It appears as if the new English translation of the Roman Missal has finally been approved; the National Catholic Register says that the formal recognitio will come very shortly ("later today"). The new translation, a product of the Vox Clara Committee, a cooperative effort between the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) and the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, represents a huge step in the right direction, giving Anglophones a vernacular missal faithful to the original Latin texts and, in its beauty and dignity, far more befitting the celebration of the sacred mysteries than the present (lame duck) ICEL version.
Anglicans of the Prayer Book Tradition will find much of the new translation quite familiar. I would encourage those of our Anglican readership who have a negative view of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite to study the new English Mass texts: the new English translation may sway your opinion of the possibilities of the Modern Roman Rite.
Dear Cardinals,
Dear Brother Bishops and Priests,
Members and Consultors of the Vox Clara Committee,
I thank you for the work that Vox Clara has done over the last eight years, assisting and advising the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in fulfilling its responsibilities with regard to the English translations of liturgical texts. This has been a truly collegial enterprise. Not only are all five continents represented in the membership of the Committee, but you have been assiduous in drawing together contributions from Bishops’ Conferences in English-speaking territories all over the world. I thank you for the great labour you have expended in your study of the translations and in processing the results of the many consultations that have been conducted. I thank the expert assistants for offering the fruits of their scholarship in order to render a service to the universal Church. And I thank the Superiors and Officials of the Congregation for their daily, painstaking work of overseeing the preparation and translation of texts that proclaim the truth of our redemption in Christ, the Incarnate Word of God.
Saint Augustine spoke beautifully of the relation between John the Baptist, the vox clara that resounded on the banks of the Jordan, and the Word that he spoke. A voice, he said, serves to share with the listener the message that is already in the speaker’s heart. Once the word has been spoken, it is present in the hearts of both, and so the voice, its task having been completed, can fade away (cf. Sermon 293). I welcome the news that the English translation of the Roman Missal will soon be ready for publication, so that the texts you have worked so hard to prepare may be proclaimed in the liturgy that is celebrated across the anglophone world. Through these sacred texts and the actions that accompany them, Christ will be made present and active in the midst of his people. The voice that helped bring these words to birth will have completed its task.
A new task will then present itself, one which falls outside the direct competence of Vox Clara, but which in one way or another will involve all of you – the task of preparing for the reception of the new translation by clergy and lay faithful. Many will find it hard to adjust to unfamiliar texts after nearly forty years of continuous use of the previous translation. The change will need to be introduced with due sensitivity, and the opportunity for catechesis that it presents will need to be firmly grasped. I pray that in this way any risk of confusion or bewilderment will be averted, and the change will serve instead as a springboard for a renewal and a deepening of Eucharistic devotion all over the English-speaking world.
Dear Brother Bishops, Reverend Fathers, Friends, I want you to know how much I appreciate the great collaborative endeavour to which you have contributed. Soon the fruits of your labours will be made available to English-speaking congregations everywhere. As the prayers of God’s people rise before him like incense (cf. Psalm 140:2), may the Lord’s blessing come down upon all who have contributed their time and expertise to crafting the texts in which those prayers are expressed. Thank you, and may you be abundantly rewarded for your generous service to God’s people.
The USCCB's Committee on Divine Worship has a web site dedicated to the new translation of the Roman Missal.
UPDATE (04/30/2010 5:40 PM ET):
The bishops of ICEL have issued a statement announcing the recognitio. The common knowledge is that the new Missal will begin to see the light of day in the various episcopal conference territories beginning Advent 2011.
30 April 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEThe Bishops of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy [ICEL] join me in welcoming the announcement of the approval by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments of the definitive English text of the Third Edition of The Roman Missal. This news ushers in the final phase of preparation for the publication and implementation of the Missal in our eleven member Bishops’ Conferences and the many other territories where the sacred liturgy is habitually celebrated in English.
It also brings to a conclusion the long and complex process by which the translation has been prepared, a process in which the Bishops of the Commission and the Bishops of the English-speaking world, together with the members of the Roman Missal Editorial Committee, the ICEL Secretariat and the translators and consultants who are our closest collaborators have worked together with national conferences and the various organs of the Holy See to ensure that we have a text of the highest quality that can truly be called a work of the Church.
Upon receipt of the definitive text and in accordance with established procedures, the ICEL Secretariat will prepare the electronic files of the Missal, which will assist Conferences in the task of communicating the text to their publishers. ICEL has also produced an interactive DVD 'Become One Body, One Spirit, in Christ' [www.becomeonebodyonespiritinchrist.org], which will be of great assistance in the catechetical process that will accompany the reception of the new text. The date for the publication of The Roman Missal and its implementation in our territories is a matter to be determined by Bishops’ Conferences in conjunction with the Holy See.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have put their gifts at the service of the Church in the great endeavour of producing the new translation, men and women whose faith is matched by the refinement of their scholarship.
