Which Is The Official Divine Office?

Divine Office

There are many occasions when I get really concerned about whether I may be ‘dropping the ball’ and not being a truly faithful Catholic. Today I am cogitating the matter of the Divine Office because of a post on Fr. Z’s Blog about which breviary the Holy Father is using.

In his post, “The Holy Father’s Curious Comment”, Fr. Z refers to a statement that Pope Francis’ made during an interview: “I pray every day the divine office every day with the Psalms of David. We do the 150 psalms in one week.”

This statement by Pope Francis apparently got Fr. Z wondering as to whether Pope Francis prays the older Roman Breviary, which involves praying all 150 psalms in one week. If Pope Francis is doing so then he is clearly not using the Divine Office renewed by decree of the Second Vatican Council and promulgated by the authority of Pope Paul VI.

I pray the renewed Divine Office and I pray it in English in accordance with Sacrosanctum Concilium #101(1) because I am not a priest and because I sadly do not know enough Latin to be able to pray the Divine Office every day in a meaningful way.

What puzzles me is why all clergy, religious and those lay faithful who pray the Divine Office would not be praying the ‘new version’ of the Divine Office as Fr. Z refers to it? Why would anyone be praying the older Roman Breviary when Sacrosanctum Concilium seems, to my reading anyway, to be quite clear that the Divine Office, once revised, should be used by all in the Church?

Maybe someone out there could explain to me why some may be praying the old Roman Breviary. Is there some legitimate reason for this or is this resistance just another of those that are based purely on the fact that the renewed Divine Office came out of Vatican II? I'd love to know. Until then I’ll be happily continuing to pray the renewed Divine Office as I have since I got my first 3 volume set in 1986.