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.

Wrong. The Pope changed the theological argument entirely. The Catholic Church has always upheld the right of the state to take the lives of those who commit serious crimes against society. This had always been considered a matter of NATURAL JUSTICE. It is the Pope's teaching, however, that human dignity PRECLUDES such punishment. This is contrary to all that the Church has affirmed throughout its history.

It's interesting to note that when Justice Scalia made note of this anomalous teaching of JnPII which is so out of line with past popes and teachings, he was castigated by neo-Catholics. Patrick Buchanan defended him thus: "For Scalia had not contradicted or defied any Catholic doctrine. Rather, it is the Holy Father and the bishops who are outside the Catholic mainstream, and are at odds with Scripture, tradition and natural law." (WorldNetDaily, February 8, 2002.)

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

You clearly are unable to make certain basic -- and critical -- distinctions. Either that, or you will use any falsehood to bash and attack the Traditionalist movement and the SSPX. Here is the Society's explanation of their actions regarding annulments:

V. THE EXERCISE OF THE RIGHT OF JUDGING MARRIAGE CASES

Since our jurisdiction is only a supplied jurisdiction, it has the following properties:

1.It is not habitual, but is exercised ad casum, per modum actus. Consequently, our tribunals do not sit in a habitual manner and their members are not named ad universas causas, but only each time that it is necessary ad hoc casum. This is the case even if, for ease of function and to maintain competency and consistency, these are usually or always the same defenders of the bond and the same judges who are named.

2.It is not territorial, but personal.

3.It depends on the necessity of the faithful, and, consequently, only lasts for as long as the common necessity lasts. It will continue if the impossible were to happen and we could find one or other tribunal to judge marriage cases uniquely according to traditional norms. For in this case, the common necessity would remain.

4.It is a true jurisdiction, and not an exemption from the obligation to receive a judgment from the Church. Consequently, we have the power and the duty to pronounce true sentences, which have the potestatem ligandi vel solvendi. They, consequently, are imposed obligatorily on the faithful who request them. The proximate reason for this is that we must be able to tell the faithful what they must do to save their souls -quod debent servare.

Our judgments are, consequently, not simply private opinions, for these could not possible suffice when the public good is involved, as it is with every case in which the matrimonial bond is examined. In order to remove the doubt, our tribunals must have authority in the external forum.

5.This supplied jurisdiction does not usurp any Papal authority of divine right. This question could only arise when our judgments in third instance replace the judgments of the Roman Rota, which acts in the name of the Pope when it judges as a tribunal of third instance. However, this is not an usurpation of the Pope’s power of divine right, since the reservation of this third instance to the Pope is but an ecclesiastical law. 6.Finally, our judgments, as all our acts of supplied jurisdiction, and the episcopal consecrations of 1988 themselves, will one day have to be confirmed by the Holy See.

As Marcus Grodi would say, we want you too, no less than Scott and Kimberly Hahn,Gerry Matatics and his family and so many, many others. There is One Who cannot be confused by any agendas of yours or mine. As Jesus Christ instructed us to say the Lord's Prayer when He was asked how we should pray, I and presumably you are sincere in praying that His will be done. If it is His will that I should be a Presbyterian (which I sincerely doubt) who am I to disagree with Him? If He should want you to be Roman Catholic (which you would probably sincerely doubt), who are you to diagree with Him? I would certainly try to do His express will and so would you, whatever that will may be. Right? We simply lack absolute knowledge of His will. We each think we know but we are neither of us infallible in any sense. We will both keep praying. May He reveal Himself ever more fully to us all!

BTW, I don't know what Liddy is now but he is an alumnus of a Jesuit prep school in the 1950s and was probably Catholic then since the Jebbies still were.

Various motives have been brought forward in justification of Schism:

(1) Some have claimed the introduction into the Church of abuses, dogmatic and liturgical novelties, superstitions, with which they are permitted, even bound, not to ally themselves. Without entering into the foundation for these charges it should be noted that the authors cited above do not mention or admit a single exception. If we accept their statements separation from the Church is necessarily an evil, an injurious and blameworthy act, and abandoning of the true way of salvation, and this independent of all contingent circumstances. Moreover the doctrines of the Fathers exclude a priori any such attempt at justification; to use their words, it is forbidden for individuals or particular or national Churches to constitute themselves judges of the universal Church; the mere fact of having it against one carries its own condemnation.

<> Lefebvre died excommunicated and you and your ilk, daily, invoke the long-condemned arguements the Old Encyclopedia references. Rationalisn schism...

