1. What is unique about the new Catholic Family Connections Bible from Saint Mary’s Press?
   In this busy life we all live, parents want to feel connected and they want their children to feel connected—connected to three things: family, faith, and community. That’s the heart of this new Bible. It’s created to be a source that families can turn to every day to help find a place of connection with God, family, and God’s dwelling in the ordinary things of life. That’s what we mean by The Catholic Family Connections Bible.
   
   
2. How does this Bible help families connect with God, their faith, each other?
   Research on faith and family life shows that the three most important things that shape a child’s faith development are, first, conversations about faith in the home; second, family rituals of prayer and devotion in the home; and, third, families doing outreach and Christian service together.
   
   The Catholic Family Connections Bible has 48 full-color pages that provide parents with helpful tools, resources, and materials to guide them in doing these three things with their families in ways that are engaging for family members of all ages.
   
   
3. How does this Bible help parents start family conversations around issues of faith and life?
   This Bible includes a section dedicated to helping parents initiate “family faith conversations” in the home, whether it’s at the kitchen table or in the family room. Every day, in big ways and in small ways, we parents know that God can speak to the events of our lives. But many Catholic parents, because they did not grow up reading the Bible, don’t know where to look for God’s words of counsel in the Bible. We’ve dedicated an entire section to helping parents find Bible passages that connect to their family’s lives and use them as a basis for family conversation. The Catholic Family Connections Bible has 12 pages of simple index references to events, people, and teachings in the Bible; Catholic faith connections; Sacrament connections; and life and faith issues. With the resources in this Bible, parents don’t have to be experts or have any special knowledge to find Bible passages that speak to the issues of their family’s lives.
   
   
4. How does this The Catholic Family Connections Bible help parents develop practices of prayer and devotion in their home?
   I remember when my daughter was a little girl. We had set up a small nightstand in an unused bedroom with the Bible, a candle, a cross, and a rosary that my grandmother had given to me. One day I went upstairs to check on her, and she had all her dolls seated on the floor facing the nightstand and she was talking with them. I couldn’t resist, “Brianna, what are you doing.” “Oh, Dad, I’m taking all my dolls to church.” I’ll never forget that image. I was blown away by how such a simple thing we did in our home connected with her and connected her to her own emerging sense of faith.
   
   That’s why, in this Bible, we wanted to pay special attention to helping parents and their children develop simple yet profound practices of prayer and devotion in the home. We have a section devoted to teaching parents and their children how to pray two ancient and rich forms of devotion to God in the home. First, we teach families how to pray the Church’s most ancient form of praying with the Bible through the practice of lectio divina—a simple yet powerful practice of reading from the Bible and listening for what God is saying to you through his word. Second, we offer step-by-step guidance to parents for teaching their children how to pray the Rosary. So many Catholic parents today were never taught how to pray this beautiful, rhythmic prayer that can unite families to Jesus’ own Mother. Third, there are also helps to teach family members the value of memorizing Bible passages, because this practice can strengthen our knowledge of God’s presence throughout the day. Plus, this Bible has all the resources a family would need to be able to follow the Sunday Mass readings for the entire year.
   
   
5. You mentioned that a third aspect of forming strong families of faith is outreach and Christian service. How does The Catholic Family Connections Bible help parents with this?
   Charity and mercy—love of God and neighbor—is at the heart of God’s saving message of love. We all know this to the core of our being. We all can connect with that deep sense of fulfillment we have in our heart when we do something kind, something good for another person, especially for someone who is in dire need. As Jesus says, “When you care for the least of these  .  .  .”
   
   Families don’t engage in works of charity and mercy as much as they would like to because they don’t always know what they can do. So, in this Bible, we built in a section that provides families with really practical ideas for how to put into practice the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. More than just practicing the works of mercy, the activities deepen the faith connections parents and children make between acts of charity and the Good News announced by Jesus in the Gospels, and God’s calling us to act justly. Again, this Bible is all about helping families connect—to each other, to faith, to the community in which they live.
   
