This weekend, English-speaking Catholics around the world will walk into their churches to find an act of Vatican vandalism, as a new English translation of the Mass is foisted upon them. This new translation is a throwback to 19th century English that would make the Brontë sisters feel right at home. (I should, in fairness to the Brontës, point out their prose is eminently more readable than the Mass translation in question). For forty years, Catholics have been using a translation that, while not perfect, was often lyrical and poetic. And, after two generations of use, familiar.
The new translation is none of the above, driven by the desire to get as close to the Latin as possible. It goes out of its way to remind people of the majesty of God, which is a good thing. And that they are sinful. (I suppose the Mass texts should emphasize it, since Jesus seemed to spend so little time doing so). The translation is so impenetrable that one publishing house just released a companion volume for priests with suggestions on where to pause and what words to emphasize, in order for people hearing the prayers to understand them. Not the greatest endorsement of perceptive translation.
How we got to this point is a classic tale of palace intrigue and conservative grassroots organizing. The same social forces that have the Tea Party curating congressional debates about the motto "In God We Trust" when millions are jobless has Rome inflicting this new translation to correct doctrinal drift that, as far as I can see, isn't much of a problem. Take for example the new words in the creed.
Catholics who worry about the growing spread among them of the 4th century heresy of Arianism will be consoled to see that instead of saying that Jesus is "one in being with the Father," we will now be enunciating the incomprehensible "consubstantial with the Father." (This also strikes a blow to the errant followers of Apollinarianism, in case that's on the rise, too.) It all feels like a solution in search of a problem. Happily, the Catholic Church has no other problems to deal with.
I think the Tea Party analogy is instructive, because it's this same discomfort with modernity and pluralism that motivated the changes from Rome. English-speaking Catholics were among the most progressive in the worldwide Church. And this new translation is a jerk to the choke-collar by Vatican officials. It's part of their larger effort towards a "Catholic Restoration" of more traditional values and ways. The new translation should feel right at home to those who pine for former times (at least if you pine for the 19th century). For example, Catholics with even a hint of feminist sensitivities will be appalled to see the new translation never misses an opportunity to use the term "men" to describe human beings. The United Nations stopped doing that in 1948.
This couldn't have happened without a generation of bishops appointed by John Paul II, many of whom have willingly signed on to push back as much toothpaste into the tube as possible. Even when, through a bureaucratic snafu, South Africa launched the new translation a year early by mistake - and it proved an unalloyed disaster - there was not a cry among the bishops to delay or abandon the effort. It was endorsed and embraced with only the tiniest of murmurs of protest from a few brave bishops who understood how needless and ill-timed this was.
Of course, the forces of the restoration are firmly in control of the Catholic Church's apparatus at this point. You would think they would be doing a Snoopy-dance, since by any measure, getting this new Mass thrust upon hundreds of millions of English-speaking Catholics is a true accomplishment. But they seem as pinched and neuralgic as ever. Joy seems in short supply with so much doctrinal error at every turn.
Will this make more Catholics love the Mass? I doubt it. It will make more conservative Catholics happy. And that seems to be a decided inclination in the present administration's ease at stepping around the Second Vatican Council's teachings to appease those far right of center.
Even at a time of such diminished credibility for the Catholic Church, most of the faithful will simply put up with the changes. More's the pity. Nevertheless, this new translation of the Mass is obtuse, inelegant and, ultimately, unnecessary.
Deborah Plummer: Gaining Perspective on the Catholic Liturgy's New Translation
Angela Bonavoglia: Will Obama Abandon Women for Bishops?
Kate Clinton: Et Cum Spirit Two Two Oh
Michele Somerville: The Truth Behind the Godawful New (Old) Roman Catholic Missal
The first Eucharistic prayer for Reconciliation has: "Help us to work together for the coming of your Kingdom, until the hour when we stand before you, Saints among the Saints in the halls of heaven..."
Clearly these were written by native English speakers who respected both our theology as well as proper and poetic usage of English.
Ask your pastors to use them.
John Pinette: "There's something wrong with this translation."
The People: "And also with you."
Msgr. Jason Gray
"As an ex-Catholic who hasn't been to mass since childhood I have no knowledge of either the new mass, or the newer mass. I do still miss the old mass, the lovely Latin and Greek phrases,
the singing of the choir, the smell of incense, the glow of the candles on the altar, As a child I questioned the teachings of the catechism, as an adolescent I left the church because I was disillusioned by its greed, its politics, its indifference to the plight of the oppressed. As an adult I came to study theology, and I found the Church doctrines sadly lacking. Investigating many other religions I found them lacking too. In the end I came to this truth: that no creation of humankind has unique access to the truth. But I also found that the teachings of a religion are a poor guide to the nature of the people who follow it. Good people and bad, kind and crue1, virtuous and vicious are to be found in all the religions of the earth. So in reading these comments, I am dismayed at the vitrio1 displayed by some of the posters here. Surely a mere change in wording should not be a cause for anger or contempt towards others. How can a religion grounded in faith, hope, and charity be the cause of such unkindness?"
help them or lift them up intellectually and spiritually.
Additionally, the truth is that the use of "man" in the new text is not a change from the 1970 translation which was arguably less gender-neutral in using the pronoun "He" in reference to the Holy Spirit.
my past studies in Latin and New Testament Greek. I was not asked for my opinion,
for good reasons, but I would have suggested "one in being and substance with the
Father." I have long struggled with an understanding of this teaching, being limited
in intellect, and the latter phrase has had great meaning for me.
Wait till, in a few years, each parish will be required by Rome to celebrate at least one Latin Mass each Sunday. Then you're going to see the progressives scream like stuck pigs. Perhaps then they will finally leave for the denominations which don't require belief in Scripture and don't possess the authority Jesus bestowed on Peter and his successors.
One always has to remember that the progressives care nothing for taking over the separatist schismatic churches like the Old Catholics or the Polish Nationals, nor even the Greek Orthodox becase they don't have the numbers or prestige of the Roman Catholic Church. It is the Catholic Church they want to break, to engulf it in the Modernist heresy Pope St Pius X warned agtinst when he called it "the synthesis of all other heresies."
I recall how, in the 1950s and '60s how quaint those words seemed - but the attempted takeover of the Roman Church has shown Pius to be a prophet.
The best part about the new translation is watching the old hippies in the pews freak out. They did enormous damage: wrecking the old churches an replacing them with buildings that look like pizza huts, replacing the old music and chant with songs that make 'rainbow connection' sound deep, dressing up priests in polyester ponchoes, etc. etc; and now they're freaking about translation tweaks.
All the growth is in the traditionalist parishes, anyway. That's where all the young catholic familes and the vocations are: the FSSP just built a large seminary, and the SSPX is about to build one. It's just a matter of time and demographics. If Mr. Pinette doesn't like the new English translation, there's always the Tridentine Mass.
Inconsequential? The movement seems to have found some sympathy with the Holy Father. And at least they understand the unequivocal spiritual good that the Tridentine Latin Mass offers. It is not a gussied-up protty Lord's Supper. It's not, as the Holy Father has written, "un produit banal de l'instant." ("A banal, on-the-spot product.")
Therefore, the "openness" of salvation has not changed at all.
When arriving before the tribunal of Christ, the Leftists will find out their foolishness is not what Jesus taught.
"Pater" is "Father" in Latin. You'll notice that references to God as Father continue to resound in the liturgy.
Dominum is not the same as Pater in Latin or English or Greek for that matter. It is not rendered Father or God because that is not what the word means. We just got rid of the wretched translation that did substitute other words for the exact Latin equivalents. Perhaps you can join a soon-to-breakaway sect that will continue to use the horrid 1973 translation in defiance of the obedance we owe the proper constituted authority of the Catholic Church which was given us by Jesus the Lord, together with the Father and Spirit, One God forever.
How about you get off your liberal soapbox and learn more about the languages you only pretend to know, WebHarmony?.
Personally, I look forward to the Magisterium's taking even further steps to anger their ilk. Maybe they'll finally realize that they're actually Episcopalians in disguise.
That's simply inaccurate. The new translation renders the Gloria's "Pax hominibus bonae voluntatis" as "peace to people of good will."
The translators intentionally chose to use the gender-neutral "people" even though "men" would have been a more traditional and perhaps even more literal rendering of "homines."
The answer is to educate the Laity. Concepts and words, after being explained and competantly defined, cease to be incomprehensible.
Real education frees people from the victimhood the Left continually wishes to impose on us.
was in the almost total loss of sound catechesis from priests and sisters who
have been responsible for countless thousands of young Catholics.
Charlesrfd - the new translation was called for because that of 1973 was one of the things that helped drive out so many Catholcis used to beauty in the liturgy and got a hootenanny instead. The scandal of a Church trying so hard to lose members is finally being addressed and reversed. If you're not happy go be an Episssssscopalian where you can wallow in progressivism and femiinism, homosexuality as part of a human-centered religion as opposed to a God-centered faith.