(ANS - Vatican City) – On Monday, 29 September, a delegation from the Salesian Catholic publisher Elledici and the Italian Bible Society was received by Pope Francis at the Vatican for the launch of a new version of the Bible in everyday Italian. This is an interdenominational translation called TILC (Traduzione Interconfessionale in Lingua Corrente). It is the work of Europe’s leading biblical scholars of both Old and New Testaments. It is published by Elledici and the Universal Biblical Alliance in conjunction with the British and Foreign Bible Societies.

The audience opened with an introduction by Doctor Valdo Bertalot, General Secretary of the Bible Society in Italy. He first described the work to Pope Francis and then, together with Fr Valerio Bocci, Director General of Elledici, and Fr Francis Cereda, Vicar of Rector Major, presented a copy to the Pope,

In the course of his address, Pope Francis recalled his personal experience of this particular version of the Bible: "The translation of the Bible prepared by Evangelicals and Catholics in the everyday language of Argentine has done very well and is very good. It is a good idea. Ordinary simple people can understand it because it is in real language that is close to the people. In parish missions in Buenos Aires we always went to the Bible Society to buy this translation. They gave me a good discount! We gave the Bible to the people, and the people understood it. They really understood! This is a good undertaking and I am pleased that it is now available in Italian, so that people can understand stories and expressions which, if translated literally, would not be understood."

This translation of the Bible into everyday language is the result of long hard work by Catholic and Evangelical experts, appointed by their respective churches. The work began in the 70s and led first to the publication of the New Testament in 1976, and then to the release of the entire Bible in 1985.

This revision of the TILC was carried out in two stages - the New Testament in 2000 and the Old Testament in 2014. It lends itself to a more fluent reading that can be understood by all, especially young people.  With them in mind, a special edition was produced for school use with a rich array of images, photos and notes.

Like previous editions, this will be published with the approval of both the Universal Biblical Alliance and the Italian Episcopal Conference.

Published 01/10/2014