An Open Letter to the Church Renouncing My Service on I.C.E.L.

An Open Letter to the Church Renouncing my Service on I.C.E.L.
Father Stephen Somerville, STL.

1 – I am a priest who for over ten years collaborated in a work that became a notable harm to the Catholic Faith. I wish now to apologize before God and the Church and to renounce decisively my personal sharing in that damaging project. I am speaking of the official work of translating the new post-Vatican II Latin liturgy into the English language, when I was a member of the Advisory Board of the International Commission on English Liturgy (I.C.E.L.).

2 – I am a priest of the Archdiocese of Toronto, Canada, ordained in 1956. Fascinated by the Liturgy from early youth, I was singled out in 1964 to represent Canada on the newly constituted I.C.E.L. as a member of the Advisory Board. At 33 its youngest member, and awkwardly aware of my shortcomings in liturgiology and related disciplines, I soon felt perplexity before the bold mistranslations confidently proposed and pressed by the everstrengthening radical/progressive element in our group. I felt but could not articulate the wrongness of so many of our committee’s renderings.

3 – Let me illustrate briefly with a few examples. To the frequent greeting by the priest, The Lord be with you, the people traditionally answered, and with your (Thy) spirit: in Latin, Et cum spiritu tuo. But I.C.E.L. rewrote the answer: And also with you. This, besides having an overall trite sound, has added a redundant word, also. Worse, it has suppressed the word spirit which reminds us that we human beings have a spiritual soul. Furthermore, it has stopped the echo of four (inspired) uses of with your spirit in St. Paul’s letters.

4 – In the I confess of the penitential rite, I.C.E.L. eliminated the threefold through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault, and substituted one feeble through my own fault. This is another nail in the coffin of the sense of sin.

5 – Before Communion, we pray Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldst (you should) enter under my roof. I.C.E.L. changed this to ... not worthy to receive you. We loose the roof metaphor, clear echo of the Gospel (Matth. 8:8), and a vivid, concrete image for a child.

6 – I.C.E.L.’s changes amounted to true devastation especially in the oration prayers of the Mass. The Collect or Opening Prayer for Ordinary Sunday 21 will exemplify the damage. The Latin prayer, strictly translated, runs thus: O God, who make the minds of the faithful to be of one will, grant to your peoples (grace) to love that which you command and to desire that which you promise, so that, amidst worldly variety, our hearts may there be fixed where true joys are found.

7 – Here is the I.C.E.L. version, in use since 1973: Father, help us to seek the values that will bring us lasting joy in this changing world. In our desire for what you promise, make us one in mind and heart.

8 – Now a few comments: To call God Father is not customary in the Liturgy, except Our Father in the Lord’s prayer. Help us to seek implies that we could do this alone (Pelagian heresy) but would like some aid from God. Jesus teaches, without Me you can do nothing. The Latin prays grant (to us), not just help us. I.C.E.L.’s values suggests that secular buzzword, “values” that are currently popular, or politically correct, or changing from person to person, place to place. Lasting joy in this changing world, is impossible. In our desire presumes we already have the desire, but the Latin humbly prays for this. What you promise omits “what you (God) command”, thus weakening our sense of duty. Make us one in mind (and heart) is a new sentence, and appears as the main petition, yet not in coherence with what went before. The Latin rather teaches that uniting our minds is a constant work of God, to be achieved by our pondering his commandments and promises. Clearly, I.C.E.L. has written a new prayer. Does all this criticism matter? Profoundly! The Liturgy is our law of praying (lex orandi), and it forms our law of believing (lex credendi). If I.C.E.L. has changed our liturgy, it will change our faith. We see signs of this change and loss of faith all around us.

9 – The foregoing instances of weakening the Latin Catholic Liturgy prayers must suffice. There are certainly THOUSANDS OF MISTRANSLATIONS in the accumulated work of I.C.E.L. As the work progressed I became a more and more articulate critic. My term of office on the Advisory Board ended voluntarily about 1973, and I was named Member Emeritus and Consultant. As of this writing I renounce any lingering reality of this status.

10 – The I.C.E.L. labours were far from being all negative. I remember with appreciation the rich brotherly sharing, the growing fund of church knowledge, the Catholic presence in Rome and London and elswhere, the assisting at a day-session of Vatican II Council, the encounters with distinguished Christian personalities, and more besides. I gratefully acknowledge two fellow members of I.C.E.L. who saw then, so much more clearly than I, the right translating way to follow: the late Professor Herbert Finberg, and Fr. James Quinn S.J. of Edinburgh. Not for these positive features and persons do I renounce my I.C.E.L. past, but for the corrosion of Catholic Faith and of reverence to which I.C.E.L.’s work has contributed. And for this corrosion, however slight my personal part in it, I humbly and sincerely apologize to God and to Holy Church.

