Gerald O’Collins’ persuasive plea in The Tablet last week will warm the hearts of the faithful. His letter to bishops of the English-speaking world asks them to adopt the 1998 English translation of the Mass as an officially approved version. That would be an infinitely better alternative to the version that the Vatican commissioned and imposed in 2011. The latter has not bedded down with time, nor gained the affection that comes from familiarity. It is still as clumsy, clunky and, to be frank, as ugly as the day it was introduced. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, under whose papacy this mistake was made, is known for his love of good liturgy and for his understanding of the beauty of holiness and the holiness of beauty. He should thank God he does not have to say the Mass in English.
Fr O’Collins points no finger of blame, and merely recounts the main points of the history of this matter. The International Commission on English in the Liturgy, officially approved both by the Vatican and by the bishops’ conferences concerned, spent almost 20 years producing a translation that read well on the page and sounded well when spoken. As English is one of the most complicated languages, as well as one of the most varied and expressive, this was an extraordinary achievement. In English there are three ways of saying everything, and they found the knack of choosing the best – poetic, dignified, but accessible.
The Vatican’s version, overseen by a secretive commission ironically called Vox Clara – “clear voice” – almost invariably reads badly, with poor syntax and a verbose style. But these errors of literary judgement were made a fait accompli, with the excuse that this version was theologically closer to the original Latin. With language so dense and contorted as to be almost incomprehensible, how would anyone know? Bishops were nevertheless given little choice but to accept a translation they knew was inferior to that produced in 1998. It is a measure of the failure of post-Vatican II collegiality that they did not have the confidence to resist this exercise of ultramontane power. It is a measure of the low status of the laity even in the post-Vatican II Church that their discomfort at having to use language so alien counted for so little.
The mistake is an expensive one, as parishes have bought Missals for ordinary worshippers and the more costly volumes for use on the altar. But if every parishioner contributed just one pound, they could quickly be replaced. In any event, the Church is becoming used to alternative liturgies. As well as the Vox Clara Latinised version, there is the post Vatican II Mass in Latin and the pre-Vatican II old rite Mass – the Extraordinary Form – plus the English liturgy with Anglican elements, approved for congregations attached to the ordinariate. They are the lucky ones.
Pope Francis was reported as praising the liturgical reforms introduced by Vatican II, last Sunday saying that “it was truly a courageous gesture for the Church to draw near to the people of God so that they are able to understand well what they are doing”. To make that come true for English-speakers, another courageous gesture is urgently needed.
12 March 2015, The Tablet
Recover what was lost in the translation
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User Comments (25)
The new rite is very poor English indeed. It is a pity that the Vatican is unable to see its way to authorising the use of the finest of all English liturgies, in Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer - consummate English to rival even Shakespeare.
Please bring back:
"Happy are those who are called to His supper"
“This is the Lamb of God who takes away
the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper.”
as opposed to: "Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb.”
Also: "Lord I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed"
as opposed to: "Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof... "
No one talks like this then or now. The first in each above is poetic the new translation is awkward, clunky, and not intimate, but remote.
No translation will ever be immune from criticism, but what we have now is a thousand times better that what we suffered under for 40 years. The sheer dishonesty of the old 'translation'--the 'And also with you', the omissions from the Confteor, the 'We believe'--is staggering. And in those pre-internet days we had no Latin versions available to refer to.
Personally I have no qualms about letting the tiny community of 1970s-style die-hards use the obsolete translation; they can even wear bell-bottoms and bang tambourines along with it. What gives me pause is that the same people who clamour for that now-discarded mistranslation seem to be the same people who want to control how everyone else can worship, ban the Tridentine Mass, etc. Any indult for elderly priests to use the 1970s-style translation must come with strict safeguards that it not be imposed on the rest of us!
We lost a huge amount of faithful when the Pauline mass was imposed on us--most didn't go to the SSPX, they just drifted away. I suspect very few have left because of the new improved translation. That should tell us something.
The comments of the moaners that this new (correct and more beautiful, biblical and theological) translations is putting off young people just show how out of touch they are.
If they truly believe all was rosy until 2011 and then, suddenly, we had a problem retaining young mass goers, I worry about their grip on reality.
I've heard no complaints at all in any of the churches I frequent.
Then again, most people hate bland and confused terminology and appreciate a translation that actually says something and makes sense.
'The hearts of the faithful certainly need warming'.
