Posted on 12/01/2005 11:58:39 AM PST by NYer
Catholic bishops are usually loath to acknowledge dissent within their ranks. So it was surprising when the U.S. bishops publicly released the results of an internal poll that showed them almost evenly split on new English translations for the Mass. The divisions among the bishops revealed that perhaps they do not walk in lockstep as much as conventional wisdom holds.
Some disagreement is to be expected, of course. But what was surprising about the bishops’ comments on the proposed translations was their intensity and passion. Liturgy is “where the rubber really hits the road, as far as church is concerned,” said Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Washington, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). “So [bishops] are very honest in what they have to say.” Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, vice president of the USCCB and U.S. representative to the International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), agreed. “It’s the most important thing we do, to worship God,” he said. “We’re all pastors here.”
Over the summer, the USCCB Committee on the Liturgy polled bishops on proposed revisions to the Mass. The translations, submitted by ICEL, are intended to bring the post-Vatican II Mass-celebrated in U.S. churches since 1970-in line with new Vatican directives that require greater adherence to the original Latin. [Editor’s Note: For more on the background to the debate over ICEL and how disputes over liturgical language often go to the heart of the practice of collegiality and the implementation of Vatican II, see “Lost in Translation,” by John Wilkins, p. 12.]
Overall, the new translations would change twelve of the nineteen responses recited at Mass by the full congregation. Many of the changes are minor, but significant nonetheless. The familiar exchange between priest and congregation, “Peace be with you / And also with you,” would be replaced by “Peace be with you / And also with your spirit.” The ICEL proposal would return the “mea culpa” (“through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault”) to the Confiteor. Perhaps most jarring, the phrase “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you” would become, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.”
Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, Pennsylvania, who heads the bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy, said the summer survey found that 52 percent of bishops favored the changes, while 47 percent judged them “fair or poor.” The new translations need a two-thirds vote to pass.
In thirty pages of written comments released by Trautman’s committee, there are harsh responses from several bishops. Trautman said the divisions among the bishops fell along traditional “liberal/conservative” lines, but declined to elaborate. Some bishops complained that the language seemed “too British.” Others called the new translations clumsy, awkward, archaic, wordy, or stilted. “Painful to the ear,” one bishop noted. “During the years I was teaching Latin,” another bishop observed, “had a student submitted comparable translations for classical Latin texts, I would have given him a low grade.”
Not all bishops were critical. Some praised the new translations as more dignified and elegant, with “an air of solemnity and formality that is sometimes missing from current translations,” which were completed under great time pressure in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council. The most frequent commendation of the new translations concerned the text’s “fidelity” or “faithfulness” to the original Latin (two terms, frequently used by those of a conservative bent within the conference, which echo Benedict XVI’s view that a “reform of the reform” is needed).
On the whole, the bishops found more things to dislike than to praise. “The new ICEL translation is like doing drastic major surgery on a patient in need of a few cosmetic procedures,” one bishop said. One archbishop seemed positively frightened by what might happen when trying to introduce the new translations to the laity: “Some usually quite civil people turned ugly about more changes,” he said.
Taking stock of the bishops’ objections, the Committee on Liturgy recommended that thirty-one of the fifty-two changes be restored to the 1970 version, including the Confiteor. A poll conducted during the week of the November bishops’ meeting, for example, found that 55 percent of bishops reject the “under my roof” revision in the new translation.
Beyond all the sparring over grammar and sentence structure, the bishops demonstrated a deep pastoral concern for their flocks, a concern that is not always evident in the operation of the church’s administrative bureaucracies. Time and again, bishops said their people would not understand-and probably not accept-changes to the prayers they had come to embrace over the thirty-five years since the council’s liturgical reforms were implemented. “What ought to be a source of stability-the liturgy-will become a source of uneasiness and frustration for the good people who continue to come to the Eucharist,” one bishop remarked.
Four years of scandals have given Catholics ample reason to distrust their leaders. The bishops, knowing all too well that the laity’s reservoir of good will has nearly run dry, now seem skittish about giving Catholics something else to be angry over. “I feel we have put our people through a great deal these past few years. They have handled the abuse crisis very well,” one bishop said. “I don’t think they will handle ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof’ very well at all.”
From some of them, it shines like a beacon....unfortunately, that's not uniformly true...
How depressing. Sounds like the bishops will let us down and fail to restore accuracy to liturgical translations.
It's really a ratchet effect argument, similar to the Democrats' view of Roe v. Wade: first prepare a radical and incorrect English translation of the liturgy, then argue it can't be changed because it's been around more than 30 years and people are used to it. Same as the argument for keeping Roe because it is settled precedent.
Except this time I think that Pope Benedict is about to release the pawl.
. . . I need to go to confession anyhow, I'm trying to go once a month . . .
"Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, Pennsylvania, who heads the bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy, said the summer survey found that 52 percent of bishops favored the changes, while 47 percent judged them “fair or poor.” The new translations need a two-thirds vote to pass."
Another example of dishonest reporting.
Where's that earlier article that broke down the vote properly? As I recall, it was thirty-some percent that thought the translation was "fair," which means they might vote for it, and only the small remainder of that 47 percent that thought it "poor," which probably means they would vote against it.
This article lumps "fair" and "poor" together to make it look like 47 percent will vote against the translation, when in fact the translation might very well be accepted if there were a vote today.
