In recent weeks, we’ve had many Letters to the Editor, on a rough count 100 or so, on the subject of Fr Gerald O’Collins’ appeal to the world’s English-speaking bishops calling for the abandonment of the translation of the Mass at present in use.
The 2010 Missal is the issue that most exercises people who write to the Letters page. Of the 70 or so letters waiting to be read when I arrive in the office on Monday, there are usually half a dozen letters on this one subject and this has been the case for the last two or three years. They’re mostly not from the “usual suspects”. Many are from readers writing to The Tablet for the first time.
Because the letters offer us such an important insight into what is on our readers’ minds, the editor, Catherine Pepinster (or, at present, acting editor Elena Curti) reads every one. The finished page is something of a “tribal notice board” for English Catholics and the one many readers turn to first when their Tablets arrive.
We don’t invite letters, or prompt people to write. When choosing letters I try to vary the mix; UK/non-UK, men/women, clerics/non-clerics, church/secular topics. I also try to choose letters that will vigorously challenge readers’ views.
I also try to ring the changes in such a way that a run of letters on a particular topic doesn’t last more than three weeks.
The outstanding exception to this is the 2011 translation of the Mass. There is a constant well of unhappiness about this, and it is a rare postbag in which there are no letters on the topic at all. I usually don’t select these letters for the reasons that most points about the translation have been made already; the arguments about unintelligibility, graceless language, translation principles and how Rome over-ruled national conferences of bishops to exclude the 1998 version.
But every now and again a letter arrives that opens the conversation afresh. Fr Gerald O’Collins SJ, in his years at Rome’s Gregorian University, taught many of the world’s English-speaking bishops. His open letter to them, appealing for a re-opening of the issue of the translation, was powerful, and its source significant. O’Collins has always been discreet in his criticisms of church authority. His letter, and the passion of it, surprised us. Naturally, we published it.
Our correspondents have overwhelmingly supported him; the opposing view has been minutely present in the postbag (and I try to reflect the relative weights of the views expressed in the letters chosen). Up to the time we published the letter in support of the translation from Fr Leo Chamberlain OSB, we had had only one letter taking issue with O’Collins (there have been several since).
Once again, I find myself trying to manage down the correspondence again, and highlighting different topics. There are other issues we need to talk about. But recent weeks suggest to me that the new liturgy is not finding acceptance, and that it’s only a matter of time before the issue will be back on the Letters’ page again.
Brendan McCarthy is the Letters Editor and Arts Editor of The Tablet
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User comments (20)
I personally agree with the call to re-think the language of the Missal. I find it very tedious. I initially thought that it was because English is not my mother tongue. I am beginning to change my my mind. The first time i used this translation was at the English- speaking Catholic Church in Tunis, at La Goulette, in Tunisia. After Mass, a very active and committed parishioner tip-toed into the sacristy. She said: " The language in this new Missal is awful, oh!" I was obliged to say that i fully understood what she meant. She laughed, wished me a great Sunday and she left." Let us hope that we shall soon have a language that people use and understand in the English-speaking and English-using peoples and cultures across the globe. The voice of the people of God can speak volumes! May this imposed version come to an abrupt end like the recent crackdown on the American nuns did recently to the joy of many, especially those who know that the Gospel of Jesus cannot not challenge social injustices and structures that hold God's people hostage. Happy Easter!
Aloysius beebwa (abeebwa@hotmail.com)
Isn't this interesting? imagine if the Mass is pre Vatican II?
According to our latest circulation figures, 70 per cent of our readers are from the UK and Ireland
I can't summon up much engagement with the translation issue. True, I did prefer the previous version, mainly because (i) in the Domine Non Sum Dignus, "and I shall be healed" made more sense than "and my soul will be healed" (we are embodied souls, or why is the resurrection of the body important?); (ii) "and with you" made more sense than the rather baffling "and with your spirit"; and (iii) the post-consecration responsory in the new version seems to focus on Christ's death rather than His resurrection, which strikes me as slightly macabre. Maybe there was more to be said for the Tridentine version than is often thought... But then there are always issues of some kind (I was a bit shocked when I arrived at my current parish to find that everyone stood at the offertory, which seemed to me to give the clear message that one of the most important things in the Mass was giving money to the priest; and at my previous church they were so stiff-upper-lip-ish that they declined to shake hands at the Kiss of Peace, confining themselves to a restrained nod). I just wish they would stop messing around with the Creed and the Gloria. At least they haven't tampered with the Lord's Prayer yet, like the Anglicans.
