Bishops' statement on ICEL translation of Ordo Missae

[musicus]

I post this here in case you haven't seen it. Any comments - whether or not you have had sight of the translation in question?

Musicus

From the website of the Liturgy Office, England and Wales:

Ordo Missae

Statement on ICEL translation of Ordo Missae from the Department for Christian Life and Worship of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales

The Bishops' Conference has received and considered the ICEL green book translation of the Ordo Missae.
The 'green book' is issued to enable a preliminary consultation of all Bishops in the English-speaking Conferences on the basic proposals of ICEL, before ICEL produces its final text, in a 'grey book', which it recommends for Conferences' use.
The Bishops of England and Wales expressed their appreciation for the work ICEL has done in preparing the 'green book'. They agreed a number of general observations about the text which ICEL's editorial board will consider together with the observations it receives from all the other English-speaking Conferences.
The recommendations of the Editorial Board will be passed to the Bishops of ICEL, who will decide on whether a further 'green book' should be issued before preparing a 'grey book' to issue to Conferences.
The general comments and requests made to ICEL included that:
a. The Bishops wished further attention to be given to the question of sentence length and syntactical constructions.
b. Unnecessary archaisms should be avoided
c. Changes to 'people's texts' should be made only where there is substantial cause.
d. The Bishops' Conference was glad to see that in a number of places, where it would not dilute or distort the faith of the Church, ICEL had shown a preference for the use of inclusive language.
Producing a single English language translation for use throughout the world is a very daunting task. It is one that the Bishops Conference believes ICEL can achieve, assisted by the guidance of the Holy See in the recent Instruction Liturgiam Authenticam.

30 April 2004

[mcb]

This week's Tablet has an article which makes the bishops out to be more critical - lots of 'insiders' quoting various ways the bishops are said to be unhappy with the draft.

And quite right, too, I reckon, having seen the draft the bishops have been considering. There are some good things about it, in particular the way the new draft reinstates portions of the Latin that are gratuitously omitted in the 1973 translation (trivial example: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, in the current version through my own fault, in the new draft, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. It sounds strange and unfamiliar, but you've got to admit it's closer to what it says in the Latin.)

But in other places the close adherence to the syntactic form of the Latin is more of a fetish than anything to do with clarity or comprehensibility, or even fidelity to the meaning of the original. May almighty God have mercy on us and, with our sins forgiven, lead us to eternal life. This replaces what we now know as ...have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us... The curious phrasing of the new draft is because the Latin has dimissis peccatis nostris, what's called an 'ablative absolute' construction. The translators this time round have simply ignored the fact that this construction doesn't exist in English, and have employed something resembling it anyway; what's worse is that in the older translation the verb forgive has an explicit subject (almighty God), whereas the pseudo-ab.-abs. construction has no subject. This may be fine in Latin, but in English it brings the curious but unmistakeable connotation that we're not sure who's doing the 'forgiving'. And all out of kneejerk deference to the syntax of the Latin.

The Tablet article singles out the translations of the eucharistic prayers as being "very poor indeed", but actually to my eye they show signs of a bit more care than other parts of the Mass. The single line that annoyed me the most was for Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, which comes out (read this carefully) as Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world. Yes, that's right, take. Look, you nitwits, I felt like saying, you can't DO that in ENGLISH, aLRiGhT?!

The grievance that critics of the 1973 translation have is that it deliberately avoids the language of kingship and subservience, which is there in the Latin. So the new translation adds lots of beseeching and deigning. It doesn't work for me - this is not the language which comes naturally to me for prayer. This isn't the language our Lord uses for prayer either - you can't simultaneously refer to God (shockingly) as 'Dad', as our Lord does in the Gospels, and at the same time erect a huge linguistic barrier in the form of obsequious padding.

The Tablet's leading article cites a recent article in Worship, pointing out the fallacy in the new ICEL/Liturgiam Authenticam viewpoint - that the Latin text of the missal is supposedly timeless, and uniquely free of the inculturation which 'taints' (from that point of view) vernacular translations. I think that's spot on, and I hope we will yet see a revised translation that doesn't shackle us to alien syntax at the expense of the true meaning of the words, and alien modes of address at the expense of a direct and personal relationship with the God we address in the liturgy.