   
6. How did this Bible come to be, and why now?
   In 1999, Saint Mary’s Press was the first Catholic publisher to create a Bible just for Catholic teens. We listened to young people for five years in the creation of that Bible and kept refining it until we heard teens say to us, “That’s exactly what I am looking for in a Bible; there’s never been a Bible like this before!” Well, that was the birth of The Catholic Youth Bible® from Saint Mary’s Press, which has since gone on to touch the lives of nearly 2 million people in the United States alone.
   
   Shortly after the release of The Catholic Youth Bible®, we began getting calls from moms and dads, young adults, older adults, grandmas and grandpas, who would say, “We love this Bible, we love everything about it. Can you just take the word ‘youth’ off the title, because it’s really for anyone who wants to learn how to read, study, and apply the Bible’s teachings in their lives.”
   
   We never wanted to just take the word “youth” out of it. Instead, we stepped back and said, “Okay, if people of all ages love this Bible just the way it is, what can we add to it to make it extra special for moms and dads who want to have a Bible that will appeal to their children (a Bible their kids would actually want to open and read from)? What would give parents simple, easy-to-use, engaging material to help build a family practice of reading, studying, and living out the teachings of the Bible and their Catholic faith?”
   
   The Catholic Family Connections Bible is the result of our deep listening to and caring about families and their desire to connect more deeply with the Bible, their faith, and each other.
   
   
7. Many families don’t have a practice of using the Bible because they don’t know where to start. How does this Bible help them?
   We know of a few main reasons why Catholic families don’t use the Bible in their homes as regularly as they would like. We know that the lack of a tradition of doing so in Catholic homes is one reason, but this Bible can change that.
   
   Parents say that being too busy and being unsure of where to start or what to do are big, big factors. So, the first thing we’ve made sure of—and we’ve refined these tools over ten years of testing what works best for people—is to make it super easy for users to find what they are looking for and to find it quickly. A couple of our best tools include an alphabetical listing of all the books of the Catholic Bible on the very last page in this Bible, with the abbreviation and the corresponding page number for the start of that book. So, if you are looking for Amos (most people wouldn’t know where to find that book of the Bible), you look and find the name quickly, you look and see its abbreviation. Another of our best tools: our Bible has tabs on the edge of each page of the books of the Bible. The tabs give a super quick way of finding the abbreviated name of the book just by flipping the pages—easy, fast, simple.
   
   The other key thing is that we’ve written and organized all the materials of the Bible for someone who has never been a student of the Bible. We don’t use big words, we don’t use technical words; you don’t have to have a degree in theology to understand the teachings and explanations of the meaning of the Scriptures provided in the more than 1,000 sidebar articles and the appendixes. If you don’t know what a word means, we have a basic glossary of key terms that can be quickly and easily referenced.
   
   All of the family activities provide clear step-by-step guidance and families can do them in a variety of settings—wherever and whenever it works for the family to gather amidst the hectic schedules of family life. We make sure that everything in the Bible, every article, every reference tool, every activity, and every chart, meets the most important criteria to those using it: easy to use, easy to read, easy to understand, easy to pray with, informative, relevant, useful, and helpful.
   
   
8. If there’s one simple thing in the The Catholic Family Connections Bible that stands out for you as a Dad, what would it be?
   In the special insert section “Praying with the Bible,” we have one page of tips to help family members learn how to memorize Bible passages. As Catholics, memorizing Bible passages is not a top-of-the-mind thing we’ve learned to do.
   
   When I was around 17 years old, a junior in high school, like many kids that age, I was going through a lot of struggles with peer pressure, self-worth, all that stuff. I remember coming home from school one day and finding a Bible somewhere in the house—I probably had to hunt for it. I opened it up to a random page and pointed my finger down. It landed on Proverbs 3:5–6. It read, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and he will make straight your path.” It’s 33 years later, and I remember that passage. I can’t tell you how many times over the years, when facing difficult times, I’ve remembered the Bible passage and I’ve turned my “trust” back to the Lord.
   
