(1/17) Here we go then...!

First point: "No bishop would be crass enough to begin a pastoral letter with 'Dear brothers in Jesus Christ...'"
The mental gymnastics required to excuse the Pope's encyclical letter "Fratelli tutti" from this is really quite something! https://twitter.com/M_P_Hazell/status/1356340382544621568

(2/17) Second: "produced 20 years ago" is not quite right. Since the ESV first came out in 2001, it has had multiple revisions in 2007, 2011 and 2016, plus now those made for the 2017 Catholic Edition. The translation of the deuterocanonical books also dates from 2009.

(3/17) Third: the editorial's blunt statement that ἀδελφοί "means siblings of either sex" is incorrect. It certainly *can* mean this, but it does not always.
The Preface to the ESV discusses its translation of ἀδελφοί as "brothers": https://www.esv.org/preface/ 

(4/17) I would highly recommend reading this Preface, as it includes a brief account of the ESV's translation philosophy.
Inclusive language proponents will no doubt disagree with certain choices, but these have been made for a number of reasons.

(5/17) IMO, 'inclusive' translations like the NRSV have two major problems (among many others):
- the frequent change of 3rd person singulars to 3rd person plurals, e.g. "he" to "they" (which does change meaning);
- the very clunky and strange sort of English that often results.

(6/17) In the Revised New Jerusalem Bible (RNJB), for example, we have:
- "fishers of people" (Mk. 1:17)
- "It is written: A human lives not on bread alone..." (Mt. 4:4)
- "By human resources, it is impossible; for God, everything is possible" (Mt. 19:26 - calling Karen in HR!!)

(7/17) The translation of υἱός as "children" rather than "sons" (prevalent in the NRSV) also obscures important cultural and theological aspects of adoption in the ancient world, Judaism and Christianity.
(Thankfully, at least the RNJB avoids this problem for the most part.)

(8/17) Fourth: no consultation? The International Commission for the Preparation of an English Language Lectionary (ICPELL), which ran from 2006 to 2013, discussed numerous options, among them the ESV. For some background, see: https://hughosb.org/2012/03/12/update-new-lectionary-esv-some-official-clarification/

(9/17) There will have been a good deal of consultation as part of the ICPELL project, and I am also sure that the Bishops Conference has done some more low-key consultation of its own.
Just because the Tablet's preferred people weren't consulted doesn't mean no-one was!

(10/17) Fifth: on the "better choice" of the RNJB for the OF lectionary, this will require more detail and I will address this soon.
Suffice to say for now that, if your instinct is that RNJB is better because it's "inclusive", you probably haven't read too much of it.

(11/17) Sixth: "Liturgy is not the place for a quixotic rearguard action in a culture war" (!!)
I have only three words: pot, kettle, black.

(12/17) Seventh: the ESV came about because people were very unhappy with the NRSV. There is not a snowball's chance in hell that Crossway (the copyright holders of the ESV) would ever agree to the introduction of the sort of inclusive language we see in the NRSV.

(13/17) Plus, the stipulations of Liturgiam authenticam with regards to the use of inclusive language are still in force, no matter how much The Tablet wishes they weren't (see esp. nos. 30-31: https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/rc_con_ccdds_doc_20010507_liturgiam-authenticam_en.html).

(14/17) Finally: as per Liturgiam authenticam 36, I see little to no chance of an alternative lectionary text, RNJB or otherwise, being authorised by the bishops. (The one exception to this may be the Lectionary for Masses with Children, but time will tell.)

(15/17) So, yes, once you go through it, almost everything in this editorial is wrong or misguided.
It's clearly been written by someone who is not familiar with either the ESV-CE or RNJB, which for me is the most disappointing thing about this.

(16/17) Neither the ESV-CE nor the RNJB are what The Tablet seems to think they are.
ESV-CE is actually more "inclusive" than what we have in the OF at the moment (JB), and RNJB certainly does not live up to the publisher's blurb (see: http://dltbooks.com/titles/2240-9780232533620-revised-new-jerusalem-bible-study-edition).

(17/17) I suspect the Bishops of England & Wales looked at the RNJB and quite quickly ruled it out for use in the OF Mass lectionary. I'd put good money on that, in fact! I'll explain why I think this in due course.