M.

[Tsume Tsuyu]

Aside from a few snippets that have been shared with me, I’ve not seen the proposed new translation. What I have heard, and what mcb says about it, fills me with horror. I accept that the translation we currently use is not a terribly good one, but to strive for an absolutely accurate translation (and from what mcb says, it sounds as though this would be nigh on impossible) at the expense of inclusive language seems to be utterly mindless. The most common complaint amongst parishes I visit is that there are not enough young people and that those that are there drop away as they reach their teens. Well the proposed translation is going to have them glued to their seats – not! If it’s going to make me feel excluded because of the archaic language, how are those half my age, or less, going to feel? I’m sure congregations will trot out the words, parrot fashion, before too long, but will they be able to pray what they are saying if the language is unfamiliar and the sentences simply don’t make sense in our language? I’m not advocating the other extreme – street talk – but simply plain, inclusive language. I work in the legal profession and the most wide-sweeping change in recent years has been the abolition of latin and, more than that, the use of plain, everyday English in legal documents and letters. If you still don’t understand what your solicitor is saying when he/she writes to you, you should complain!

Returning to Ordo Missae. I’m not afraid of change, but it sounds as though there needs to be at least one more ‘green book’ before the ‘grey book’ is produced.

TT.

[presbyter]

I am told that this week's Tablet has published the draft ICEL text for all to see and read. Last week, the Catholic Herald published snippets and - they say - a few of the comments that were submitted. Someone appears to have said that the text reads as if it has been translated by an internet language tool such as those which Google offers. (I looked at Google's translation services but could not find Latin to English)

I'm not sure why the press are bothering publish these articles. After all, the text has not been approved and is manifestly in need of much revision.
The last thing Bishops need, I imagine, is a pile of letters now expressing diverse opinions on the suitability of this text for public proclamation/prayer. There's also no point at all in people writing to ICEL. They are only accepting comments from Bishops' Conferences and those comments have been made.

[contrabordun]

Very diplomatically put, presbyter. But it's unfortunately easy enough to see why the press are interested - for the mainstream papers it boils down very nicely into a row between 'traditionalists' and 'modernists' (juicy parallels with the C of E). And I suppose Phil Space in the Catholic press is finding it hard to resist the temptation to try to influence the outcome.

I was intrigued by your suggestion that the Bishops don't need a pile of diverse opinions on this text for public proclamation/prayer as it "has not been approved and is manifestly in need of much revision" (excuse the paraphrase, which I hope has not changed your meaning). Does that mean that at such time as they believe the texts are not manifestly in need of much revision, the Bishops might request - and use - such comment? I only ask because sometimes "there's no point commenting now, it's only a draft" morphs seamlessly into "It's too late to comment now, it's been approved"...

What part does the Conference believe the ordinary Catholic should play in this debate? Any at all? Does their position differ from that of Rome? I'm getting tired of seeing the argument fought out in the press and on the internet. This is supposed to be a (sorry, "The") Church. It isn't behaving like one, or to be more accurate, certain of its members aren't. A quick glance through Google's findings for "ICEL changes" shows a level of discussion that makes the debate over the EU constitution (parallels that could be explored further!) look objective. I've worked in large organisations, I know they're inherently political, I know the Church, composed of human beings, is no different, I wish it could be, I know I know I know, but...the outcome will affect us all. Whilst I wouldn't presume to offer an opinion on what constitutes good, liturgically appropriate or indeed accurate translation from Latin, if the experts disagree, I would like them to say so, to explain their views to me in "layman's terms" (literally) and to resolve their differences peacefully.

By the way, http://www.worldlingo.com/ do Latin translation. Unfortunately, it wouldn't help because the result depends on whether you choose US or UK English...

[musicus]

Welcome to the Forum, contrabordun. What a great first post!

Musicus (moderator)

[presbyter]

What part does the Conference believe the ordinary Catholic should play in this debate? Any at all?