I am 55, a life long committed Catholic. I stopped going to Church when the Vatican II Mass was trashed back at Advent 2011 for the following reasons :-
1) it trashed my Catholic values. The replacing of the greeting with the collect trashed the value of community - a very fundamental Catholic value.
2) it looked like the work of a troll - I could imagine him rolling around the floor of a back-room in the Vatican laughing his head off at what he had achieved - the biggest act of vandalism in history.
3) the abusive, arrogant and disloyal manner in which it was introduced \ imposed. As if the Catholic Church didn't have enough problems.
I had to make the choice between i) attending church and continuing with the Vatican II responses and changes, ii) attending church and being silent during the responses and changes, iii) not attending church. I chose the last one as I saw it as being the only mature response that I could make.
Catholic means universal which implies diverse. The Mass was celebrated in many different diverse forms and this was one of the great things about it. The mere fact that God is beyond the full comprehension of any individual person directly means that each of us comprehend a part of God - ie. we each comprehend a diverging part of God (individual to each of us). Having a single Mass is straight jacketing God and is disrespectful to God whilst having the diversity is respectful to God and is more in touch with God - it celebrates the greatness of God.
I don't use the 'new' wording as I dislike it so much. Neither does my son, who is not a Tablet reader. I know other people who dislike it, some of whom consider the Tablet too liberal.
My heart goes out to the priests who have to follow the excruciating liturgy, most apparent at Eastertide where it is juxtaposed with the most poetic and powerful readings of the year - endless repetitions of 'spotless victim' just turn me off.
I appeal to the Pope to allow the ICEL version to be permitted for use.
Talk about clericalism! So 'national conferences of bishops' are supposed to decide how our translation will read?
We are NOT going back to 'And also with you' and 'We believe.' Not now, not ever.
If you want to get exercised about Rome imposing things on the church, then consider the way Paul VI imposed the Bugnini liturgy on us. That's despotism.
I'm not sure that those who write to the Tablet complaining of the New Translation of the Mass represent any sort of majority in the Catholic Church.
I read the Tablet from time to time (and used to get it weekly) but the letters were always so predictably critical about anything to do with the latest translation of the Mass (as well as letters wanting to promote women priests or general criticisms of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI) that it became a bore to read the Letter page.
You seriously can't believe that we need yet more changes? Or that those who write to you with complaints are the only Catholics on the planet?
The language of the Liturgy needn't be something which is immediately comprehensible to all. It is meant to be heard tens, hundreds of times, and gradually we ponder and realise the deeper meaning of some of the phrases.
Admittedly the translation is clunky in places, but it does at least represent truthfully the meaning of the Latin original, which the 1973 ICEL text had often bowdlerised or even robbed of its full theological meaning.
In the new translation you can see a much greater emphasis on the grace of God, and less of that tendency towards Pelagianism which marked the 1973 version. If some expressions are a bit difficult then that is a challenge to us all to think more deeply and to learn. I don't like the patronising attitude of those who tell us the new version is incomprehensible - it isn't, and we aren't thick!
The last thing we need now is more liturgical upset. We should just get on with meditating prayerfully on the texts we have, and celebrating the Liturgy as a worthy offering to Almighty God.
Mr McCarthy:
I was once told by a senior member of the editorial staff of "The Tablet" that about 50% of your subscribers come from outside Britain (perhaps it was "of readers") and maybe the "sales" figures -- boosted by casual parochial, "at the church door" sales -- make for a different ratio. In any case, I assume -- especially given the distributive possibilities of the internet -- that "The Tablet" has a very considerable (potentially influential, too) cadre of "overseas" readers.
Why, then do you write that the Letters Page is "something of a 'tribal notice board' for English Catholics"? Surely it is such a "notice board" for articulate Catholics from much farther afield. So, if you make your choices from such a narrow UK perspective, you are impoverishing the worth of your page: you should be encouraging a greater diversity of letters (a criticism which, likewise, can be made of many other British publications, the "Times Literary Supplement". of which I am a subscriber, being just one such).
