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.

Dear Catholicguy,

Long article, but a good read.

Here is a brief excerpt:

"Papal and conciliar infallibility are correlated but not identical. A council's decrees approved by the pope are infallible by reason of that approbation, because the pope is infallible also extra concilium, without the support of a council. The infallibility proper to the pope is not, however, the only formal adequate ground of the council's infallibility. The Divine constitution of the Church and the promises of Divine assistance made by her Founder, guarantee her inerrancy, in matters pertaining to faith and morals, independently of the pope's infallibility: a fallible pope supporting, and supported by, a council, would still pronounce infallible decisions. This accounts for the fact that, before the Vatican decree concerning the supreme pontiff's ex-cathedra judgments, Ecumenical councils were generally held to be infallible even by those who denied the papal infallibility; it also explains the concessions largely made to the opponents of the papal privilege that it is not necessarily implied in the infallibility of councils, and the claims that it can be proved separately and independently on its proper merits. The infallibility of the council is intrinsic, i.e. springs from its nature."

sitetest

That first picture looks like what happens every day at St. Mary's Oratory in Rockford, Illinois, in full communion with Bishop Doran and with Pope John Paul II. Our altar is a lot more ornate and we usually have two or more altar boys.

The second picture does not resemble any of the Novus Ordo churches which I also attend.

Assuming that the first is not SSPX, the action depicted in each case is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (I am guessing here of necessity) in which Jesus Christ and the Sacrifice of the Cross are made immanent upon each of the altars under the authority of the Pope and the relevant diocesan bishop appointed by the pope.

If the first depicts an SSPX event, it is still the same nature of act but utterly unauthorized by relevant authority and performed by one who has excluded himself from Holy Mother the Church.

As I recall, you have been attending Tridentine Masses for about three years. That makes you a Zviadist-come-lately. You would not know a golden age if it jumped up and bit you. I did not claim that ours is a golden age only that 1958 was no golden age either.

Dear smevin,

"'Is that really you, Bud?'

"I'll respond like you responded yesterday - with another question:

"What do you think?"

Good answer.

;-)

I don't know if you are Bud or not. In this, I can guess, but ultimately, I'm ignorant. Unfortunately, the answer isn't readily available through a quick google.

sitetest

1. Encyclicals were meant to be understood by the faithful. They are letters to the faithful. Once again you show your ignorance. How else do you think popes communicate with the rest of us. Do you think it is by mental telepathy? Or do you get your messages from the Pope over the internet or from the newspapers or from other neo-Catholics as badly informed as yourself?

2. The ordinary magisterium has no binding authority when it issues novelties. It is only infallible when it is aligned with the teachings of past popes and councils. That you don't realize this is part of the current scandal these days--a sign of wretched catechesis designed to keep slavish neo-Catholics docile. Rome WANTS you to believe every burp of the Pope is divine revelation--to distract you from the ongoing and deliberate destruction of the Catholic faith.

3. It's very easy to tell me from Luther. I'm the one who follows Trent--the nemesis of Luther; I'm the one who follows past popes and councils and rejects altars being made into tables and turned towards the people as in Lutheran churches. I'm the one who insists the Mass is a Sacrifice and not primarily a memorial meal, which is the Protestant's doctrine, not the true Catholic's and which had been unambiguously condemned by Trent. If you weren't so docile you would see you have been protestantized by modernists who have fomented a revolution, clearly intending to emulate Luther's rebellion.

4. I have said over and over that Tradition is no secret. Any little old lady over sixty knows what it is--and it ain't found in mosques or synagogues and it ain't found in the universal suppression of central Catholic doctrines and it ain't found in clown Masses or the Lutheran notion of justification or in the hiding of tabernacles or the outlawing of genuflections. But you are so used to telling yourself lies and making excuses for this new thing that calls itself Catholic, that you haven't got the foggiest idea what might be a Catholic tradition and what might be just another papal romp among the mullahs and witchdoctors. To you, if the Pope does it that's proof enough.

5. I do not lack submission to this pontiff, though I abhor his persistant assaults on Tradition. But in fact, I submit to all the popes before the Council which you and your fellow neo-Catholics would dismiss as irrelevant. I revere the pre-conciliar popes who warned us time and again that the modernists were poised to strike. I take now what they have warned to heart--we can see the damage everywhere. You pretend they never existed and what they predicted is of no consequence. Yet it is the WHOLE of the Catholic Tradition which tells us what is valuable and what is not, not the words and teachings of those who now pursue an agenda whose purpose is to wreck that Tradition. This Pope deserves obedience, yes--but only when he does not harm the Church he has sworn to protect by guarding its Tradition. When he attacks the very Tradition he has taken a solemn oath to uphold, then I withdraw my obedience because he has exceeded his authority. He may not demand binding obedience to his novelties since novelties are not divinely protected from error as you and others who place the Pope before the faith wrongly suppose.

This is utter nonsense. No new dogmas were defined by Vatican II. The pastoral counsels were routinely disregarded by your guys--including the abandonment of Latin and Gregorian Chant in the Liturgy which were supposed to be given primacy of place in any potential reform. Instead we got Bugnini's concoction which would have horrified the Council Fathers. So don't make me laugh. There is NO divine protection for speculations or suggestions or pastoral advice or conciliar opinion. None. Zilch. Dogmas must be declared as binding explicitly and very clearly--and Vatican II was a masterpiece of muddled thinking. That you don't realize this tells me why your thinking is as confused as it is. No wonder you prefer not to think anything through on your own.

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