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.”
The truth is a complete defense.
I love this forum.
Ummmnnhhh...read the Spanish text of the Epistle and Gospel sometime. You don't have to be a linguist to discern that their text has MANY different translations than the English.
Yah, well, for 400 years "under my roof" worked just fine.
The concept is not difficult to understand; I did when I was about 7 years old--"roof" meaning "scalp."
"Protection" or 'custody' gives another interesting shade of meaning. So what?
One must admit that the text used in English is not of the first caliber for the readings. NAB has faults. The modified NAB that is read is not as good as the NAB.
I agree with Ignatius press and do most of my serious reading in the Old Revised Standard Version.
To the extent this is true, it is the catechesis of the Bishops and their priests which is at fault.
When I say the Fatima prayer before praying the Rosary, I mention the wicked bishops by name (there are 22 on my list so far) when I come to the part about "the conversion of all sinners." I also mention Archbishop Jadot who caused a lot of this mess. It's very important to pray for their conversion.
It's fun to hurl imaginative invective at them ... and amusing to watch others do so.
Praying for them is vastly more important, though. I'm sure we all remember to pray for them at least as often as we insult them. But insofar as we are all sinners ourselves, it can't hurt to have the occasional reminder.
;'}
Me too! When I'm at the Novus Ordo, I take a page out of the Latin Mass I usually attend, and say it once in English with the congregation and then twice sotto voce in Latin, with the requisite beating of the breast.
You do such a good job! You really should consider moving East, Deacon! :)
ICEL originally "translated" "sed tantum dic verbo et sanabitur animam meam" as "speak but the word and I shall be healed" rather than "speak but the word and my soul shall be healed."
The precedent of rendering "animam meam" as "I" rather than the literally correct "my soul" was set by those (Bugnini et al.) who changed the Latin wording of the prayers used by the priest before he would receive first the host and then from the chalice.
In the traditional Latin Missal the prayers read, "Corpus (or Sanguinis) Domini Nostri Iesu Christi custodiat animam meam in vitam aeternum. Amen." ("May the Body [or Blood] of Our Lord Jesus Christ preserve my soul to live everlasting. Amen."). The priest also says the same prayer while distributing Holy Communion.
The new Latin Missal "simplifies" them as "Corpus (or Sanguinis) Christi custodiat me in vitam aeternum. Amen." ("May the Body [or Blood] bring me to life everlasting. Amen."). And the prayer for the distribution of Holy Communion to "Corpus Christi" ("The Body of Christ").
A rationale for this change was to "return" to an alleged, original Jewish (and hence early Christian) idea of the oneness of the human person and not an entity with a separate body and soul (a supposed influence of Greek philosophy). It was also convenient for those who denied the existence of the soul and any spiritual matters.
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