   Well, a couple months ago, my own son, now 17, got into a little trouble. We sat down one day and I told him we were going to have a little “man talk.” I brought out one of our Bibles and opened it to Proverbs 3:5–6 and read it to him. I invited him to memorize that passage, as I did at his age. This was an out-of-the-ordinary conversation for us—we don’t normally have these kinds of conversations with the Bible. The next day an amazing thing happened. My son says to me, “Dad, ah, thanks for that talk yesterday, it really meant a lot to me, especially because we talked about the Bible.” Well, there you go. One simple thing, one simple technique we offer parents in this new Bible, and look at the unexpected connections it can make. That’s one of the things that make me really excited about The Catholic Family Connections Bible.
   
   
9. Why did Saint Mary’s Press choose the New American Bible translation for The Catholic Family Connections Bible?
   There are several translations of the Bible that are approved for Catholics to use, but only the New American Bible is used in the Church’s liturgies in the United States. Catholic families want to read in their homes the same translation of the Bible that they will hear at Mass on Sunday. We didn’t want Catholic families to be confused by reading one translation at home during the week, but hearing a slightly different version at Mass on Sunday. We want this Bible to help Catholic families connect, easily and more deeply, with their Catholic practices in the parish. For these reasons, the New American Bible is the most preferred translation of the Bible for Catholic families.
   
   
10. What else would you want readers to know about why Saint Mary’s Press is releasing The Catholic Family Connections Bible now?
    Saint Mary’s Press has been touching the hearts of young people and their families with outstanding Catholic faith resources since 1943. We are a nonprofit publisher who has a great big heart for Catholic young people and their families. We listen deeply and respond creatively. This Catholic Family Connections Bible is a project that has our hearts singing, and we are so thrilled to introduce this as the “newest member of our family.” From our family of life-changing Bibles to your family is how we see this: as a gift to Catholic families.

Further Statistics
Proving the Need for The Catholic Family Connections Bible

When you look at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, www.religions.pewforum.org, there are some interesting statistics revealed about Catholics.
1. 41% of Catholics are 30–49 years of age, the period of life generally when adults are raising children in the home.
2. 54% of Catholics are female.
3. The median income of Catholics is $30,000–$49,000.
4. 57% of Catholics are high school graduates, 21% with some college attendance .
5. 58% of Catholics are married.
6. 39% have one or more children living at home.

The study goes on to reveal some interesting things about Catholics’ beliefs and practices.
1. 72% express “absolute certainty” about belief in God; 21% are “fairly certain.”
2. 90% say that their religion is “very important” or “somewhat important” in their life.
3. Only 33% report attending Mass once a week; 33% report attending Mass a “few times         
   a year” or “seldom.”
4. On the other hand, 58% report praying daily, and another 21% weekly. Only 13% pray “seldom” or “never.”
5. With respect to interpretation of the Bible, 39% believe that it is the “Word of God, but not literally true word for word,” and 23% believe it is the “Word of God, literally true word for word.”
6. 77% of Catholics report that “there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of my religion.” And 79% believe that “many religions can lead to eternal life.”

What do these findings of Catholics have to do with The Catholic Family Connections Bible?

Their faith is very important to Catholic parents, they have high certainty in the existence of God, they pray regularly in the privacy of their homes, and they believe that the Bible is the Word of God, BUT, according to the research highlighted above, 66% indicate they do not attend Mass—the central expression of Catholic faith—with any regularity.

What if Catholic families had something in their homes that would help them, that would support them with what is so important to them—their faith and their family? The Catholic Family Connections Bible does just that.

This Bible can become a bridge for families, helping them make connections to one another and to the life of the Church and the wider community. They can follow the Sunday readings at home, they can pray the prayers of the Church together at home using the guides in this Bible, they can learn about the Bible and about Catholic teachings by reading the more than 1,000 articles spread throughout the Bible, and they can share their faith with one another using the activities on the insert pages.