Interesting reading. The Adoremus article seems rather slight - the author tries to press the right buttons as far as her readers' prejudices are concerned, so there are sideswipes at inclusive language and the swinging sixties. The quotations from
Liturgiam Authenticam are larded with the author's own emphases, but if she'd chosen to italicise
it is permissible to arrange the wording, the syntax and the style in such a way as to prepare a flowing vernacular text suitable to the rhythm of popular prayer
or
translations should be characterized by a kind of language which is easily understandable
it would have put a quite different slant on things. When you get to the specifics the argument seems to me to fail to join up. How can
And with your spirit (as a literal translation of 'et cum spiritu tuo') be held to mean anything at all? The injunction to 'catechise' in cases where the meaning is unclear seems to me an admission of failure: it's a misunderstanding of what translation is, to render a Latin text using code-words which though ostensibly English, can only be interpreted with reference to the original Latin.
Above all the idea that Latin is 'timeless' seems entirely bogus. If the language of the 1973 ICEL Missal is of its time, then the Latin of 1570 must also be.
The Harbert article is more thoughtful, and more convincingly argued, but has the same idea at heart - the 1973 ICEL text is rooted in the values of a particular (ephemeral) period of human history in a way that the Latin is not. (Specifically he claims that the ICEL version was coloured by the desire to move away from the language of social stratification and of mediaeval cosmology). I suppose he's right that the ICEL text can be accused of trying to dodge these images, but again I'm not sure that these images themselves can be counted as independent of the world-view of a particular historical and cultural setting.
So it depends what Pope John XXIII had in mind in the opening address of the Second Vatican Council:
The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another.
Perhaps it's consistent with this idea to try to articulate the relationship between God and the human race without couching it in terms of subservience to a King 'up there' in heaven. But Harbert would certainly argue that to do so wasn't anything to do with ICEL's job. I probably agree with him.
M.
(note taken of request to amend censor list, mcb. Now done and this post amended accordingly!
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