And here you and your ilk think you are on to something new here in defending schism. Nothing changes. Same old schisms, same old lies explaining schism away. "We are the true Church, eternal Rome...." blah, blah, blah

First, regarding the Williamson article. The fact that Williamson writes as he does demonstrates two things. First, it demonstrates that the Society has indeed usurped these powers that I mentioned:

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.

Second, it proves that the Church documents and law under which the SSPX was created did not give the Society the power to do these things, as obviously he cannot make a single citation to the source for the authority and jurisdiction they have taken. Rather than refuting my point, that the Society had no Church mandate for these actions, he helps prove it.

What he argues is a different point, that the Society had to do it anyway. (“The first major principle that comes into play is that while ordinary cases are dealt with by ordinary laws, cases out of the ordinary, or emergency cases, need to be dealt with by principles behind and above the ordinary laws.”) He is wrong there as well, but that is another issue. The Society had no Church mandate or authority for what it has done, which is to establish a parallel Church structure, one with its own Bishops, its own tribunals, its own seminaries, etc.

If "Catholics follow Trent and Vatican II" as you suggest, why does Rome fight Trent tooth and nail? Why does it use trickery to disguise the Protestant bias of the Novus Ordo?

It doesn’t do any of these things.

Why does it deliberately obscure allusions to the Real Presence or to the Sacrificial nature of the Mass while doing all it can to play up the Memorial Meal aspect in direct violation of Trent?

It doesn’t do this either. We’ve talked about it before, I’ve quoted all the sacrificial language in the Mass to you, but they you babble on about how it doesn’t really mean what it says, etc. You are hopeless here, so I’ll just disagree with you.

I might use the same term about you: you are a heretic insofar as you buy into the modernist heresy which seeks to Protestantize Catholicism.

LOL. Precisely which heresy is this? I do not seek to Protestantize Catholicism, your general term, so your going to have to be more specific about which Church teaching I conflict with.

As for your calling me a heretic, the charge is another slander and nothing else. What Catholic doctrine have I ever rejected? Name one. I do not even reject Vatican II, though I have called it unwise and believe it has given the enemies of the faith the excuse they needed to attack the Church from within. Nor have I rejected the Pope, though I have been critical of his policies. So explain how I am a heretic.

I have called you a heretic for specific things in the past, I’m not going to go look every one up for you again, if you wanted to dispute the term you should have done so then.

patent +AMDG

Would granting an annulment be sufficient? That is done by a tribunal, of course, and the SSPX has established one to do just that.
It's certainly evidence of an intent to build a separate church. Negotiating an apsotolic administration with Rome is evidence pointing away from that.

Well, Rome offered the AA, the SSPX refused it. I don’t think you can consider an offer from Rome to be anything with regard to the intent of the SSPX. You can consider their refusal to accept it, but that is more evidence of an intent to build a separate Church.

As to continued negotiations, I do consider that a good sign, but I note that the various Orthodox Churches are also negotiating, as are various Lutherans, etc. They certainly have separate churches (depending on how you define Church for the Lutherans). In part, that is one reason why the negotiations are necessary.

patent +AMDG

Would granting an annulment be sufficient? That is done by a tribunal, of course, and the SSPX has established one to do just that.
You clearly are unable to make certain basic -- and critical -- distinctions. Either that, or you will use any falsehood to bash and attack the Traditionalist movement and the SSPX. Here is the Society's explanation of their actions regarding annulments:

LOL. I said they grant annulments. In the thing you quote, they indicate they do just that:

Consequently, we have the power and the duty to pronounce true sentences, which have the potestatem ligandi vel solvendi. They, consequently, are imposed obligatorily on the faithful who request them. The proximate reason for this is that we must be able to tell the faithful what they must do to save their souls -quod debent servare.
Our judgments are, consequently, not simply private opinions, for these could not possible suffice when the public good is involved, as it is with every case in which the matrimonial bond is examined. In order to remove the doubt, our tribunals must have authority in the external forum.

Second, I said they have established a tribunal. Do you want a quote from one of your Bishops using just those words, “tribunal”, or will the one you produced referencing that very fact suffice?

Just what have I said that is inaccurate? Just as with ultima, the quote you produce, rather than refuting my point (that the Society has done these things, and that it had no Church mandate for these actions) your quote helps prove it.

As with ultima’s Williamson quote, yours argues is a different point, that the Society had to do it anyway. (“It depends on the necessity of the faithful, and, consequently, only lasts for as long as the common necessity lasts.”) As with willimason, you are wrong here as well, but that is another issue. The Society had no Church mandate or authority for what it has done, which is to establish a parallel Church structure, one with its own Bishops, its own tribunals, its own seminaries, etc.

patent +AMDG

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