If the Douay-Rheims Bible is the best Catholic Bible, then what was the point of Pope Pius XII writing his 1943 encyclical "Divino Afflante Spiritu"?

Pope Pius XII realized that the Latin Vulgate translation had many flaws because after its 16th-17th Century publications, older (and more accurate) Greek manuscripts were discovered that put St. Jerome's translations to shame.

Later published Catholic bibles (thanks to "Divino afflante Spiritu") used the newly discovered older Greek manuscripts for their translation and hence the Douay-Rheims became obsolete. Again, if the Douay-Rheims Bible was not made obsolete, then why else would Pope Pius XII have written "Divino Afflante Spiritu?"

For example, the Douay-Rheims Bible is the only Catholic bible that insists on continuing to erroneously translate Luke 1:28 as Mary being "full of grace" rather than the correct translation of "favored one." The correct translation does not affect the sacred Hail Mary prayer by any means, although Douay-Rheims "onlyists" may disagree.

The Catholics who prefer the Douay-Rheims version of the Bible are the opposite side of the same coin as the Protestants who favor the (Authorized) King James Version of the Bible. Both sides refuse to acknowledge the errors of their own Bibles since the discovery of older extant Greek manuscripts. The only difference is that, fortunately, Catholics had a Pope who issued an encyclical to guide the faithful away from such erroneous translations with "Divino Afflante Spiritu."

There is no excuse for Douay-Rheims "onlyists" to wallow in their own culpable ignorance for over 70 + years. Wake up.

You are incorrect here because you are ignoring the recent discoveries of older extant Greek manuscripts which were not available to St. Jerome during the time he was translating the Vulgate.

You are also in error when you immediately jump to the conclusion that just because "favored one" (rather than "full of grace") is (correctly) translated into every single Bible save the Douay-Rheims, then that nullifies Mary as being "full of grace."

The Virgin Mother has always been "full of grace"....that's a given. So when older and more reliable Greek manuscripts appear and state "favored one" instead of "full of grace," nobody should be upset and deny these modern (and more reliable) manuscript discoveries.

Your logic is akin to saying that Catholics cannot believe the Virgin Mother is full of grace unless it is printed in the Bible. Pope Pius IX's 1854 Encyclical on the Immaculate Conception explains several ways in which Mary was "full of grace." Do not fall into the error known as "Sola Scriptura of Douay-Rheims" in the same way Protestants fall into the error of "Sola Scriptura of Authorized King James Version."    

You are in favor, perhaps, of the ecuмenically-inspired RSV-CE (in which Our Lady is no longer "full of grace," but only "highly favored"); an explicit attack by the modernists and rationalists on the dogma of the Immaculate Conception; a gesture to the Protestant collaborators who were delighted with this new "discovery."

But let me revise your argument for you:

It is not the Douay Rheims Bible which you are really arguing is obsolete, but the dogma of the Immaculate Conception (i.e., As though new "advances" in true biblical scholarship could weaken one of the foundations for a defined dogma of the Church).

As for Divino Afflante Spiritu, it was a modernist docuмent of Pius XII; like you, my modernist seminary professors rejoiced in it, because it gave the nod to a "Catholic version" of the Protestant-rationalist historico-critical method of Bultmann (his greatest protege being the grand-heresiarch Fr. Raymond Brown).

We used Lawrence Boadt's modernist work "Reading the Old Testament," which includes on the inner frontispiece a quote from Divino Afflante Spiritu as justifying all that was later to poison our minds in those pages (the goal of which was to convince us that the biblical accounts of miracles all had natural explanations and causes, and that inerrancy only pertained to "moral truths," not the historical accounts of scripture; the same claim later made by the evolutionists now invading Tradition).

I would posit you are already in the process of losing your faith (if you ever had it).

The fruits of Divino Afflante Spiritu and the condemned modernist exegetes of Pascendi being partially rehabilitated by the transitional Pope Pius XII.

If the Douay-Rheims Bible is the best Catholic Bible, then what was the point of Pope Pius XII writing his 1943 encyclical "Divino Afflante Spiritu"?

Pope Pius XII realized that the Latin Vulgate translation had many flaws because after its 16th-17th Century publications, older (and more accurate) Greek manuscripts were discovered that put St. Jerome's translations to shame.

20. Nor should anyone think that this use of the original texts, in accordance with the methods of criticism, in any way derogates from those decrees so wisely enacted by the Council of Trent concerning the Latin Vulgate.[24] It is historically certain that the Presidents of the Council received a commission, which they duly carried out, to beg, that is, the Sovereign Pontiff in the name of the Council that he should have corrected, as far as possible, first a Latin, and then a Greek, and Hebrew edition, which eventually would be published for the benefit of the Holy Church of God.[25] If this desire could not then be fully realized owing to the difficulties of the times and other obstacles, at present it can, We earnestly hope, be more perfectly and entirely fulfilled by the united efforts of Catholic scholars.

21. And if the Tridentine Synod wished "that all should use as authentic" the Vulgate Latin version, this, as all know, applies only to the Latin Church and to the public use of the same Scriptures; nor does it, doubtless, in any way diminish the authority and value of the original texts. For there was no question then of these texts, but of the Latin versions, which were in circulation at that time, and of these the same Council rightly declared to be preferable that which "had been approved by its long-continued use for so many centuries in the Church." Hence this special authority or as they say, authenticity of the Vulgate was not affirmed by the Council particularly for critical reasons, but rather because of its legitimate use in the Churches throughout so many centuries; by which use indeed the same is shown, in the sense in which the Church has understood and understands it, to be free from any error whatsoever in matters of faith and morals; so that, as the Church herself testifies and affirms, it may be quoted safely and without fear of error in disputations, in lectures and in preaching; and so its authenticity is not specified primarily as critical, but rather as juridical.