New ICEL Translation: Glory to God in the highest

[Nick Baty]

...it's not the E&W bishops who are making the rules. These come from ICEL. (Ultimately from GIRM.)

Found it – GIRM 393:

Bearing in mind the important place that singing has in a celebration as a necessary or integral part of the Liturgy, all musical settings of the texts for the people’s responses and acclamations in the Order of Mass and for special rites that occur in the course of the liturgical year must be submitted to the appropriate office of the Conference of Bishops of England and Wales [Secretariat for the Liturgy of the USCCBs] for review and approval prior to publication.

This is broader than what the Guide for Composers is saying.

A text like Our Father is public domain and no copyright permission is needed if it is published as a separate item – as part of a complete Mass (whatever we understand that to be) it would fall under the jurisdiction of the bishops' panel. The same would be true of of the Holy. The new version was originally ICET, I think, and has since passed to the public domain. In this case, a publisher could, technically, publish a Holy without clearance – but they wouldn't be able to publish the rest of the acclamations. However, CTM and the Guide for Composers both stress that "any musical setting should respect and enhance that unity and therefore provide a complete set of acclamations (Sanctus, Memorial Acclamation and Amen)".

So we really do have a loophole here. Unscrupulous publishers can do what they like. Those smaller set-ups which care about the liturgy can't.

[NorthernTenor]

...it's not the E&W bishops who are making the rules. These come from ICEL. (Ultimately from GIRM.)

Found it – GIRM 393:

Bearing in mind the important place that singing has in a celebration as a necessary or integral part of the Liturgy, all musical settings of the texts for the people’s responses and acclamations in the Order of Mass and for special rites that occur in the course of the liturgical year must be submitted to the appropriate office of the Conference of Bishops of England and Wales [Secretariat for the Liturgy of the USCCBs] for review and approval prior to publication.

Beside the point, Nick. I can buy straight bananas most places in the EU but the UK, despite the regulations that state that fruit and veg must be “free from malformation or abnormal curvature”. Similarly, I think you'll find our ecclesiatical paper-shufflers are in a minority (perhaps of one) in implementing GIRM 393 (which falls under the adaptations requested by particular Conferences) in the way you suggest. Of course, if one were to take a fundamentalist approach to every sub-clause of a particular edition and translation of the GIRM, it would be possible to insist that this is how things must be done; but that kind of ultramontanism generates its own difficulties. For example: one reading of 393 would suggest that Ecclestone Square has taken the review process beyond the quite narrow scope of "responses and acclamations". I think it safe to suggest that 393 seemed like a good idea at the time to certain Conferences, but that experience led to its demise for all practical purposes - until, that is, some bright spark at Ecclestone Square (perhaps a new recruit one Friday afternoon, when everyone else was still at lunch) decided to ressurect it.

[Nick Baty]

[Unscrupulous publishers can do what they like.

And they do – and their work is to be found in a large number of parishes in the UK. But can we really do about it? We can't exactly have liturgical police. Perhaps we just need a little more formation – strike that, we need a lot more formation! This latest initiative is, at least, a small step in the right direction.

[NorthernTenor]

[Unscrupulous publishers can do what they like.

And they do – and their work is to be found in a large number of parishes in the UK. But can we really do about it? We can't exactly have liturgical police. Perhaps we just need a little more formation – strike that, we need a lot more formation! At least this latest initiative is a small step in the right direction.

If one's parish is regularly altering or ommitting a fixed text of the mass or its translation, it is possible to have a polite word with the PP. If that doesn't work, it's possible to raise the issue more formally.

Alternatively, if ICEL is aware of a derivative but unauthorised publication of one of its copyrighted texts, it is entirely within its power to have that publication stopped.

In neither case is the new process for England & Wales necessary.

[musicus]

Quite so, Nick. They do indeed. I suspect the problem will not so much be with publishing settings of the new Mass texts but in continuing to publish the paraphrases. I daresay that we will hear such excuses as "It's not a setting of the Glory to God! It's a hymn of praise; I can't help it if people choose to use it in place of the Glory to God". Formation is our best hope, certainly, but I doubt it will reach those parts that haven't been reached before or which refuse to listen.