Well I can say that of those consulted in England and Wales by the Bishops, not everyone is in the clerical state. Does that make them "ordinary" Catholics? The Bishops are free to ask the opinions of anyone they choose. How they do that is up to them.

Hang on - I'm an "ordinary" Catholic too I think I was consulted!!!

[presbyter]

By the way - can anyone point me (us) to a web page or article which is based sensibly, dispassionately and objectively on the dogmatic and pastoral theology of the Constitutions of the Second Vatican Council (SC, LG, GS and DV) - and not on any underpinning of a reactionary or liberal cause in the church - which might indicate WHY a completely new translation of the Missal is needed? What is SO wrong with the present Missal in English translation that it cannot be revised?

[contrabordun]

The Bishops are free to ask the opinions of anyone they choose. How they do that is up to them.

...I was wondering about the opinions of the people they might not necessarily choose (or of whom it might not occur to them to ask)...

Perhaps this would be the appropriate forum for a dispassionate treatment (which I agree is needed). SSG seems to cover most shades of opinion and do so in a constructive fashion. But it might be hard to be objective. My own bias is to find the following http://www.sspx.ca/Angelus/2002_October/Renouncing_Service_ICEL.htm amusing. Kind of reminiscent of Animal Farm ("the-agents-of-Snowball-have-been-here"). But it´s sad, too, and it also shows how far back we´d have to go (way beyond my education, for a start) to get common ground from which to start a reasoned argument. I hope that´s an untypical example, but it makes the point.

As to whether the current Ordo needs changing, I suppose the answer depends on how much better the new version is, and in what ways - the point where ´if you always do what you´ve always done, you´ll always get what you´ve always got´ clashes with ´if it aint broke don´t fix it´!

[presbyter]

....it might be hard to be objective. My own bias is to find the following http://www.sspx.ca/Angelus/2002_October/Renouncing_Service_ICEL.htm amusing........

There are so many broad, sweeping statements in that letter which are unsupported that were it submitted for marking to a seminary tutor as a first year undergraduate paper, it would fail in the extreme. Very poor stuff from someone who has an STL don't you think?

[contrabordun]

Well, yes, I do, but (aged 34) I obviously don't have any personal memory of either the Council or of what went before, and neither do I have any academic training in these matters. I have to rely on instinct and personal experience to evaluate what I see and hear (and in this example, which is why I chose it, I can recognise hysteria when I see it). But how do I evaluate the less 'extreme' - therefore more seductive - line that 'maybe Vatican II went too far' / 'we're dumbing down the faith'. And when I see academics retailing accusations that 'XYZ is an example of the ABC heresy', and remember that ICEL was restructured and a decade's work sent back to the drawing board, the devil's advocate in me wonders whether 'something must have gone wrong?'. I grew up as the changes were working through, I liked the Latin masses and the plainsong, was sad when they were phased out, but wouldn't want to go back to them now - I do think the words and music we use have to grow and evolve with the centuries (not 'with the generations' - we have four of those in the pews at any given moment). However, I get this feeling that somehow the prevailing wind might be shifting. I guess my sympathies are clear from the above, but how do I judge whether I'm right?

All this from somebody at his happiest playing Bach and Widor - but that's my private musical taste, only inflicted on those few members of the congregation who hang around for long enough afterwards. It's not where I start when planning liturgy in which other people have to participate.

[presbyter]

By the way - should readers be wondering - what was submitted for comment was simply some of the Order of Mass - not the entire Missal

Six of the ten Eucharistic Prayers were not included (o k - I know there are eleven but the one for the deaf is not bound in with the Missal) and neither were all the Prefaces - to say nothing of all the Collects etc.....

We are a long, long, long way from the publication of a revised Missal in English translation.

[SOP]

My own bias is to find the following http://www.sspx.ca/Angelus/2002_October/Renouncing_Service_ICEL.htm amusing.

I clicked on this for a nosey but when reading, something struck a chord so I went back up to the top of the article to see who was writing it and was then shocked and saddened to discover who it was. I met him, indeed stayed with members of his family, when I was travelling across Canada back in the 80s. He and his family were shining examples of Christians in action - I now find his letter quite sad. I am also sure I have seen some of his compositions in hymn books over here - it is all a long time ago.

