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.

Why should I get off this "two-thousand year old stuff" when it is the absolutely essential point, next to which everything else pales in meaning? If the Catholic Church was wrong all that time--what could possibly make it right now?

The absurdity of your posture is that by accepting authority today without condition, you reject the authority of past popes and councils. That is the modernist dilemma. You can't have it both ways. You can't buy into their destruction of Tradition and think you are somehow also being Catholic. The protection of Sacred Tradition is paramount. It is all that protects the deposit of faith-- which is already slipping away in most dioceses.

As for your comments on the the alterations of the liturgy, they show some sloppy thinking as well. Of course there were slight changes and adjustments. Noone has ever denied these should be allowed and Pius XII in Mediator Dei makes reference to them. But the Mass must remain essentially unchanged. The key word is "essentially". There are divinely ordained parts which may not be tampered with, not even by a pope.

If there is anything that characterizes most of the people who post here who think like you, it is this inordinate--and unCatholic--exaltation of the pope. You believe authority can do whatever it wants with the faith and with what has been handed-down. That is not true. Authority is the servant of Tradition, not the other way around. No mandate can ever be legitimately exercised which would attack Tradition. According to Vatican I, papal authority itself has divine protection from error only insofar as it guards Tradition and the deposit of faith. If it should attack Tradition itself, it would lose its claim even to its own authority.

As to the other things, you got off way to cheaply with a mere $200 in books. I’ll have to talk to my wife. ;-)

TAN books in Rockford, IL is remarkable. Not only do they have a phenomenal selection of Catholic classics, but their prices are often unbelievably low. Along with a whole shelf full of books for $200, I also got pictures of the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart, and a half dozen copies of a couple of pamphlets. I guess their secret is that they don't have to pay copyright fees to the authors, since most have been dead for the past couple hundred years.

I wear the scapular, my wife wears both the scapular and the miraculous medal. We pray the family rosary each night, at times embarrassing our guests, but hey, its our house... We home school, though we are just beginning as our oldest just turned five. Salvation is the #1 priority.

I give you all the credit for maintaining a traditional Catholic lifestyle while attending the Novus Ordo Mass. You're a better man than I, Gunga Din. I was not able to live in a state of grace until I started attending the Latin Mass. I was living out the Pelagian heresy in my own life: trying to be good through will-power and failing. The grace of the Latin Mass has transformed my life and the life of everyone in my family. This has been my experience, but I am not questioning the validity of your own experience.

Your exclusive focus on the Rite misses the forest for a particularly large and beautiful tree. Delight in the tree, but don’t miss the larger forest, its glorious as well.

My experience has been that I now have the entire beautiful forest of 2000 years of Catholicism. Before, I only had the last couple decades of the post-conciliar Church. Honestly, I can't think of any "large and beautiful tree" of the Vatican II era that I would regret missing out on. I haven't found anything there that adds to the beauty of the Catholic religion, but much which detracts from it.

Is the hula Mass, and clown Mass part of what you have been talking about?

Yup. Here's more on what's been going on under the "reformed" Vatican II Church:

Hula liturgies in Honolulu
The issue of dance in Catholic liturgy came to a head in Hawaii two years ago. The Church in Hawaii seems to have tolerated dance in liturgy for some time. A January 9, 1999 story on NandoNet, an electronic news service, claimed that

"The dance [hula] has now been performed during all types of church services, including First Communion, weddings and funerals, by both men and women. It was even performed at [Bishop Francis X.] DiLorenzo's installation as bishop in 1994.12"

A February 1998 article in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin described a meeting of the 40-year-old Sacred Dance Guild at Chaminade University, a Catholic college in Hawaii. The article featured Brazilian santeria dancers explaining how dancers seek to get in touch with orishas (pagan gods), and an "Afro-Caribbean" dancer explaining, "People dance to get themselves into a trance. With movement and drumming, you can connect with that part of the goddess in yourself. That is my connection, finding the places where we resonate with those deities. Part of the quest is self-realization."

One participant in this New Age smorgasbord, according to the article, was Marianist Brother Dennis Schmitz, who said that "we have some form of liturgical movement every week" at the Sunday Mass at the campus chapel. The article added that "the Rev. Mario Pariante, St. Louis High School President, participates."12

In 1997, however, a Maui woman complained to her bishop, and then to the Vatican, when she was offended by a hula performance during Mass, apparently a regular occurrence. The complaint resulted in a ruling from the CDW reiterating the ban on dance in liturgy. The incident received sensationalized coverage from the Hawaiian press, which spun it as an example of authoritarian Rome clamping down on local spiritual traditions. Articles likened the Vatican's ban on dance to the suppression of Hawaiian native traditions by Yankee missionaries in the 1820's.

Is it "dance" or "sacred gesture"?
After Honolulu Bishop Francis DiLorenzo met with CDW officials during his regular ad limina visit in 1998, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin proclaimed that Bishop DiLorenzo "is allowing hula and other native Hawaiian `sacred gestures' to be performed during Roman Catholic services."