The clumsy, clunky and ugly English usage is far from intelligible to young people. I frequently hear grandparents complain that when they bring their grandchildren to Mass they find the present liturgical language difficult and off putting. They would certainly not hear such poor English on Radio 4.
I live in hope that the Bishops of England & Wales will finally find that long lost courage to make a courageous gesture before more of our young people reject the faith.
'Et cum spirito tuo' translated as 'and also with you'.
Dear oh dear oh dear.
Ugly, bland, banal and just plain wrong.
The ICEL shouldn't even be allowed to translate a menu. They'd probably put a pizza down as a jelly.
But the bland lovers would probably think that was great.
My vote is with 2011! MarkM thinks it is the work "of a foreign cabal in Rome assisted by some English-speakers who have gone native" - in other words the Vatican! Well,
they did a good job which the ICEL seemed incapable of doing for many years.
Frankly the Tablet really is becoming a crashing bore on the subject of the new translation of the Missal. In practice it has settled in well and after the first couple of months nobody at any Mass I have attended seems to have the slightest problem with it.
It is certainly far better than the previous translation as I learnt when attending an Anglican Service which was using the Book of Common Worship which was basically the same as the 1970 Catholic Missal. It was crushingly dull and lifeless compared to the new translation.
Honestly the fans of the previous translation are becoming Lefebvrist in their obsession on the subject. Please do move on and find another subject to be boring about
Are we to go out to the nations to proclaim the good news?
If so,we need to do it in their language: there is as little point in evangelising in Vox Clara English to a twentysomething, as attempting it in Greek to a Thai.
The liturgy is a central part of the life of the Catholic Church, and we must not make it more remote from the majority of its members, present and potential.
The elite will of course need a richer vocabularly to converse among themselves, and the existence of this elite is one of the Church's strengths. But this language is not suited to the rest of us, the broad mass of the people of God. Analogously, a BBC science programme that communicated in equations and formal scientific English would rightly be deserted by its intended audience, and the use of Vox Clara English is having the same effect on many.
Do the bishops want a Church that isolates itself and shrinks, or one that reaches out and evangelises the nations?
The most important thing for the Mass is that it should reflect Catholic values. One of the things that the service introduced in Advent 2011 did was to replace the greeting (all about community) with the collect (from the Tridentine mass). It replaced a beautiful Mass with one that looked like the work of a troll - the largest act of vandalism in history.
It is wonderful to read primarily English comments from people in England about this terrible missal. Does "consubstantial" translate to "one in being?" If not, what are we missing? Certainly Jesus did not have a "chalice." He offered the sacrifice for ALL not just the many. The flowery introductions to the collect prayers reek of fear and almost disrespect. Let's get to the point and say what we mean to say. And why are we so lazy as to only have one collect for all three gospel years?
The current translation of the mass is far superior to the meaningless dross that went before.
The translation is better. It actually translates it correctly for a start. The language is far more beautiful and biblical. Not the mundane garbage of the previous one.
It is here to stay.
Thank God.
Ah, Monsieur Ronk: I have to assume you are male and therefore feel no offence at the gender exclusivity of the current translation. I can deal with the ghastly 'consubstantial' if I swallow determinedly before saying it but I always ignore the word following 'For us . . . and our salvation. . .' because I have such hopes that women are also included in that clarion cry of faith. I do thank God that I was born an optimist!
Regarding the 'rattling off' of the new words: as a former teacher of mathematics it never ceased to amaze me that while the pupils could 'rattle off' the words of the multiplication tables in practice they meant absolutely nothing.
"not bedded down with time"? With whom, apart from the author? I go to Mass in a lot of different parisheds of many different kinds, and in every one the congregation rattles off the "new" translation just as confidently and freely as they used to the old one, and as if they had been saying/singing these responses for ever. It has been like this since the fisrt few weeks, aparrt from the word "consubstantial" which took a bit longer for some people. The 1998 proposal was rejected for good reason - it was nauseatingly politically correct, banal, and in places quite wrong.
The new translation is a pastoral tragedy and a liturgical disaster. It is an obstacle, not a help, to prayer.
