A REVIEW of the new English translation of the Roman Missal is on the cards as disquiet grows about the quality of the Mass texts.
Fr Patrick Jones, who has just completed 21 years as executive secretary of the Irish bishops’ council for liturgy and director of the National Centre for Liturgy in Ireland, said that a review of the texts has been promised and talked of a “disturbing quietness” of congregations faced with the new responses and other parts of the Mass.
“A review is promised, though the mechanism of such a review is not known. However, such a review is necessary if we are to listen to what is being said and what is happening, the scholarly and pastoral criticism of the translation and the instruction on translation but also including its non-acceptance by some,” he wrote in New Liturgy, the bulletin for the National Secretariat for Liturgy.
It is not clear whether the review will take place across the English-speaking world but The Tablet understands that the measure has been discussed in the liturgy agencies of different English-speaking bishops’ conferences.
The new translation was introduced on the first Sunday of Advent in 2011. Critics of the texts say the translation contains awkward phrases, is too Latinate and was introduced in a top-down manner by the Roman Curia.
In England, the group A Call to Action (Acta) wrote last month to the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales saying that dissatisfaction over the new Missal continues to surface at meetings of its 1,500 members. It says that a perfectly good translation of the Mass was produced in 1998 but was suppressed by Rome.
Acta’s letter calls on the bishops’ conference to consider adopting the 1998 translation for use in England and Wales. It points to the German bishops who are delaying the implementation of their new translation due to opposition from Austria and Switzerland.
“The Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales recently showed strong leadership and confidence in the people, when it promulgated the synodal questionnaire on family life so widely and so fast … Please may we ask, therefore, that the Mass translation should be back on the agenda?” the letter says.
It adds that action by the bishops would be in keeping with Pope Francis’ views on collegiality and subsidiarity where bishops govern the Church with the Pope and local churches are given considerable autonomy.
The new translation was accepted by English-speaking bishops’ conferences across the world. The work of the translation of the Mass was done by the International Commission for English in the Liturgy (Icel), which is made up of English-speaking bishops from across the world. But in 2001 its work was put under the supervision of the Vatican’s Vox Clara commission to ensure it followed new translation guidelines.
Fr Jones said that during his time in office the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship – of which Vox Clara is a part – was very dissatisfied with the structures and work of Icel.
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