[Nick Baty]

You're 100% correct, Musicus.

[mcb]

it's possible to raise the issue more formally.

If you mean 'report your parish priest to Rome', I'm happy to think yours is a minority opinion. Give me ineffectual bureaucracy over Romanian secret police every time!

[musicus]

The fact is, it is possible to do this. But NT's first resort - having a quiet word with the PP - is obviously preferable.

Mind you, the few times I've tried it, it's been a complete waste of time!

[Nick Baty]

Dear Rome,
We recently had an open-air Mass in Cofton Park, Birmingham, where an unauthorised text was used.
The celebrant disappeared through the crowds in a white getaway car but I'd recognise him in a line-up!
Yours sincerly,
UK RCs Inc

[Southern Comfort]

And ICEL's rules are the same throughout the English-speaking world: you need ICEL's permission to publish their material – just the same as with any copyright holder. And ICEL won't give it without proof from a regional authority that you're reproducing it exactly as given. On the other hand, as long as you do stick to the text exactly, you're not going to encounter any problems and permission should be little more than a wink or a nod!

I haven't bothered to look myself, but I understand from others who have that ICEL is effectively washing its hands of online publication, since it can't control it.

I'm not aware of a similar process to ours' in other parts of the English-speaking world, such as as the USA, though I, too, am happy to be corrected.

You are hereby corrected. The US publishers have to submit their music to BCDW [Bishops' Committee on Divine Worship] for the same kind of textual vetting as UK publishers to the Liturgy Office. It's an exact parallel.

(By the way, NT, it's Eccleston Square without an 'e' at the end of Eccleston.)

[gwyn]

Nick jested

Dear Rome,
We recently had an open-air Mass in Cofton Park, Birmingham, where an unauthorised text was used.
The celebrant disappeared through the crowds in a white getaway car but I'd recognise him in a line-up!
Yours sincerly,
UK RCs Inc

Fantastic. Just the sort of coffee-splattering hearty guffaw I need to start the day.
Thanks for that Nick.

[John Ainslie]

And tell congregations in your native Germany, your Holiness, that they can no longer use 'Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr' (versified form of the Gloria), as they have done for centuries?

[Nick Baty]

I haven't bothered to look myself, but I understand from others who have that ICEL is effectively washing its hands of online publication, since it can't control it.

Gilbert and Sullivan were powerless to stop pirate productions of Pinafore in the US but managed to prevent pirate productions of Pirates by staging simultaneous opening nights on both sides of the Atlantic. Absolutely no idea why I mention this!

In truth, ICEL is pretty powerless to do anything about hard copy production too – it would be tricky to police every pew in the world. And it's fairly simple to produce your own, reasonable looking, publication these days. Staging a pirate production of Pinafore might have brought-in a pretty penny for the producers. Producing a set of acclamations won't, unless the whole world wants to sing it.

But while folk are getting hot under the collar about this one, remember it's only publishers who are affected – you can produce what you like for your own worshipping community. And anyone working in any branch of the media will be used to getting copyright clearance on just about everything from an audio track to a pic of Great Aunt Polly held by a particular picture library.

The process of submitting settings to the panel is fairly simple. However, given that the Guide for Composers says it is "It is expected that music may be published from 6 months prior to the first permitted use of the texts", the panel could have an awful lot of setting to plough through by March! I'd be interested to know how many settings have already landed on their mat!

This post was brought to you today by permission of the letter P.

[nazard]

To get back on topic, I'm keen on this Gloria.

As an aside, the dedicatee is actually Saint Ralph Sherwin, vide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Sherwin.

Board readers may also like to read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_daniel.

Perhaps some English composer would return the compliment by writing a mass in honour of St Antoine Daniel.

[gwyn]

. . . you can produce what you like for your own worshipping community.

Soopah!