In the way it was conjured up, and in the damage it is doing in the English-speaking world, the new translation is a betrayal of the vision of Vatican II. Your excellent new article has been added to my file: The New Translation - http://v2catholic.com/johnw/2012/2012-11-19the-new-translation.htm
May I suggest Petrus Radii takes a quick look at Mt.18:3 and Mt.6:7? May I remind him also that the wonderful prayer Jesus himself taught us was a perfect example of simplicity? It translates easily into any language so that the least educated to the most erudite individual can say it straight from the heart. Incidentally, we do not know whether Latin figured in Jesus's repertoire although it probably did, but from choice he more likely used his own local dialect to express transcendent ideas with the sort of simplicity he admired in children. Let's bid farewell to academe and leave prayerful and spiritual urgings to the Holy Spirit. They, combined with the gift of natural poetry which exists in all languages, will produce prayers which God and his peoples will surely relish.
Forcing languages into contortions to make one do the same as another has given us the ludicrous lines of many of our Victorian hymns where Latin grammar rules were called upon to create rhyming patterns. This is extremely difficult in English where there are many words which simply do not rhyme naturally.
There should be an immediate move for the 1998 translation to come into use on Advent Sunday this year.
Books can be printed quickly. It would create excitement. This is urgent. It might stem the slow exodus.
Allelulia! Clunky is an apt but too kind word for the 2011 version of our liturgy. A great illustration of the damaging possibilities of ultramontanism. Fr. O'Collins suggests a pound from each Catholic would cover the costs of restoration. And a daily Lord's Prayer would help too. Pope Francis is always asking for our prayer; let's respond. Fr. Barry McGrory
That is by far the best commentary on the current missal I have read. Those who go to Mass each week have to endure this poor and ugly missal which degrades the liturgy and makes it impossible for us to invite others to taste the Catholic liturgy. The Mass used to be an occasion for evangelisation, but not with this missal. Whoever approved it has little or no knowledge of the potential of the English language.
I should like to be shown clearly and concisely all examples of 'theological errors and even the occasional heresy' in earlier translations of the Mass. ('Petrus Radii)'. If they can be found, that is. The current English version is not so much a translation as a poor transliteration. As for the rash and near-libellous allegations against ICEL members, those making such ridiculous remarks should be ashamed of their behaviour.
As a classicist and English scholar I have to say that the new translation is infelicitous and indeed wooden. It reads as though it is the work of someone who is not a native English speaker, translating Latin into English. If it were the work of one of my students it would receive a Beta minus at best. As liturgy it is a failure, and the right course of action is to admit it, and to return to the better English of the earlier version.
At last someone has taken the lead in getting this abominable translation that was inflicted upon us, replaced by the 1998 version that was approved by all the bishops conferences in the English speaking world which was suppressed by the Vatican under the old regime and contrary to the Vatican II "collegiality" of the bishops!
Throughout the last 3+ years I have continued to use the previous responses as far as possible so please let us have this awful 'transliteration' removed as soon as possible and the 1998 version promulgated.
What a lot of simpering nonsense! The 2011 translation was carried out by native English-speakers and is very little different from the English translations of the texts of Holy Mass in use at the beginning of the 1960's. What this disingenuous column is really complaining about is the fact that the responsible authorities in the Church, including the Pope, insisted that the translations be true translations of the Latin typical texts in an elevated and elevating style, not silly, mundane paraphrases in the language of 8-year-olds which were riddled with theological errors and even the occasional heresy. The ICEL members were always notorious for being heretics and fomenters of heresy, with about as much concept of truly outstanding English as a chimpanzee.
"The mistake is an expensive one, as parishes have bought Missals for ordinary worshippers and the more costly volumes for use on the altar."
This criticism is facile. Had the 1998 translation been approved, it would have been just as expensive - we would have still had to buy new Missals to replace all the old ones!
And the PDFs of the 1998 translation floating around the internet make it clear that the altar copies of the Missal would have been published in 2 volumes of about 1200 pages each, one for Sundays and feasts, and one for weekdays, which would have worked out *twice* as expensive as the 2011 translation!
Please, let's all stop pretending that the cost of replacement Missals is a reason to critique the translation now in use.
Surely, the one person who might be said to be the authority on, or indeed responsible for, the use of English-English in our Church is the Cardinal Arch Bishop of England & Wales. This should not be in the hands of a foreign cabal in Rome assisted by some English-speakers who have gone native.
The archives of Westminster Diocese have not yielded a single transmission on this subject. Having had a few years trial and seeing the headlines of today the long-suffering laity, and probably a few Bishops, would welcome good counsel and guidance.
American publication of the new Lectionary being somewhat ahead of ours has encouraged the use of American-English in some quarters. That is not conducive to meaningful prayer, I promise you.
Please, Your Eminence, take the lead.