A 72-year-old priest of the Diocese of Belleville has resigned rather than accede to his bishops instruction that he cease from improvising prayers at Mass. It sounds as if this was an ongoing issue stretching back a number of years, but the stakes seem to have been raised with the new translation.

I suspect, however, that other issues were involved. Also, the article is not entirely clear, but it seems as if it is the priest himself who initiated the idea of his resigning, not the bishop.

I’m wondering: have people experienced less improvisation on the part of celebrants since the introduction of the new translation? This has certainly been my experience.

[Addendum: The is an article at BND.com that gives some more of the story. It is still unclear to me whether or not the bishop asked for the resignation.]

Here is the handout to help you follow along.

All the hype that preceded the inaugural use of this new translation, and all the explanations that were written to justify it and to “explain” how much better it was going to be than the one currently in use were plainly just not true.

I am now 76 years old. I have served the church as a priest for the last 40 of those years. I don’t think I will live long enough for anyone to convince me that the new translation is so much better, so much more spiritual, so much more pleasing to God, and will make me a so much more holy person to say, as we are now required to say at the beginning of the Second Eucharistic Prayer: “You are indeed Holy, Oh Lord, the fount of all holiness” than to say, as we used to say: “Oh Lord, you are holy indeed, the fountain of all holiness.”

You can read the whole thing here.

The book has an entire chapter on translation, focused primarily on scripture. Lewis shows that many of the issues we are debating on Pray Tell were alive in the sixteenth century.

I have quoted Lewis at some length in what follows. First, though, we need his explanation for his use of ‘papist’ and ‘popish’:

I ask my readers to believe that I have at least intended to be impartial. Unfortunately the very names we have to use in describing this controversy are themselves controversial. To call the one party Catholics implicitly grants their claim; to call them Roman Catholics implicitly denies it. I shall therefore call them Papists: the word I believe, is not now used dyslogistically except in Ulster, and it is certainly not so intended here. … ‘Reformation’ is a term equally ambiguous. Reform of the Church, in some sense or other was desired by innumerable laymen and many clergy of all parties. The controversy was fought about ‘Reformation’ in a different almost a technical sense: about certain changes in doctrine and order. To call these changes ‘reformation’ again begs the question: but the word is now so deeply entrenched in historical usage that I shall continue to employ it – as a mere label, intending no petitio. (157)

Do you believe his claim to impartiality? I don’t, in part because Lewis himself was born and raised in Belfast, and also because many of his other writings display a strong anti-Catholic tendency. But that is his explanation for his terms.

Here is Lewis’s discussion about William Tyndale’s choices of words in translating scripture:

Ever since his own day Tyndale’s translation has been blamed for being tendentious. If we are thinking of his violent marginal glosses, this is fair enough; if of his peculiar renderings (congregation for ἐκκλησία, senior or elder for πρεσβύτερος, favour for χάρις, and the like), a little explanation seems to be needed. The business of a translator is to write down what he thinks the original meant. And Tyndale sincerely believed that the mighty theocracy with its cardinals, abbeys, pardons, inquisition, and treasury of grace which the word church would undoubtedly have suggested to his readers was in its very essence not only distinct from, but antagonistic to, the thing that St. Paul had in mind, whenever he used the word ἐκκλησία. You may of course disagree with his premiss: but his conclusion (that church is a false rendering of ἐκκλησία) follows from it of necessity. Thomas More, on the other hand, believed with equal sincerity that the Church of his own day was in essence the very same mystical body which St. Paul addressed; from his premiss it followed of course that church was the only correct translation.

Both renderings are equally tendentious in the sense that each presupposes a belief. In that sense all translations of scripture are tendentious: translation, by its very nature, is a continuous implicit commentary. It can become less tendentious only by becoming less of a translation. Hence when Bishop Gardiner in the Convocation of 1542 tried to stem the tide of Protestant translation he found himself driven by the logic of his position to demand that in all future versions nearly a hundred Latin words (his list included Ecclesia, Penitentia, Pontifex, Sacramentum, and Gratia) should be left Latin or only morphologically ‘Englished’. This is not popish dishonesty, and Tyndale’s renderings are not Protestant dishonesty: both follow from the nature of translation. It need hardly be added that the merely aesthetic or emotional grounds on which some moderns would prefer church to congregation would have disgusted More and Tyndale alike by their frivolity; souls were at stake. (206-207)

And here is his discussion of the Douay-Rheims translation. As you will see, Liturgiam Authenticam is hardly new.

There remains the Roman tradition, represented within our century by one work, the New Testament printed by Fogny in 1582 and translated at the English College of Douay (temporarily housed at Rheims from which this version derives its name). The work was directed by Cardinal Allen and assisted by Richard Bristow; the actual translator was Gregory Martin, (212) Lecturer in Hebrew, and sometime a scholar of St. John’s, Oxford. The Council of Trent in 1546 had pronounced the Vulgate to be the only authentic Latin version and Martin worked from it, not from the original. This, however, does not by any means remove his work from serious consideration; he had the Greek also before him, he used Geneva, and was himself used by the Authorized Version. The principles on which he proceeded are set out in the preface to the Rheims Testament: ‘We presume not in hard places to mollifie the speches or phrases, but religiously kepe them word for word and point for point, for fear of missing or restraining the sense of the holy Ghost to our phantasie’. The results of this principle led to the Protestant criticism that Papists, when at last forced to translate the scriptures, took good care to make their translation unintelligible. It was an irresistible debating point, but it misses the real problem. All parties were agreed that the Bible was the oracles of God. But if so, are we entitled to worry out the sense of apparently meaningless passages as we would do in translating Thucydides? The real sense may be beyond our mortal capacity. Any concession to what we think the human author must have meant ‘may be restraining the Holy Ghost to our phantasie’. If this line of thought is followed far enough we shall be forced to abandon the design of writing down what (we think) the sacred text means, and merely write down the English of what it actually says, whether this makes sense or no. