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.”
One time when I would have loved to be a fly on the wall :-)
It's always annoying when someone who is supposed to be a bishop tells an obvious, easily checkable lie in public.
Jarring??! How about this: "Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof, but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed."
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.”
I'm inclined to agree with the "fair" designation, only because while these translations are thankfully more accurate, they are not beautiful. As has been pointed out ad nauseam on this board, any pre-1967 Missal has extremely accurate and beautiful translations, replete with the thee's and thou's that elevate the English to a more proper dignity.
In any case, the new proposals are still better than the current ICEL abomination.
Et cum spiritu tuo = and with your spirit
Dòmine, non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum = Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof
and the mea culpe are there in the Latin.
So what's the problem, again???
Not only that, he's also indirectly bashing an honorable priest, Msgr. Bruce Harbert, who I happen to know personally. He's the current president of ICEL. He says the Tridentine Mass on occasion, and has served on a few occasions as the deacon at a Solemn High Mass.
between this and the new vatican instruction on gay priests, its really weeding out the liberal Bishops and the true orthodox ones.
God bless this Pope!
Like "ol' St. Nick," I hope Benedict XVI is "making a list, and checking it twice" concerning these bishops. Some of them definitely deserve a lump of coal in their stockings! ;-)
Can you imagine the howling comming from Arch Bishop Weakland if he was still in charge of the milwalkee diocese?
I always say it in Latin (Domine, non sum dignus, etc.) because the lame paraphrase - probably done that way to avoid using the word "soul," which might have implied something other than materiality and horizontality - offends me so much.
I was thinking that too. Sort of like chumming the waters to draw sharks...
The bad guys certainly rose to the surface and revealed themselves fast enough!
“I don’t think they will handle ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof’ very well at all.”
Do you think that this twit doesn't even realise that these are the words of the Gospel? Most of the prayers of Holy Mass are taken from the Scriptures, so why should any Catholic have a problem with them?
He probably thinks that his flock is as Scripturally ignorant as he is.
Yeah. Faithless clergy we can handle. But changing a weak translation will stun us.
I do believe it is the 'progressives' who brought us squishy discipline that will be upset.
"I always say it in Latin (Domine, non sum dignus, etc.)...."
Funny, so do I when I'm at a Catholic Mass, but then again, I had a misspent youth (45 years ago) as an altarboy with my feet planted in both the East and the West! :)
"“I don’t think they will handle ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof’ very well at all.”"
Sounds like that bishop was as miserable a Latin teacher as he apparently is a bishop. Ah, well, don't feel too bad. We've got our clowns in golden robes too and as +John Chrysostomos said, the floor of hell is paved with the skulls of bishops! My sainted great grandmother from the village in Greece always said we simple folk (lay and clerical) should stay as far away from hierarchs as possible!
Good question.
The real problem is that 47 or so percent of the American Bishops have a problem with the document Liturgiam Authenticam and are challenging it - and therefore the Holy See - through these new translations.
When emotions are running high, even otherwise intelligent people can make incredibly stupid remarks.
In trying to imagine an actual Bishop say this, this statement leaves one in breathless shock.
It's unfair actually. I mean how is one to properly caricaturize this bit of burlesque "wisdom" that deserves nothing but the finest in the art of parody?
To the extent that this is true, who is at fault here? Bishops are the primary teachers of the Faith. Are these particular Bishops suggesting that we dumb down the Holy Liturgy even more? Do they "feel" that the laity is just to stupid to learn the Faith?
-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.
"embraced"? "probably not accept"?
Weasel words from the editorial board of Commonweal. Er, or is that Commonweasel?
. The divisions among the bishops revealed that perhaps they do not walk in lockstep as much as conventional wisdom holds.
Conventional wisdom amongst real Christian Catholics is the realization the Bishop have abandoned their flocks for all manner of reasons and we abandoned sheep are, patiently(relatively speaking) waiting for them to decide to fulfill their Duties to Teach, Rule, and Sanctify and stop all the politicing and trying to please the world which is their enemy.
Good Lord. As a group, I hate them.
I can imagine foot-stomping and high-pitched squealing; but, howling? That sounds too virile
Not for long, Pyro. I will place a sizeable wager that the good Monsignor takes over the second post at Congregation for Divine Worship under Cardinal Bishop Arinze in the not too distant future. This was a rumor on Rocco Palma's blog about a week ago. Seeing in the last few days how Pope Benedict moves the chess pieces, this would make totally brilliant sense.
Habemus Papam!
Francis
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