My experience of parish life leads me to suspect that in most worshipping communities, 5% might be pleased with the new translation, 5% might be vociferously opposed, and 90% are quietly fulfilling their Sunday obligation. The silence of this silent majority doesn't betoken consent, neither should its quiet compliance be taken agreement with, or understanding of, the new translation.
More work needs to be done in determining whether or not the current English Missal meets the needs of the people it is supposed to serve.
Can we, the people, please please please, be consulted on what are views are? Those who insist the new missal is accepted will have nothing to fear if they think the opposition is just from a few Tablet literati. So please Bishops, consult the people on what after all is our weekly sustenance
Thank you for this posting Brendan. I attend Mass in my parish which has a cross section of Catholics. Most of us have to read the Mass Books to get the "new" wording of the Gloria and Creed right. I go to other parishes too. Many of us now have a mixture of old and new versions in our heads and have to use the book as a prompt. The Mass Card is still a must at daily Mass.
As Pope Francis mentions collegiality frequently perhaps this is the time for our Bishops to revisit the translation they had approved some years ago. Take courage Brothers and act with collegiality. This may be one of the issues where most of us lay Catholics will be right behind you!
Happy Easter to all!
I attend a number of different parishes because I have ties in various places, and in the past few years I've never heard more than a few grumbles about the new translation from 'ordinary-go-to-Mass-on-Sunday-Catholics'. Indeed, if anything, parishioners' comments were, on balance, favourable at the time of its introduction and subsequently.
The Tablet's readers, let alone its correspondents, are certainly not representative of Catholics as a whole. I would go so far as to suggest that a large proportion of those correspondents who write to you on this topic have an axe to grind, and they are absolutely determined that they're going to impose their wishes on the Church.
Why am I reading The Tablet? Because it's provided in the Smoking Room of my Club. I certainly wouldn't ever purchase it because it appears to be the house journal of those who wish to fashion the Church to their own particular fancies.
A rather silly, and may I say, hysterical article.
There are 6 Catholic churches in my town.
I run courses and attend groups that involve them all and have many, many friends in each of these churches.
There is no problem with acceptance of this translation.
The vast majority think it is a great improvement.
There is only an insignificantly tiny and shouty minority who continue to winge.
They have lost. They have been trying to destroy people's faith for decades. They soon wont be around.
They have lost.
The faithful have won.
We have our improved translation.
Thanks be to God.
Thank you for your courage to air the most difficult issues in our Catholic faith through your letters page with intelligence and judgement. It gives me great hope.
As I travel the country, with my work, and attend Mass I see much evidence of this 'well of unhappiness' in schools, universities, monasteries and parishes. But more saddening is the sense of powerlessness that this issue has provoked. It appears that too much has been 'invested' to even consider a change. ‘To change is to live and to be perfect is to have changed often,’ Cardinal Newman. Is anybody listening?
So thank you for keeping the subject 'live'.
"... recent weeks suggest to me that the new liturgy is not finding acceptance ...". Most parishioners do not write letters to the Tablet, or to any other newspaper for that matter, so your sample size does not justify the conclusion. So far as I can tell parishes are celebrating using the newer translation without difficulty. I think any honest assessment has to be that the translation has been accepted. Personally, it is the elegance of some of the Prefaces that I find most rewarding - and, at times, thrilling - in the new translation. I suspect that dissatisfaction is based on a particular ideology with regard to the nature of the liturgy rather than practical experience.
The idea that the Tablet, or any page of it, remains a 'tribal notice board for English Catholics' is bizarre. Do you really believe your readership - or even the class of those vaguely aware of what is written in the Tablet - is at all representative of English Catholicism in 2015? Your postbag represents the intersection of people who write into newspapers and people who read the Tablet.
I think it fair to mention that humans have complaint as their default position. We are far less likely to write in praise of a given situation that we are at least satisfied with, than we are to complain when we feel dissatisfied. Implying there is an overwhelming dissatisfaction with the translation of the Mass based on readers of one magazine, could be a very flawed assumption.
Shouldn't "But recent weeks suggest to me that the new liturgy is not finding acceptance" be followed by "among Tablet readers" to make clear that you aren't suggesting that the new translation hasn't found acceptance among English-speaking Catholics worldwide.