The Grail Psalms were already popular before the
Second Vatican Council revised the liturgies of the
Roman rite. Because the Council called for more liturgical use of the
vernacular instead of
Latin, and also for more singing and chanting (as opposed to the silent
Low Mass and privately recited
Divine Office, which were the predominantly celebrated forms of the Roman rite before the Council), the Grail Psalms were utilised as the official liturgical Psalter by most of the English-speaking world. The Grail Psalms were utilized by the
International Commission on English in the Liturgy in their translation of
The Liturgy of the Hours in 1973. They were also utilized, with some minor alterations, in a parallel translation of the Liturgy of the Hours titled
The Divine Office in 1974. As these are the only two officially recognized
Roman Catholic translations of the
canonical hours in English, the Grail became the
de facto liturgical Psalter. Some
Episcopal Conferences, such as that of
England and Wales, also adopted the Grail for the
Responsorial Psalms in the
Lectionary for Mass. The
Ruthenian Catholic Church adopted the Grail Psalms for chanting in 2007. A separate edition of the Grail Psalms, revised with
inclusive language, was produced in 1986. It was expressly forbidden for liturgical use. The 1994
ICEL Psalter issued for study and comment was another alternative to the Grail Psalms, but never approved for liturgical use. The Imprimatur to this text was later revoked. In 2001,
Pope John Paul II promulgated the encyclical
Liturgiam authenticam, which called for a more literal translation of liturgical texts. This led to an interest in updating the Grail. In 2008,
Conception Abbey completed a wide-scale revision in accordance with this instruction, published under the title
The Revised Grail Psalms. This version is used in the edition of
The Liturgy of the Hours published by Paulines Publications Africa, now promulgated for use in every Bishops' Conference of Africa. In 2010, the
Holy See granted of
The Revised Grail Psalms with certain modifications; this modified edition is the one in force for several Bishops' Conferences including the
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. In the General Assembly of the USCCB of November 2014, the U.S. Bishops voted to adopt a further revision of the
Revised Grail Psalms. In 2019 the USCCB acquired the rights to the Revised Grail from the monks of Conception Abbey, and released a new revision titled
Abbey Psalms and Canticles, which would "gradually be incorporated into the Church’s official liturgical books". The Bishops of England and Wales confirmed in January 2021 that this version would be adopted for the psalms and canticles used in the lectionary and in the Liturgy of the Hours. ==Example comparison between the Grail (1963), Revised Grail (2010) and Abbey (2018)==