Did the CDW in fact reverse its ruling or allow an exception? The Hawaiian press thought so. The Honolulu Advertiser proclaimed on December 29 that "the church is promoting openness and inclusiveness in the best tradition of the Islands. Accommodation rather than fiat has thankfully carried the day."13

The Associated Press's headline of January 9, 1999 read "Vatican eases stance on native Hawaiians' sacred gesture during Mass". The accompanying story said that Bishop DiLorenzo's new guidelines were issued "with the Vatican's approval".14 "Catholic pastors can allow hula as prayer" read the headline in the December 22 edition of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin .15

God's blessings to you. May He enlighten the darkened corners of your mind and heart.

This is just too rich! Incredible. You loving neo-Caths. You will notice that traditionalists on this thread have never once suggested that you neo-Caths are agents of Satan or have darkened hearts and minds, as you and yours have done repeatedly. Nope. Not once. We have just simply pointed out that you are protestants in Catholic clothing. I have no problem with protestants, as many of them are very devoted and religious people. Many common causes with my protestant friends. Why are you all so ashamed to just admit it? It is nothing to be ashamed of. Actually, not even protestants call Catholics "agents of satan" to their face anymore -- as you neo-Caths still do.

<> Then, post more pictures and less of your own words so we can save space<>

You want more pictures? OK, how about these:

Photo Taken on Friday, April 10, 1970 A.D. in the Vatican

These SIX PROTESTANTS are, from left to right:

2) Canon Jasper;

3) Dr. Shephard;

4) Dr. Konneth;

5) Dr. Smith; and,

6) Brother Max Thurian (in white), who is standing next to Pope Paul 6 (in white).

These SIX PROTESTANTS represent the following Protestant organizations: The World Council of Churches, the Church of England, the Lutheran Church, and the Protestant Community of Taize.

Or maybe this one:

Let all sincere and faithful Catholics burn this photograph into their memories:

Photo Taken on Friday, April 10, 1970 A.D. in the Vatican

IF you would like to know the source of this photograph, it is from the Pope's official newspaper, the L'OSSERVATORE ROMANO, Weekly Edition in English, Third Year, N. 17 (108) - Thursday, APRIL 23, 1970, A.D. page # 2.

This photo of Friday, April 10, 1970 A.D. fully shows four of the six Protestants who are, from left to right:

1) Dr. George (shown shaking hands with Pope Paul 6);

2) Canon Jasper;

3) Dr. Shephard;

4) Dr. Konneth (the Pope's head is blocking most of Dr. Konneth although the top of his head is slightly visible);

5) Dr. Smith

Dear Zviadist,

"You loving neo-Caths."

Thank you. ;-)

"You will notice that traditionalists on this thread have never once suggested that you neo-Caths are agents of Satan or have darkened hearts and minds, as you and yours have done repeatedly. Nope. Not once."

Read last month's New Oxford Review on calling a spade a spade, a schismatic a schismatic, a heretic a heretic, and a son of Satan a son of Satan.

However, you will note that I don't call folks "sons of Satan", though I have been called an "agent provocateur of the cause of Satan" by one of you non-Catholic schismatics. Additionally, it was ultima or Bud McDuell or someone similar who kindly applied the title "Knee-Jerk Papal Loyalists" to me and Catholicguy and others.

Further, we have been called papaloters, papal-worshippers, and other appellations by ultima and others.

Just in this thread, ultima has called Catholicguy: "KING of annoyers", stated, "You are not known for your intelligent comments--which are, for the most part, silly when they are not being gratuitously vicious.", has called me a Prostolic (whatever the heck that is), etc., etc.

Of course, and you just called me a "neo-Cath".

And if I checked out just this whole thread, I'm sure I'd dig up more and worse.

So, Zviadist, grow up. I haven't said anything about you that isn't true. You have been defeated in every argument, at every turn. Time and again, you have been shown to be lacking in facts or logic or both.

So, now, you complain that we're picking on you. Poor thing.

I really do pray for you, Zviadist, because I acknowledge that there are no words that I can write which will penetrate your heart. The only thing I can do for you that will have any efficacy is pray for you.

I write, and patent, and Polycarp, and Catholicguy, BlackElk, and sinkspur, and others write, mainly for the sake of those who lurk and read, that the falsehoods that the schismatics spew forth will not go unanswered.

God have mercy on me that I am personally so unequal to the challenge.

Complain all you want, dear Zviadist. It's like when you throw a rock into a pack of wild dogs. The dog that barks the loudest is the dog that got hit by the rock.

You bark the loudest because your guilty conscience has been hit by the rock of truth, as shown you by folks like Catholicguy, patent, BlackElk, and others. You and ultima ratio, both.

I will continue to pray for you, and will redouble my efforts. You are truly a hard case.

sitetest

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