I think its safe to say Baronius have embarrassed themselves with the handling of this whole Breviary issue.
This company is a joke. I shelled out a lot of money for a leatherbound 1950's Knox Bible because I was fed up of waiting.
The irony is, this old book is probably still of finer quality than anything Baronius has knocked together, my first D-R Bible from them is falling to bits!
I'm not bothered that I will probably be slated as a sad, ranting lunatic. I'm just fed up of Baronius Press.
From a businessman's perspective these guys are losers, and shouldn't call themselves printers, more kiddies with crayolas.
I’ll play “Devil’s Advocate”, if I may.
I certainly appreciate the frustration people are having with them, but, that is life in the free enterprise world. I’m frustrated with how long it is taking HP/Palm to get a WebOS phone and tablet on the market, and with Barnes and Noble dragging their feet on opening an Android applications mart for the Nook color e-book reader (which I purchased last Dec. because BN said the apps mart would be available in January), and some airlines are frustrated that Boeing doesn’t have the 787 on the market yet.
In my opinion, as long as they aren’t defrauding you or misrepresenting their products, companies don’t have any particular obligation to the market, other than to play fairly and honestly. If a company doesn’t seem to be able to “get-r-dun”, anyone else is free to try and do a better job.
I don’t know how big the company is, but I’m thinking they are small. Having been a small business person myself, in both agricultural production, and agricultural product sales, I can understand getting overwhelmed by a project, or having an initial vision about something that turned out to be overly optimistic. Just saying…
As for the breviary, I believe it was announced that a large part of the delay was with a very extensive proof reading (one of the things they have been criticized here for in the past were “typos” in some of their publications), and a delay in obtaining official ecclesiastical approval, which is something they felt was important. In the absence of other evidence, I’ll have to take them on their word for that. They could be criticized for being too much of a “tease”, and perhaps should have kept things “more under wraps” until things were more certain, but having worked in “small shops ~ been there, done that” situations, I can see how a small company might get “in over their head”. It does sound like things are far enough along that it will eventually happen.
I can understand why they might focus most of their energy on existing products. I would like to have a full breviary, and a Knox bible (which not all “trads” approve of), but I’m guessing this isn’t a huge market, and the DR bibles, missals, and their other books are what are keeping them solvent. Unless they have some market research they aren’t sharing, I’m guessing they are kind of “rolling the dice” on this. I don’t have any market research either, but my hunch is that there are far more (both in numbers and percentages) of lay
Novus Ordo Catholics who pray the Liturgy of the Hours than there were ever pre VII laity who prayed the breviary (and the laity who did were mostly members of Third Orders, who usually used an abbreviated breviary). It will be interesting to see what the real market is, and I would have to applaud them for taking the risk. If people want to get mad maybe some of that venting should go toward Angelus Press, Fraternity Publishing (FSSP), TAN Books, etc., for not even trying.
As for quality issues, the only Baronius Press product I own is “The Psalms and New Testament” (Douay-Rheims) which I purchased at a mainline Catholic bookstore 3 years ago. While I confess that it gets carried around (its virtue is its very small size, so I always have it with me, but for me it requires reading glasses) more than read, it has held up very well, and seems to be a very high quality product. The CMRI bookstore in Spokane, WA carries several Baonius products, and because of complaints I’ve seen here, I asked the nun who manages the bookstore what their experience has been. She said they have had no issues with product quality, so perhaps those issues have been addressed. As with most small publishers, they outsource printing and publishing, which can diminish their control over quality sometimes.
I have no stake in the company, just felt like going to bat for a small business that is trying to get some products out that few others are making any effort on. After all, anybody here was free to sit down and type out a full Latin and English breviary, take it out to get printed and bound at any quality level they desire, and put it on the market (hopefully buying a banner ad at Fisheaters in the process). No one else has made the effort. Barionius has. I cut them some slack for that.