You know, there are always human beings behind letters and to blithely dismiss them because they do not say what you want to hear is wrong. For someone to feel they need to write such a letter means they have gone through some real soul searching.

But hey, it is easier to just laugh and write them off, isn't it?

[contrabordun]

Not suggesting that he wasn't expressing deeply or honestly held beliefs, and would accept that my comments may have been uncharitably phrased.

As regards blithe dismissals, I suppose I should give some arguments to be shot down in flames.

#1 - as a human living in England in the C21, his preference for 'thy', 'shouldst', etc suggest to me that the daily language I speak is less suitable for my liturgy than would be the daily language used by English people 400 years ago. (This is ironically consistent, since the Mass was then in Latin, so that Tudor English was not a suitable idiom for those then alive. Presumably another 400 years time - by when shouldst will be as remote as Chaucer is to us - C21 English will have become suitably hallowed to be available as an alternative to the vernacular Chinese...)

#2 - as a child I was quite clear what I meant when praying "not worthy to receive you". References to roofs would have given rise to ponderings about whether the Lord would be comfortable next to the hot water tank. I'm not kidding either: I was singing plainsong masses before I could read their English translations and distinctly remember being bemused by 'excelsis' - I thought it was something to do with 'chains' - probably the only similar word I knew - and the only chain in my life at that point was the one attached to the cistern...

#3 - "strictly translated": what does this mean? That the meaning I associate with the words he proposes will the same as the meaning that the scholar who wrote the original Latin associated with those words? That the dictionary yields those English words for those Latin ones? Are either of these even desirable objectives? I'm straying into territory of which I know little. But I know a bit about international marketing practice, and we talk a lot about drafting messages for communication to an audience. The Lord will understand the prayer in whatever way it's drafted. We should worry about whether the congregation can, or do. It isn't good enough for the liturgy to be something done on our behalf. How many people would be able to read his version of that prayer and tell you what it is trying to say? 1%? 5%? For that number you might just as well leave it in Latin.

#4 - "Help us to seek" implies that we could do this alone. Not true. It definitely implies that we are a necessary part of the search (obvious, since if we aren't looking we won't find simply because we won't recognise the values when we get them. I don't see that it implies we could seek these values (or at least, not with any likelihood of success) by ourselves.

#5 - any buzzword that has been "currently politically correct" for the last thirty years is doing fairly well. Must surely have graduated to the status of being a cliché by now?

I could go on. But I guess the message is clear. I'm basically arguing that if there is any value at all in a vernacular liturgy [discuss], we might as well follow the logic to its conclusion and use a vernacular that people understand.

[presbyter]

But hey, it is easier to just laugh and write them off, isn't it?

This is not at all a question of laughing at people or writing them off. Anything that is posted/published in a public forum is open to critique and I would hope that any comments made would be sensible, sober, dispassionate and well reasoned. It is what is written that should be judged and that does not involve the person nor his/her personality behind the words.

Take, for example, this extract from the letter:

'Before Communion, we pray "Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst (you should) enter under my roof." ICEL changed this to "...not worthy to receive you." We lose the roof metaphor, clear echo of the Gospel (Mt. 8:8 ), and a vivid, concrete image for a child.'

A critique -

In my opinion, we do not lose the roof metaphor and to state that we do as a fact is an error. "To receive" someone is indeed to let them enter under one's roof. Hence we have "reception rooms" and companies / hotels etc… have "reception areas". "Not worthy to receive you" means "not worthy that you should enter under my roof".
Now as to why ICEL chose the brevity of "receive", I do not know but, in my opinion, the echo of Mt 8:8 is not lost, although I think it could be said that it might be slightly weakened. But does that matter? Perhaps ICEL chose "receive" because the verb not only succinctly translates ut intres sub tectum meum but also indicates what we are about to do: "receive" the Lord in Holy Communion. Some people might consider that ICEL, in employing "receive" thus, were rather clever and that they were in total harmony with the principles of Sacrosamctum Concilium - a document to which this author does not refer.

There - see? That's not having a go at the author personally and in debate, one should not do that.