Why does the Catholic church not sanction the KJV translation? One of my favorite Bible translations has always been the King James (I suppose because of the medieval feel), but I have always been fascinated by the much longer history of the Catholic Church and I recently was informed that the KJV is not considered a valid translation in Catholic canon.
This sparked curiosity on my part I was wondering in what ways the KJV was different from a traditional Catholic translation, and can the differences be chalked up to slightly different translations of ancient Greek? Or was it fundamentally changed to fit a Protestant perspective?
A brief history of events leading up to the publication of the King James Authorised version of the Bible may help to explain why the Catholic Church does not sanction this translation.
Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to her son James in 1566 in Scotland. In June 1567 the Protestant lords rebelled against their queen. They arrested and imprisoned Mary in Loch Leven Castle, where she was forced to abdicate the throne of Scotland. James was only a year old when he became James VI, King of Scotland, in 1567. In spite of his mother’s Catholic faith, James was brought up in the Protestant religion. He was educated by men who had empathy for the Presbyterian Church.  It was not until 1603, upon the death of Queen Elizabeth I, that the kingdoms of Scotland and England were united and James became King James I of England, the first of the Stuart line.
King James often wrote against the power of the pope and against Catholicism’s meddling in affairs of state. In his opposition to the pope’s power, James promoted the divine right of kings—the idea that kings are accountable to God and no one else. In 1605, a group of Catholics attempted to assassinate James and his wife and son and to blow up Parliament; however, the Gunpowder Plot was foiled. That incident is remembered today as Guy Fawkes Day.
The Puritans and Scottish Presbyterians wanted a new Bible that would get as far away as possible from the structure of the Bishops’ Bible of the Anglican Church. The Bishops' Bible was an English translation of the Bible produced under the authority of the Church of England in 1568, whose bishops were offended by the Geneva Bible, the notes of which were decidedly Calvinistic in tone. The Great Bible was considered deficient because it was translated from the Latin Vulgate, and so a new translation was authorized by the Anglican bishops and came to be known as the Bishops’ Bible.
The idea of a new translation of the Bible was first proposed at a religious conference in Aberdour, Fife. King James was in favour of a new translation. He didn’t care for Tyndale’s translation of Matthew 16:18, which said Christ would build His “congregation” on Peter (James much preferred “church” from ekklesia). The only other alternative at the time was the 1560s Geneva Bible, but King James objected to a “treasonable annotation” on Matthew 2:20 that suggested that kings are tyrants.

King James Version - Translation method: “The King James translation was done by 47 scholars, all of whom were members of the Church of England. In common with most other translations of the period, the New Testament was translated from the Textus Receptus (Received Text) series of the Greek texts. The Old Testament was translated from the Masoretic Hebrew text, while the Apocrypha was translated from the Greek Septuagint (LXX), except for 2 Esdras, which was translated from the Latin Vulgate. In 1769, the Oxford edition, which excluded the Apocrypha, became the standard text and is the text which is reproduced almost unchanged in most current printings.” Source: What is the King James Version (KJV)?

Reason 1: King James VI of Scotland and 1 of England opposed the power of the Pope and claimed the divine right of Kings
Reason 2: The 1769 Oxford edition of the King James Authorised Version excluded the Apocrypha
Reason 3: King James VI of Scotland and 1 of England and the 47 translators were Protestants
There may be other reasons, but those are the main ones I found when doing research into this subject a few years ago.  My sources were taken from a wide variety of historical and theological articles.