Peter Jones wrote:Southern Comfort wrote:However, the thing about "stable" is that it is an inaccurate translation. In the Latin original of the document, the adverb was indeed stabiliter, "which has existed in a stable manner". In the final text of the document this adverb had been changed to continenter, quite a different thing: "which has existed continuously".
Summorum pontificium - vatican website:
Art. 5, § 1. In paroeciis, ubi coetus fidelium traditioni liturgicae antecedenti adhaerentium stabiliter exsistit......
Universae Ecclesiae
15. Coetus fidelium dicitur "stabiliter exsistens" ad sensum art. 5 §...........
Sorry SC but I cannot find continenter in the Vatican website, Latin editions .It's a good point you make though, if you can find the text for us.
OK. I see what has happened now.
(1) People have inferred that the initial Latin version contained the word stabiliter, since the unofficial English translation circulated in July 2007 contained the word "stably".
(2) However, the Latin text actually published in July 2007 said this (Art 5 § 1):
In paroeciis, ubi coetus fidelium traditioni liturgicae antecedenti adhaerentium continenter exsistit, parochus eorum petitiones ad celebrandam sanctam Missam iuxta ritum Missalis Romani anno 1962 editi, libenter suscipiat.
Canonists, including Huels, commenting in July 2007, said that the word "stably" was an inaccurate translation. I quote:
It seems evident, then, that the translation "stably"
or "stable" was made from an earlier version of the Latin text which was
later modified.
Clearly, the legislator did not want to use the word stabiliter, since
he changed it. It follows that the vernacular translations also should
be modifed to conform to the legislator's intention.
Another relevant canonist's quote from July 2007, on the difference between continenter and the draft USCCB translation "stably":
"Stably" refers to something that is stable in the law, like an ecclesiastical office, function, or circumscription. Its use for an undefined group of faithful in a parish does not fit in with this notion, and it could lead to misunderstandings and disagreements due to subjective interpretations of what constitutes a stable group.
"Continuously" means that the group has had some history of adhering to the former liturgical tradition. It is not a novelty for them.
It seems clear, therefore, that for canonists the use of the term stabiliter in this context would be fraught with problems, which is presumably why the legislator changed it to continenter.
(3) Notwithstanding all this, the text on the Vatican website does, as Peter says, now contain the word stabiliter. Subsequently, this is the word that was also printed in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis in September 2007. It seems clear that the Latin was subsequently "corrected" back in order to accord with the faulty English translation. (This would not be the first time this has happened. There were several notorious instances in the successive Latin versions of GIRM that appeared in 2000.)
Whether this was done by the legislator, or by an editorial minion in the bowels of the Vatican without consulting the legislator, we cannot of course tell. We do, however, know that editorial minions have altered final texts before, the most notable instance being the Latin of the Berakah prayers in the 1969 Ordo Missae.
