Why do Catholics not call God Yahweh?

Answer 1

The original Hebrew Bible never refers to the name of God as 'Jehovah'. Or, at least, when reading the Bible the Jews never uttered the 'name' of God.

The name 'Jehovah' comes from the Tetragrammaton (τετραγράμματον) YHWH. This is usually pronounced 'Yahweh' or sometimes 'Jehovah' - as an anglicised version of this name from its Latin version. However, no one knows exactly how these four letters were pronounced as Jews did not include vowles in their writings in those days - so it could equally be pronounced 'Yoh-Wah', Yeh-Whoo' or a host of other variations.

The Tetragrammaton is seen in Exodus 3:15 where God, speaking to Moses, says ""This is my Name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations." God also states that the name refers to the words 'I am who I am'. Contrary to what Jehovah's Witnesses believe, the 'name' of God YHWH was never uttered by the Jews, and the JW practice of using the name 'Jehovah' as ther version of YHWH can be seen by the Jews as blasphemous. This is because this name of God is considered too sacred to be used for everyday activities. Even ordinary prayer is considered too common for its use. The Tetragrammaton was pronounced only by the High Priest on the Jewish festival of Yom Kippur when the Temple was standing in Jerusalem. Since the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, the Tetragrammaton is no longer pronounced at all, and while Jewish tradition holds that the correct pronunciation is known to a select few people in each generation, it is not generally known what this pronunciation is. Instead, common Jewish use has been to substitute the name 'Adonai' ("My Lord") where the Tetragrammaton appears, both in scripture and in other writing.

Therefore in most Bibles, where the Tetragrammaton would normally appear, the convention is to follow Jewish - and later Christian - respect for God's name and substitute 'Lord' instead. In these cases, the word 'Lord' is written with a large upper case 'L' and a smaller upper case 'ORD'. many modern Bible translations into English follow this convention, including The King James version.

Therefore Catholics and other Christian denominations refer to God as 'God', 'Lord' 'Father' and other terms (like 'Abba') as these were the terms used by Jesus Christ in his teaching. The use of 'Jehovah' as his name is mistakenly thought of as more 'correct' by Jehovah's Witnesses, but actually Biblically God has never been called by the anglicised corrupted translation 'Jehovah' - not has he been called even YHWH in everyday use, simply as this name was deemed to sacred to be uttered.

Answer 2

In the ancient Jewish tradition the name of God is the unpronounceable YHWH, which people took to pronouncing Yahweh. The ancient Jews felt that the name was so sacred that it should never be pronounced. In 2008 Pope Benedict decided to return the Church to its roots and requested that the word Yahweh be dropped from all liturgies out of respect for the name of God.