+Arthur Roche
Bishop of Leeds
Chairman
Related posts:
"I would encourage those of our Anglican readership who have a negative view of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite to study the new English Mass texts: the new English translation may sway your opinion of the possibilities of the Modern Roman Rite."
Having an open mind about the new Roman Missal by Anglicans will greatly help the unity of Catholics and their Catholic brethren in the Ordinariates.
I have had an unoffical copy for a few weeks. I like the new Missal over the current Ordinary Form. It has a more "Anglican feel" to it. As a 28 BCP Anglican, much of the "new" missal is very similar to what I am use to using in Mass.
I can easily use this Form and would have no problem being the Celebrant.
Fr. Mark
Deo gratias!
The new Roman Missal in English is much closer to the language of the Anglican BCPs. But then again it would depend how the priest follows the rubrics.
It would have been better if the "thees, thous and thys" were recovered for the Missal. But that would be too much to expect!
I have some time ago made an extremely detailed analysis of the new translation, both from a literary and an doctrinal point of view. On the doctrinal side, the new translation is far superior in almost every expression. There are a few disappointments, things which are no worse than they are in the previous translation but could be far better. I have not consulted my analysis before writing this post but there is at least one outstanding problem in the new version of the Creed, to my recollection.
On the æsthetic side I must disagree with these sciolist liberals. The new translation is mostly superior. But here there most certainly are exceptions. Frankly, Eucharistic Prayer No. 2 (despite the fact that no real Catholic would ever want to use it anyway) works better on the whole in the previous translation. But I am not thinking of specfics. Again, I'd have to re-read my analysis on it.
Despite a few interesting and notable exceptions in matters of æsthetics, I'd say that the new translation is a clear improvement.
But before jumping too high for joy, I'd close by writing that, as a staunch Latin Church traditionalist, NewMass is still mostly unacceptable to me. I will attend it to fulfil the Sunday obligation but only when there is no reasonable alternative; whereas I would never actually *want* to go to NewMass. I would certainly drive for one hour to attend an Eastern Divine Liturgy rather than walk around the corner to attend NewMass, even if the latter were celebrated in Latin with Chant and versus solem orientem.
I find, in particular, the New Offertory to be totally unacceptable and completely unCatholic in spirit. This is one big problem; there are others, such as the Memorial Acclamation, the removal of the Indulgentiam from the Confiteor, the changes made to the private preparation of the priest, the removal of the Placeat Tibi, and others.
If the ordinariates attain a liturgy–almost any liturgy–which does not include that nauseating 'Blessed are You [sic] Lord God of all Creation' thingy–I would happily go to the ordinariates.
If the ordinariates were offering an Anglican liturgy but with preconcilar Roman Offertory and Canon, I'd probably prefer that to the Ukrainian Divine Liturgy, if only because the latter is now hard to find in sacral wording. Of course, if the latter were in Church Slavonic, that would be better than an Anglicatholic Liturgy. But you'd have to go to the Ukraine to find that (although I'm told that there was one Mass in Slavonic at Winnipeg for a while). In some ways, I'd prefer an artful Anglicatholic Mass to a Ukrainain Byzantine one. The former is graced with a culture that cannot be separated from English culture & language.
P.K.T.P.
On Mr. Vallejo's comments:
Yes, the lack of liturgical English in NewMass makes is banal to my ears. By the way, just so that everyone knows, it is completely wrong to refer to sacral wording as 'archaic English', as Fr. Z does on his blog. The T. forms of the personal pronoun are archaic in *general* use, yes, but they are *NOT* archaic in certain specialised uses, such as liturgical English, poetical English, and dialectal use in some parts of Yorkshire. In the latter two cases, one can say that they are 'obsolescent but not obsolete'. In the case of liturgical English, I trust that they are neither obsolescent nor obsolete. I use liturgical English both in formal prayer (when not using Latin) and personal prayer in my own words.
P.K.T.P.
And that is why I use Cranmer's translations and BCP versions of the Paternoster, Magnificat and the Ave Maria when everyone has shifted to the more modern wordings. I don't think saying "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" is archaic compared to "forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us" The word "trespass" has a deeper shade of meaning than "sin".
And in the Ave Maria I say the Cranmer translation (which has its roots in the English Pre-Reformation Church)
"Hail Mary full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus"
rather than
"Hail Mary full of grace. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus"
Now how archaic is that?
Most Latin traditionalists prefer '"amongst women" to "among women", although both forms have precedence and "among" is actually the version in the Douay-Rheims Bible.
The "amongst" form is generally regarded as preferred owing to the soft w sound in the word following. It is that sort of followiong sound that normally triggers the -st ending.
I've actually seen altercations at public rosaries between the among and amongst people, not to mention that, here in Canada, real traditionalists absolutely reject a pronuncition of Amen that has the vowel sound the same as the a in jay. It is ah-men, of course. I'd say that 'amongst' is the form used by 90% of true-blue traditionalists (and I use it and had never heard the 'among' version until a few years ago), when using English.