11 – Having just mentioned in passing the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), I now come to identify my other reason for renouncing my translating work on I.C.E.L. It is an even more serious and delicate matter. In the past year (from mid 2001), I have come to know with respect and admiration many traditional Catholics. These, being persons who have decided to return to pre-Vatican II Catholic Mass and Liturgy, and being distinct from “conservative” Catholics (those trying to retouch and improve the Novus Ordo Mass and Sacraments of post-Vatican II), these Traditionals, I say, have taught me a grave lesson. They brought to me a large number of published books and essays. These demonstrated cumulatively, in both scholarly and popular fashion, that the Second Vatican Council was early commandeered and manipulated and infected by modernist, liberalist, and protestantizing persons and ideas. These writings show further that the new liturgy produced by the Vatican “Concilium” group, under the late Archbishop A. Bugnini, was similarly infected. Especially the New Mass is problematic. It waters down the doctrine that the Eucharist is a true Sacrifice, not just a memorial. It weakens the truth of the Real Presence of Christ’s victim Body and Blood by demoting the Tabernacle to a corner, by reduced signs of reverence around the Consecration, by giving Communion in the hand, often of women, by cheapering the sacred vessels, by having used six Protestant experts (who disbelieve the Real Presence) in the preparation of the new rite, by encouraging the use of sacro-pop music with guitars, instead of Gregorian chant, and by still further novelties.

12 – Such a litany of defects suggests that many modern Masses are sacrilegious, and some could well be invalid. They certainly are less Catholic, and less apt to sustain Catholic Faith.

13 – Who are the authors of these published critiques of the Conciliar Church? Of the many names, let a few be noted as articulate, sober evaluators of the Council: Atila Sinka Guimaeres (In the Murky Waters of Vatican II), Romano Amerio (Iota Unum: A Study of the Changes in the Catholic Church in the 20th Century), Michael Davies (various books and booklets, TAN Books), and Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, one the Council Fathers, who worked on the preparatory schemas for discussions, and has written many readable essays on Council and Mass (cf Angelus Press).

14 – Among traditional Catholics, the late Archbishop Lefebvre stands out because he founded the Society of St Pius X (SSPX), a strong society of priests (including six seminaries to date) for the celebration of the traditional Catholic liturgy. Many Catholics who are aware of this may share the opinion that he was excommunicated and that his followers are in schism. There are however solid authorities (including Cardinal Ratzinger, the top theologian in the Vatican) who hold that this is not so. SSPX declares itself fully Roman Catholic, recognizing Pope John Paul II while respectfully maintaining certain serious reservations.

15 – I thank the kindly reader for persevering with me thus far. Let it be clear that it is FOR THE FAITH that I am renouncing my association with I.C.E.L. and the changes in the Liturgy. It is FOR THE FAITH that one must recover Catholic liturgical tradition. It is not a matter of mere nostalgia or recoiling before bad taste.

16 – Dear non-traditional Catholic Reader, do not lightly put aside this letter. It is addressed to you, who must know that only the true Faith can save you, that eternal salvation depends on holy and grace-filled sacraments as preserved under Christ by His faithful Church. Pursue these grave questions with prayer and by serious reading, especially in the publications of the Society of St Pius X.

17 – Peace be with you. May Jesus and Mary grant to us all a Blessed Return and a Faithful Perseverance in our true Catholic home.

Ah, Des, in Milwaukee we live INSIDE houses, not OUTSIDE of them. It's customary to have a furnace and heat the house during winter (and parts of summer, too.)

No central air? No in-ground gas grills for the weeks on end of heat, humidity and haze?

PAID full-time opera company, PAID positions in the Symphony Chorus (by audition,) PAID opera company chorus only 90 miles away.

Yeah, we have those too. I just didn't audition for them.

And a Parish with REAL MUSIC.

Only one?

No, I don't concede that when I say we have the faith, that I am joining Luther with his "sole fide" argument. Luther's "sole fide" argument was precisely to counter Catholic insistence that Tradition, together with Sacred Scripture, was the guardian of the deposit of faith. In this regard, traditionalists are further removed from Luther than are Neo-Catholics who willingly trash Tradition rather than disobey the Pope. You exaggerate the importance of obedience, just as you exaggerate the authority of the Pope. But obedience is the servant of the faith, not the other way around. Nor does any Pope have a right to command whatever would harm Traditional belief.

Look, don't try that game with me, that I am anti-Semitic because I raise this issue. Here's what you are missing. The Pope entered the synagogue and prayed the Jewish prayer for a messiah, a prayer designed in anticipation of a different messiah, not a prayer directed toward the true redeemer. He did so without any clarification whatsoever that he might himself be directing the prayer to his own messiah, but instead did what he always does on these occasions, he humored the other religionists and catered to their delusions. This is reprehensible--but of course very modern.

