I second the motion on the *Navarre Bible * series, although I personally don’t have the same reservations about it as Charles. It has the both full text of the RSV-CE translation and the official Latin translation, and several excellent articles on Scripture in general and the individual books. It’s multi-volume, so I’d start with the New Testament, and if your friend likes it (which I can’t imagine anyone not), he can start collecting the rest. Here’s a sample from today’s Mass Reading:
From: Matthew 16:13-19:
Peter’s Profession of Faith and His Primacy
Commentary:
13-20. In this passage St. Peter is promised primacy over the whole Church, a primacy which Jesus will confer on him after His
Resurrection, as we learn in the Gospel of St. John (cf. John
21:15-18). This supreme authority is given to Peter for the benefit of the Church. Because the Church has to last until the end of time, this authority will be passed on to Peter’s successors down through history. The Bishop of Rome, the Pope, is the successor of Peter.
The solemn Magisterium of the Church, in the First Vatican Council, defined the doctrine of the primacy of Peter and his successors in these terms:
"We teach and declare, therefore, according to the testimony of the Gospel that the primacy of jurisdiction over the whole Church was immediately and directly promised to and conferred upon the blessed Apostle Peter by Christ the Lord. For to Simon, Christ had said,
You shall be called Cephas' (John 1:42). Then, after Simon had acknowledged Christ with the confession, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’ (Matthew 16:16), it was to Simon alone that the solemn words were spoken by the Lord:
Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in Heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church, and the powers of Hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven, and what you loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven' (Matthew 16:17-19). And after His Resurrection, Jesus conferred upon Simon Peter alone the jurisdiction of supreme shepherd and ruler over His whole fold with the words, Feed My lambs…Feed My sheep’ (John 21:15-17) …]
- (Vatican I, “Pastor Aeternus”, Chaps. 1, 2 and 4).*
(it goes on to give the complete declaration, but you get the idea.