Warning to incoming Anglicans: get your old armour ready: there are almost as many fights among (not amongst here) Latins as there are amongst (not among) Anglicans!
P.K.T.P.
I sincerely hope that all "incoming Anglicans" will don their armor to wage war against the world, the flesh, and the devil and avoid wherever possible such petty and unbecoming disputes.
Amen to that! The battle has to be waged not on account of the English language but on account of evangelical atheism and a secularism that is divorced from its humanistic roots.
Oh gentlemen, how gallant you are! But you have been so immersed in figths of your own in the Anglican tradition that you have little sense of the fights that have been waging in the Latin Church since, since, since, 1965 or thereabouts (there were a few underground battles with liberals before then, of course).
Before Vatican II, 95% of Latins were just Catholics, 1 to 5 % were liberals. Oddly, since Vatican II has closed, the Catholic Church has become remarkably like the Anglican one in terms of parties and interests. You have your High and Low Church, your evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics (oh, sorry, I put a low case letter on 'evangelicals' but, then, they are rather low, aren't they?). We now have our conservatives and liberals, our charismoronics, um, I mean charismatcs, and our traditionalists. From what I've witnessed, there can be as much acrimony (no, actually, much more) between traditionalists and conservatives as there is between traditionalists and liberals.
The 'conservative' stance of most TACers and their ritualism will situate most of them between conservatives and traditionalists. Not such a pleasant place to be. Right in the line of fire. It can be avoided? Well, … you will find that various Latins repair to many of your Masses. After all, Latin Masses are somewhat less common than are sunny days in England.
Of course, the battle lines in the Latin Church do not come from some perverse desire to fight. They come from reactions against the potted plants that replaced the statues, and the swimming pools that replaced the baptismal fonts of old. Then there is the fact that leaders of 'conservative' groups such as Opus Dei and the Legionaries of Christ openly persecuted those among their priests who dared to commit that blackest of sins, by whcih I mean celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, that Satanic liturgy. I've heard of a case in which a superior in a 'conservative' group berated one of his priests (yelling at him) for over half an hour. Did this priest commit an abortion? No, far worse: he offered a Traditional Latin Mass. These 'conservatives' want the N.O. done reverently, but they hate the T.L.M. almost as much as they despise the clown Masses of the liberals.
Nobody said that all of this would be pure fun. Gird yourselves for battle, for, as I discovered when I switched from N.O. to T.L.M., you will find yourselves in it even if that is the last thing you want.
P.K.T.P.
My Dear Peter
You wrote
"We now have our conservatives and liberals, our charismoronics, um, I mean charismatcs, and our traditionalists."
But at least we were spared of one thing
What we Anglicans never had but you Romans had are Jesuits!
And I beg to disagree. We do have sense of the titanic battles in the Latin Church. It's like seeing Rome on fire from across the Tiber.
here is an example
In one Catholic university, the student led Latin Mass society and an old priest were blocked from celebrating the EF at the Low Church Anglican like university church. All sorts of reasons were given from the OF altar too heavy to move. As a compromise, the fathers would allow only a Latin OF mass but on condition that it will be versus populum and not ad orientem!
The students would have none of that!
In desperation some of the students considered asking the bishop of the Episcopal church (whose cathedral has an altar stuck to the wall and facing directly East) if they could have the EF there. Of course the bishop was hesitant since that would tip the Oikomene boat!
We Anglicans had churches whose altars are directly facing East so that the priest can celebrate the Mass ad orientem. And this tradition dates back to the 7th century!
On my last comments, no, I don't want to spoil the fun. What is happening now with the ordinaraites is wonderful and we need to rejoice: that is healthy and good. But I would warn people against expecting a liturgical and disciplinary paradise on the other side of the Tiber. Rome is not Eden. There is a titanic struggle going on in the Latin Church right now and you chaps are walking right into it. Fortunately, the ordinariate structure will afford you some protection.
P.K.T.P.
Sometimes I am not sure whether you care more about the Latin Mass or the Universal Church.
I am the President and CEO of CatechismClass.com, and I would like to point out that CatechismClass.com has recently unveiled a new lesson on our website to help explain the New Translation of the Roman Missal. We have developed a 40-page document outlining the changes in the Liturgy from the perspective of the priest as well as the congregation. The text goes through the changes in the Liturgy over the past 2,000 years to best explain the reasons for the changes in this New Translation.
Chapter 1: The Source and Summit of the Christian Life
Chapter 2: A Brief History of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
Chapter 3: The Need for a New Translation of the Roman Missal
Chapter 4: What We Will Say (Changes for the Participants)
Chapter 5: What We Will Hear (Changes for the Celebrant)
This report is intended for the average Catholic to read and is a great tool for pastors to purchase and share with their congregations, CCD classes, RCIA students, etc, etc.
Here is a link for more information on the resource:
http://catechismclass.com/lesson/400