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CURRENT ISSUE: July 3, 2006 • VOL. 44, NO. 13 • Oakland, CA
Bishops approve new translation of Mass parts
LOS ANGELES
(CNS) -- In what Bishop Donald W. Trautman called “a truly important
moment in liturgy in the United States,” the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops approved a new English translation of the Order of Mass
and adopted several U.S. adaptations during a national meeting June 15
in Los Angeles.
The new translation of the main constant parts of the Mass -- penitential
rite, Gloria, creed, Eucharistic prayers, Eucharistic acclamations, Our
Father and other prayers and responses used daily -- will likely be introduced
in about a year or two if it is approved by the Vatican, said Bishop Trautman,
a Scripture scholar who heads the Diocese of Erie, Pa., and is chairman
of the USCCB Committee on the Liturgy.
He said he thought the bishops would wait until they have approved --
and received Vatican confirmation of -- an entire new Roman Missal in
English before implementing the new Order of Mass.
The text that the bishops approved included only the main parts of the
Order of Mass, the daily prayers with which people are most familiar.
The bishops still have to receive and approve other parts of the Order
of Mass, such as the prefaces, and the major portion of the Roman Missal
comprising the proper prayers for each Sunday or feast throughout the
year. These are still in the early stages of translation and consultation
among English-speaking bishops around the world.
When the new translation of the texts the bishops adopted in Los Angeles
takes effect, with possible Vatican modifications, U.S. Catholics will
find that many of the familiar prayers and responses they have been using
at Mass for the past 35 years or so will be changed.
After approving more than 60 amendments to the universal English translation
of the Latin Order of Mass proposed by the International Commission on
English in the Liturgy, the bishops approved the revised version by a
vote of 173-29. They then approved a set of American adaptations -- alternate
prayers or ritual instructions not contained in the original Latin version
-- by a vote of 184-8.
Although only about 80 percent of the 254 Latin-rite bishops in the country
were at the Los Angeles meeting, the votes of members in attendance were
more than enough to meet the two-thirds majority (170) of all the nation’s
Latin bishops that was required to pass liturgical decisions.
Some of the changes people will see when the new version eventually takes
effect will be:
• Whenever the priest says “The Lord be with you,” the
people will respond “And with your spirit.” The current response
is “And also with you.”
• In the first form of the penitential rite, the people will confess
that “I have sinned greatly ... through my fault, through my fault,
through my most grievous fault.” In the current version, that part
of the prayer is much shorter: “I have sinned through my own fault.”
• The Nicene Creed will begin “I believe” instead of
“We believe” -- a translation of the Latin text instead of
the original Greek text.
• During the offertory prayers, the priest will pray that “the
sacrifice which is mine and yours will be acceptable” instead of
the current prayer that “our sacrifice will be acceptable.”
• Before the preface, when the priest says “Let us give thanks
to the Lord our God,” instead of saying “It is right to give
him thanks and praise,” the people will respond “It is right
and just.”
• The Sanctus will start “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God
of hosts.” The current version says “Holy, holy, holy Lord,
God of power and might.”
The bishops’ actions June 15, the first day of their three-day spring
meeting at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, capped years
of debate within the U.S. Church and other parts of the English-speaking
world over two significantly different approaches to modern-language translations
of the “Missale Romanum,” the standard Latin-language version
of the Roman Missal used throughout almost all of the Western or Latin-rite
church.
The translation version that U.S., Canadian and other English-speaking
Catholics around the world have been using since the early 1970s was based
on Vatican rules issued shortly after the Second Vatican Council that
encouraged relatively free translations emphasizing adaptation to forms
of expression in the receiving language when the grammar or syntax of
the original language is different -- what linguists call dynamic equivalence
translations.
In 2001 the Vatican issued new rules requiring liturgical translations
to follow the original Latin more strictly and completely -- a more literal
translation approach called formal equivalence -- and the resulting new
translation adheres far more closely to the normative Latin text issued
by the Vatican.
In an address to the bishops before they debated and voted on the new
text and American adaptations, Bishop Arthur Roche of Leeds, England,
president of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, argued
that the dynamic equivalence approach has come under increasing criticism
from linguists in recent years and said that the more literal translations
in many places will restore scriptural references that disappeared or
were less evident in the earlier liturgy translations into English done
in the dynamic equivalence style.
ICEL, a commission composed of representatives of 11 of the main English-speaking
bishops’ conferences in the world, oversees common English translations
of Latin liturgical texts to be presented to the bishops’ conferences
for their approval. The bishops’ conferences are free to accept
or amend the ICEL texts or to create their own translations, but whatever
text a bishops’ conference adopts, it must ultimately meet Vatican
approval before it can be issued for liturgical use in that country.
Bishop Trautman told journalists after the bishops’ vote that when
the new Mass text is eventually made official in the United States “I
believe it will affect the liturgical life of every Catholic.”
He predicted that the bishops will treat the occasion as “a major
catechetical moment” to try to educate Catholics about the changes
and to seek ways to get Catholics to understand and accept the changes
in a constructive way that helps them deepen their appreciation of the
liturgy.
