A sustained attack in Malta on those in favour of the Tridentine Mass - 4

Original Sunday Times of Malta

Poor translations of the liturgy

 

The essence of the liturgy is the meeting of God’s People with God without barriers, to communicate with Him… and not through a dead language, or tortuous or anachronistic translations of it.

 

On March 28, 2001, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued the fifth instruction “for the right implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council” on the use of vernacular languages in the publication of the books of the Roman liturgy.

 

The document was given the awesome title of Liturgiam Authenticam, that is, authentic liturgy.

 

While the title is awesome, the rest is very disappointing; it smells of an ideology rather the “odour of the sheep”. Rather than spelling out what should be done in the liturgy so that the People of God could fully participate – in mind, heart and soul – in the highest act of adoration, Liturgiam Authenticam gave directives on how liturgical texts should be translated (or transliterated) from the Latin to local languages.

 

‘Mind your language’ would have been a more apt title for the document! In my view, LA has sidelined the express word of Vatican II, that “since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended. This will apply in the first place to the readings and directives, and to some of the prayers and chants, according to the regulations on this matter to be laid down separately in subsequent chapters”. (Sacrosanctum Concilium, art. 36).

 

And this is what happened in the Church in the early decades after Vatican II: the usage of local languages was extended. The anti-pastoral results of the directives given by LA can be clearly seen in the Congregation’s imposition of the English translation of the Mass.

 

Six years had been spent by US bishops to revise the Lectionary, the Scripture readings used in Mass, but a Vatican-appointed committee intervened to short-circuit those efforts.

 

Pope Francis’s correction of Cardinal Sarah shows that Vatican II is his ‘sure compass’.
 

Isn’t it mind-boggling that years before Vatican II, bishops had the authority to approve a translation of the Bible – the inspired Word of God – but did not have the final authority in approving the translation of the liturgical text, which, apart from the quotations from the Scriptures, cannot be called inspired books.

 

In an interview, Pope Francis openly articulated his misgivings about liturgical traditionalists: “I always try to understand what’s behind the people who are too young to have lived the pre-conciliar liturgy but who want it.

 

Sometimes I’ve found myself in front of people who are too strict, who have a rigid attitude. And I wonder: How come such rigidity? Dig, dig, this rigidity always hides something: insecurity, sometimes even more... Rigidity is defensive. True love is not rigid.”

 

The essence of the liturgy is the meeting of God’s People with God without barriers, to communicate with Him “through Him, and with Him, and in Him… in the unity of the Holy Spirit”, and not through a dead (even if classical and perhaps ecclesiastical) language, or tortuous or anachronistic translations of it.

 

In 2014, Georgetown University’s Centre for Applied Research in the Apostolate released a study that found 75 per cent of leaders at American churches said that the new translation is “awkward and distracting”, 50 per cent said it “urgently needs to be revised” and the clergy widely rejected the new translations.

 

In keeping with the medieval axiom Sacramenta sunt propter hominess (‘Sacraments are for the people’), logically one ought to stress the supremacy of people over rites, rituals and languages. This is why Pope Francis recently issued the motu proprio Magnum Principium (‘The Great Principle’) giving more control to national bishops’ conferences over the translation of liturgical texts, thus bringing a realignment with Vatican II’s intent.

 

The importance of Magnum Principium can be evidenced by the unprecedented letter by Pope Francis which publicly corrects an article by Cardinal Robert Sarah about the changes the Magnum Principium introduced as to how the Catholic Church’s liturgies are to be translated from the original Latin into local languages.

 

The Pope had, in fact, revised some of the translation norms established by LA. Pope Francis’s correction of Cardinal Sarah shows that Vatican II is his ‘sure compass’. So should it be for all bishops, clergy and faithful.

 

Fr Joe Inguanez, a sociologist, is executive director of Discern.

The rupture has occurred - Francis vs Benedict XVI (and St. John Paul II)

 

Just a few weeks after Pope Francis announced that the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council was “irreversible", he made a widespread change to the ways, and words, in which Roman Catholics worship by amending Vatican law to give national bishop conferences greater authority in translating liturgical language.

 

By his action, Francis goes much further than the reforms of the Second Vatican Council had ever envisaged and erased some of the actions of his predecessors, Benedict XVI and John Paul II. With the motu proprio Magnum Principium, Pope Francis has altered a key 2001 instruction by Saint John Paul II (Liturgiam Authenticam), instructing that translations from Latin needed to be “in the most exact manner, without omissions or additions in terms of their content.” 

 

That same year, the Vatican established Vox Clara, a committee to scrutinize English-language translations of the texts and prayers included in the Roman Missal. The committee advocated a close fidelity to the Latin. All this goes against the “reform of the reform” movement, which ultimately had advocates at the top of  the Catholic Church during John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

          

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The amendment is a significant development in a liturgical schism that has split Catholics across the world and was evident at the highest echelons of the church, especially in recent times. In our opinion, this is an attempt to undermine Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum, practically when we are supposed to celebrate its tenth anniversary.

 

Pope Francis, in fact, has recalled that the Second Vatican Council entrusted bishops with the “weighty task of introducing the vernacular language into the liturgy.” He added that “in order that the renewal of the whole liturgical life might continue, it seemed opportune that some principles handed on since the time of the council should be more clearly reaffirmed and put into practice.”

He also acknowledged the bitter feelings that the fights over liturgical language have produced, writing, “It is no surprise that difficulties have arisen” between local churches and the Vatican. He then called for “reciprocal trust” between the local churches and the Vatican department with liturgical oversight, known as the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

 

Unfortunately, under this pontificate, we have seen the undermining of Cardinal Sarah. Last year, Cardinal Sarah called for priests to celebrate Mass ad orientem, but Francis promptly issued an unusual public rebuke. And in April of this year, Cardinal Sarah sent a letter honouring Benedict XVI’s support of the Latin Mass, asserting that “modern liturgy” had caused devastation and schism. Benedict XVI wrote that “the liturgy is in good hands,” in an afterward to a book the cardinal wrote this year.

 

Alas, Francis argued that “vernacular languages themselves, often only in a progressive manner, would be able to become liturgical languages, standing out in a not dissimilar way to liturgical Latin for their elegance of style and the profundity of their concepts with the aim of nourishing the faith.”