Progress on new Lectionary for Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand

By Fr. Neil Xavier O’Donoghue, July 26, 2025

This week representatives from the Bishops’ Conferences of Australia, Ireland, New Zealand met in Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Ireland, to discuss the progress of their Joint Lectionary Project.

Representatives from the three conferences had met in Adelaide in 2023, where the decision was made to work together to develop a new Lectionary for Mass  based on the Revised New Jerusalem Bible.  For more details of progress on the project can be found in the Press Release released after the meeting.

Fr. Neil Xavier O'Donoghue

Neil Xavier O’Donoghue is originally from Cork, Ireland. He is a presbyter of the Archdiocese of Newark, NJ who has ministered in parishes on both sides of the Atlantic. He has spent many years as an academic mentor to seminarians. Neil currently serves as Programme Director for Liturgical Programmes at the Pontifical University and as Acting Director of the National Centre for Liturgy. Since 2020 he has also served as the Executive Secretary for Liturgy to the Irish Catholic Bishops Conference. He has studied at Seton Hall University (BA, MDiv), the University of Notre Dame (MA), and St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (MTh). He holds a Doctorate in Theology (Ph.D.) from St Patrick’s College, Maynooth and is in the process of completing a second doctorate (D.D) in the Pontifical Facultad de Teología Redemptoris Mater in Callao, Peru. Neil has published a translation of the Confessio of St. Patrick: St. Patrick: His Confession and Other Works (Totowa, NJ, 2009), as well editing the third edition of Fredrick Edward Warren’s The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church (Piscataway, NJ, 2010). In 2011 the University of Notre Dame Press published The Eucharist in Pre-Norman Ireland an adaptation of his doctoral thesis and in 2017 the Alcuin Club published his Liturgical Orientation: The Position of the President at the Eucharist. His articles have appeared in The Irish Theological Quarterly, New Blackfriars, The Furrow and Antiphon. He writes a monthly article on some aspect of the theology of Pope Francis in the Messenger of St. Anthony and blogs regularly at PrayTell.

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One response to “Progress on new Lectionary for Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand”

  1. Devin Rice

    Congratulations. I hope the project bears much fruit. I am curious if you are able to answer a question. The press release states, ” a working group, of women and men, from the three conferences with expertise in both Scripture and Liturgy, meet online each month to consider the submitted comments and revise the text as necessary.”

    Are the textual revisions solely changes made so that the scripture can be proclaimed during liturgy like incipits and changes in pronouns? Or will there be emendations that are more substantial and perhaps lead to a new version of the RNJB being published once the lectionary is released?

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