Humility can be a lie as well. It is false humility to kowtow to a new religion while your own is being blotted out. You have every right to show anger and to speak out in protest when this happens. Because this is an enormous catastrophe--though most of you on this site couldn't care less. There are forces determined to change the faith completely, from top to bottom. In other words, Catholicism is being deliberately destroyed. And you want me to be humble and obedient and pretend this isn't happening? I'll leave such slavishness to you neo-Catholics.

It is false humility to kowtow to a new religion while your own is being blotted out. You have every right to show anger and to speak out in protest when this happens. Because this is an enormous catastrophe--though most of you on this site couldn't care less.

That's not true. I can't speak for others, but I don't even know what's been lost because no one will tell me in detail. My grandmother has been more forthcoming than anyone. It's like *they* don't want you to know. Well, they don't.

It is quite annoying, and very wrong, IMO, when parishes offer lectures to explain Islam and don't offer adult classes in Catechism.

There are forces determined to change the faith completely, from top to bottom. In other words, Catholicism is being deliberately destroyed.

Yes, the forces are there, but the tide seems to be turning. In places like Milwaulkee and Rockford there is new hope. No, it's not universal, yet, but there is hope. I just can't give up on it like you have.

Let me recommend his work as strongly as possible. Remember, he approached his studies from the perspective that God's Covenant was clearly NOT present in the Roman Catholic Church. He found that every single teaching of the Church is supported in Scripture or in tradition and none are contraindicated by Scripture.

If you do and you find you disagree, I'd love to see where and I am certain that Dr. Hahn would be most willing to correspond with you regards your research. In fact, if you are willing to be bold and post that here, I can almost guarentee an avid and learned audience.

The limits were set by Vatican I which insisted the Holy Spirit was not given to popes for them to introduce any novel doctrines. It was to protect the deposit of faith which had been handed-down from the apostles--i.e., by Tradition. Popes take solemn oaths to protect Tradition and not to alter it. This is the function of the papal office-- not to foment revolutions, but to preserve intact what has been received.

You can understand why this must be so. If each generation were free to substantially change whatever it wished, it would not be long before the truths of the faith would disappear. Many of our most cherished truths seem preposterous to modern minds--such as the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection or the Divinity of Christ or the Real Presence. The temptation will always be there to "modernize" the faith and make it more accessible to so-called sophisticates by reducing it to a mythic level. This is the heart and soul of modernism, the demand that the faith be accommodated to the modern temper. But such a liberal Catholicism is an oxymoronic absurdity.

Christ saw this coming. He warned us we had to have the faith of little children. Kids don't find it hard to believe--because the world is full of wonders to begin with and they are not so jaded they do not realize this. But the over-educated adult sophisticate is more cynical. And it's this cynicism that destroys faith and makes of it a metaphor.

Sorry ultima for supporting you. I am sure you will be tarred and feathered because an "errant brother"/"heretic" (depending on whether you follow Vatican II/Trent) can see your point.

Ultima may only follow Trent, but Catholics follow both Trent and Vatican II, as well as the rest of the ecumenical councils. One Council does not abrogate the previous one, any more than Luke’s Gospel abrogated Matthew’s.

And of course, you are still a heretic, even to us “Vatican II” Catholics.

We already sent you guys Scott Hahn....

He was a good start. We’re greedy. ;-)

patent +AMDG

It seems to me they already have established a permanent parallel structure, and do not plan on ever coming back. I don't know what else they need to establish to stay away forever.
I think they would need to establish a formal curial and diocesan structure, complete with congregations and tribunals, before we could conclude that. Right now, all they have is the usual setup of a religious order.

Would granting an annulment be sufficient? That is done by a tribunal, of course, and the SSPX has established one to do just that.

As to the usual setup of a religious order, I have to disagree. The SSPX is supposed to be a priestly fraternity. Nowhere does it have the authority to start setting up the tribunals it has set up, the various other orders, which it has done. Nowhere does it have the authority to establish parishes in various dioceses without the permission of the local ordinary. Do you see the Dominicans, Jesuits, etc. acting like this?

patent +AMDG

They have usurped no jurisdictions, but merely operate as any religious order would within the Church according to the mandate which had been provided by the Vatican itself.

Where is the Church mandate for consecrating Bishops? Where is the Church mandate for granting annulments? Where is the Church mandate for exercising jurisdiction in various parishes, without the approval of the local ordinary (something far outside traditional Catholicism), where is the Church mandate for opening new orders of nuns, etc.? We could go on, but those are the high points, so to speak.

patent +AMDG

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