio content aggregators including Apple’s iTunes, Feedburner and Podcast Alley.

The Catholic Communication Campaign develops media programming, public service announcements, and other resources to promote Gospel values.

GET THE PODCAST.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

27 thoughts on “Mass Readings Podcast Available”

  1. The program was prepared in association with the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine using audio recordings of the readings from the New American Bible.
    Great, bad enough I have to hear the New American Bible translation at Mass; now, it will follow me wherever I go!

  3. For those of you who are Verbum Domini subscribers, this is old news. Brian Noe has been podcasting the daily readings for just under two years now and he and his team have been doing a great job of it.
    In September of ’05, he was given a cease and desist order from the USCCB. The NAB is copywrited by the USCCB and he did not have permission to podcast the NAB scripture. Imagine that!
    Was teh USCCB in thw wrong? Probably not, but I feel the USCCB dropped the ball (once again?) and came across as insensitive to Brian. After a time of using the Douey Bible, he now uses the NIV:CE.
    I’ve listened to the USCCB scripture podcast but will stick with Verbum Domini.

  7. If it’s NAB, I wouldn’t be interested.
    Although, there may be some errors in the RSV, I still prefer its rendering as compared to the NAB.

  8. Why did they feel it necessary to tell us that the readers come from different ethnic backgrounds?

  11. “Why did they feel it necessary to tell us that the readers come from different ethnic backgrounds?”
    I thought that kinda weird, at first, but it might be cool if they had a broad range of accents from all over the globe (and not just the US), as long as there was no problem understanding what was being read. It might actually serve to emphasize the catholicity of Catholicism.
    So, if that is the case, I can see why they might want to make it a “selling point”.
    On the other hand, if it’s just PC run amok… yuck.
    Now if they did this all with a voice synthesizer, you could dial up the accent of your choice.
    “Luke, chapter two, please, Hal… with a Hindi flavor.”
    “Glad to oblige, Dave… ‘A decree went out from Caesar Augustus…’ “.

  12. Except the Cylons, I guess.
    CYLONS ARE NOT A RACE, DO NOT HAVE SOULS, ARE MANUFACTURED BITS OF THE IMAGINATION, AND, THEREFORE, DESERVE TORTURE! ! !
    Can we put an end to this canard that cylons actually deserve human rights and should not undergo torture in each and every instance — including dire circumstances!!!
    ;^)

  13. Actually, the shocking thing about the lectors is — they all sound like they live and work in the DC metropolitan area!
    Horrors! What an attack on linguistic diversity! How dare they reduce the vast soundscape of American Catholicism to this eentsy-weentsy cross-section of people happening to reside in Northern Virginia, DC, and Maryland? I demand a recoun…. er… thingummy.
    *snerk*
    As long as they’re all Catholics and are comprehensible, I don’t think most of us care. I like aesthetics, but the point of making readings available is not some aesthetic experience. Rather, it’s easy availability for study and pondering.
    I still think it’s weird that they put huge effort into making the podcast sound just like Mass, and then they don’t even introduce or lead out of the podcast. Bam, you start. Bam, you’re done.

  14. As long as they’re all Catholics and are comprehensible, I don’t think most of us care.
    Thanks, Maureen.
    I have nothing against ethnicity.
    However, when you can’t actually understand the person doing the readings (especially at Mass), it becomes an incredibly laborious task rather than what it should be and that is a reflection of the passage being read from Holy Scripture.
    Instead of paying attention to what’s being said by St. Paul or Jesus, etc.; you end up simply trying to figure out what the lector is actually trying to say!
    It’s great that such folks volunteer for these roles in a charitable effort to assist at their parish, but that’s roughly analgous to hiring a blind person to drive a bus in the city.

  17. I want to hear a Jeff Foxworthy REDNECK biblical reading podcast!!!
    Oh no, bad enough it’s NAB, NOW BLUE COLLAR NAB PODCASTS???? Yikes!

  21. I’ve been getting the readings daily from EWTN, you get the daily homily too!
    Yes, but do their lectors come from different ethnic backgrounds?

  22. $30,000!? You can’t be serious. How could you possibly spend $30,000 on a podcast!?
    Well, I hear it isn’t that easy on a PC.

  23. Podcast Mass readings in English? How low can the Catholic Faith go??
    Does a Sunday Mass Podcast with Communion by replicator count?

  24. Realist, I suspect that the podcasts are for those of us who cannot make it to daily Mass but would like hear the readings. LEastaways, that’s why I listen.

  25. Not only did they spend $30,000 to make the podcast, but they legally blocked a person who was providing the same service at no cost to them and probably minimal cost to himself.

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