Author: John Schultz

A telling set of quotes on the Great Translation Vote of ’06

The Vatican recently issued updated guidelines for the translation of the Latin texts with the goal of arriving at a more accurate translation, as well as one that reflects “a deeper language that’s more expressive and more poetic,” said Monsignor James. P. Moroney, who leads the liturgy office for the bishops’ conference.

and

“My big concern is people are going to feel like they’re being jerked around. They finally got used to the English translation and now they have to get used to another translation,” said Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University and a Jesuit priest.

I’ll take expressive, poetic and truer to the Latin any day.

Studio Script Notes on “The Passion”
Dictated To Steve Martin
____________________________________
Dear Mel:
We love, LOVE the script! The ending works great. You’ll be getting a call from us to start negotiations for the book rights.
Love the Jesus character. So likable. He can’t seem to catch a break! We identify with him because of it. One thing, I think we need to clearly state “the rules.” Why doesn’t he use his super powers to save himself? The creative people suggest that you could simply cut away to two spectators:
Spectator one ‘Why doesn’t he use his super powers to save himself?’

… and here’s the rest.

Yet another article about the St. Mary’s by the Sea debacle, where a pastor has been removing folks who kneel during communion from the Pastoral Council, leading the altar boys, etc.
Here’s the “Catholic Academia Spin^TM” on the issue. I’ve highlighted the dubious statements in italics and my comments in brackets.

At the center of the controversy is the church’s concept of Christ, said Jesuit Father [You sure should we should trust this guy?] Lawrence J. Madden, director of the Georgetown Center for Liturgy at Georgetown University in Washington.
Because the earliest Christians viewed Christ as God and man, Madden said, they generally stood during worship services to show reverence and equality. [Maybe. Maybe not. Would love to see the real evidence for this.]
About the seventh century, however, Catholic theologians put more emphasis on Christ’s divinity and introduced kneeling as the only appropriate posture at points in the Mass when God was believed to be present.
Things started to change in the 1960s, Madden said, when Vatican II began moving the church back to its earliest roots. [Is there a line anywhere in the Vatican II docs that says anything about “moving the church back to its earliest roots? That’s such a dubious, dishonest assertion.] What has ensued, he said, is the predictable struggle of an institution revising centuries of religious practices.
The argument over kneeling, Madden said, is “a signal of the division in the church between two camps: those who have caught the spirit of Vatican II, and those who are a bit suspicious. Because it’s so visible, what happens at the Sunday worship event is a lightning rod for lots of issues.”

Now: why would the same folks who are crying that changes to the English text of the Mass used for 40 years are a serious problem, but changing the posture of the faithful that has been the norm for over 1,000 years is right, just and better reflects our relationship with God. And get on board or you’re not welcome in our parish. Nothing to see here as long as you follow the rules about standing.

An even-handed article about the upcoming vote on translation changes for the Mass.
It has a perfectly awful example of gender-revisionist language, which happens to be very appropriate following Trinity Sunday, and one I could have gone my whole life without reading:

Consider the most common Catholic utterance: ”In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” It is translated, literally, as ”In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
To the horror of traditional Catholics, some groups — including Dignity USA, a coalition of gay and lesbian Catholics — offer ”In the name of the Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier” as a gender-neutral alternative.

It has one sensible quote from Bob Sungenis, and another that attempts to boil down the translation issues a little too far:

‘Modernists don’t like redundancy,” he said. ”Traditionalists love it because it reinforces in their mind the point to be made. The modernists want to streamline things. The problem with streamlining is you take away the effect, cadence and rhythm of words.”

Saying “modernists want to streamline things” is a bit like saying that Islamic terrorists want to “have a greater voice in the political struggles of the Middle East.”
It will be interesting to see what happens with things like the Gloria settings for the last 40 years. Catholic hymnal publishers will need to clear cut hectares upon hectares for the reprints. I bet some pastors will be happy they have OCP’s disposable hymnals.
My prediction: if the translation changes go thru, we’ll have the same bishops who act as if the only change in the GIRM was to have congregants stand through communion come up with some convoluted reason to implement only a small amount of the changes.

Don’t take my word for it.
Take Chaldean Patriarch Emmanuel-Karim Delly’s of Baghdad:

The death of the Al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq and the filling of the last posts in the Iraqi cabinet brings “hope that violence may come to an end,” said the patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church here. …more