Which, of course, is why there is not a vote today. The forces of evil want more time to work against it.
Most of the proposed changes prevent heretical understandings, and I believe are quite necessary. But "Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof" ... Yick. It just doesn't conceptually translate well. Coming under one's roof just doesn't have any *meaning* in English. In Latin, it meant to place oneself in the responsibility of another (A lingering remnant of this concept?: "As long as you are under MY ROOF..."). Hence, "protect" is from the Latin word, "tectum," or "roof."
Hence, in Latin, "non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum" means more than "I am not worthy for you to enter under my roof," but also "I am unfit to serve as your protector."
"Where is the faith of our bishops??"
That, Salvation, is the $64 million question!
"Coming under one's roof just doesn't have any *meaning* in English. In Latin, it meant to place oneself in the responsibility of another (A lingering remnant of this concept?: "As long as you are under MY ROOF..."). Hence, "protect" is from the Latin word, "tectum," or "roof." "
dangus, I think you may be over-analysing this prayer a little. As in most of the prayers of the Mass, it is a straight quote from the Scripture which was originally written in Greek in this case:
Luke 7,6
"And Jesus went with them. And when he was now not far from the house, the centurion sent his friends to him, saying: Lord, trouble not thyself; FOR I AM NOT WORTHY THAT THOU SHOULDEST ENTER UNDER MY ROOF. 7 For which cause neither did I think myself worthy to come to thee; BUT ONLY SAY THE WORD, AND MY SERVANT SHALL BE HEALED. 8 For I also am a man subject to authority, having under me soldiers: and I say to one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doth it. 9 Which Jesus hearing, marvelled: and turning about to the multitude that followed him, he said: Amen I say to you, I HAVE NOT FOUND SO GREAT FAITH, NOT EVEN IN ISRAEL. 10 And they who were sent, being returned to the house, found the servant whole who had been sick."
The liturgical purpose of this prayer is to evoke the memorial of the centurion and this encounter with Jesus. Not only does the centurion acknowledge his unworthiness (repentance and humility without which we should not approach the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament), but he also manifests his faith in Christ as the one who is totally subject to the authority of the Father, and hence who is also able to command with absolute authority.
It is this total subjection of Jesus to the Father's will together with His own divinity which makes His own act of worship to the Father absolutely perfect and of infinite value. It is only with this degree of faith, trust and worship, exhibited here by the centurion, that we can be truly united to Christ's supreme act of worship as we dare to approach our Almighty Lord and God who is really, substantially, Body, Blood, Soul & Divinity, present there before us in Holy Communion.
Thus the purpose of this prayer is to raise our hearts and minds to God in repentance, humility, faith and adoration, before we have the grace and privilege of receiving that very same God under the roof of those temples of the Holy Spirit which our bodies are.
Unfortunately, this nameless bishop seems to think that the faithful are incapable of handling this concept, and would rather keep them in the state of ignorant, unweaned children, who by virtue of a dumbed-down liturgy are losing all consciousness of the significance of what is happening at Holy Mass.
The hierarchs can install female altar boys.
The hierarchs can flush centuries-old rituals for all seven sacraments down the memory hole.
The hierarchs can rip up the liturgical calendar.
The hierarchs can build cathedrals that look like airplane hangars...
Good summary of their mischief. I too am amazed at their almost violent objection to saying "with your spirit," "His Holy Church," etc. Why should they feel threatened by such small changes? Of course, when you add up the things that the ICEL translation dropped, you begin to see a pattern.
Two points. First of all, the part about "come under my roof" is a Scriptural reference, which I think should definitely be kept and people should be taught about it.
Second, dropping the actual words for what you believe to be the meaning is not, strictly speaking, translation. Sometimes it has to be done for a particular phrase in a modern text (such as a newspaper article) that simply wouldn't make any sense on a more literal basis, but it is never necessary in the liturgy, where everything makes sense and has been carefully thought out to do so.
The ICEL "translators" used something called "dynamic equivalence," which means essentially that the translator gets to substitute his concept of what the text means for the actual words, and express it however he wants. Needless to say, once you cut yourself loose from the actual text, you can have a field day, especially if you have an agenda that you're working from.
It should be a straight translation and everybody should have to use it, with no modifications, additions or deletions.
Mgr. Harbert has a very difficult situation.
The LitWonkPoofters are going to ramrod THEIR theology into the translation; Trautperson, like all the rest of that crowd, is a dictatorial Superior Mind, don't you know.
It never bothered these jackasses to ram through all their other changes--turning around the altars, requiring English for 100% of the Mass, squashing Gregorian Chant. Nope, THOSE were not "difficult for the people."
We still have a very strange and highly suspicious Auxiliary here, appointed at Weakie's behest; you can bet he was very vocal.
And trust me, Bertie W. himself was manipulating like a madman via phone and emails before the meeting.
In my case, it prevents me from being jailed for assault and battery.
Commonwiener/Commonwhiner/Commonweal also ran a lengthy and extremely biased "history" of ICEL. Naturally, the Vat and JPII played Al Capone and Adolf Hitler in their novel.
Rocco's an uninformed twit, at best. Read him with great skepticism.
Many were in their rectory hot-tubs; they were not yet given any authority.
Obviously, Rome made a few mistakes.
And the poor little faithful in the pews haven't educationally advanced since the 15th century.
You'd think they would have heard of the printing press by now.
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