Catholic Biblical Federation

God's Word for the World

The Catholic Biblical Federation was created to carry out the recommendations of the II Vatican Council concerning the Bible. The Federation’s aim is to be of service to the Bishops in the fulfillment of their responsibility to proclaim the Word of God to all the faithful.

Besides translation of the Bible into local languages, the primary task of the Catholic Biblical Federation resides in the effort to translate the biblical message into the personal and communal contexts of human beings lives. It thereby promotes a way of reading Sacred Scripture which uncovers the life-giving message of God’s Word, thus countering the danger of a fundamentalistic misinterpretation.

With its commitment to the Gospel, the Catholic Biblical Federation is aware that today, in the third millennium, Christian values need to be strengthened and rediscovered as a foundation for communal living. The Christian value system is the premise for universal human rights and for Christians the basis of a responsible intercultural and interreligious dialogue.

According to its constitution (Art. 9) the Federation seeks to:

promote and develop the Biblical Pastoral Ministry in such a way as to allow the Word of God as present in Sacred Scripture to become a dynamic source of inspiration for all areas of the life and mission of the Church in today’s world, following the lines set forth in the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation “Dei Verbum” and in the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation “Verbum Domini”, as well as in the documents of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, and in collaboration with the Bishops and the Bishops’ Conferences
participate actively in the Church’s mission of evangelization by sharing the Good News of God’s love for all creation as manifested in the life and death of Jesus Christ, the Word of God par excellence, and in the movement of the Holy Spirit
facilitate a fruitful sharing and networking of Biblical Pastoral experiences and reflection, methods and materials as well as other resources among its various members, in a spirit of solidarity and subsidiarity
foster and support the work of its member organizations in whatever way possible.

The activities of the Federation are those of each and all of its members extending over various fields:

It promotes, encourages and supports the translation, production and distribution of the Bible at Catholic and interconfessional levels.
It promotes biblical studies and the production of educational tools for the sake of a better approach to and understanding of the Bible.
It supports the work of Catholic organizations for biblical pastoral ministry.
It encourages and stimulates cooperation and attempts to establish bridges between biblical science, pastoral ministry and Church communities on all levels.
It supports interconfessional dialogue based on the common heritage of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, and also the dialogue between the religions based on Sacred Scripture and those scriptures considered as sacred by other religions.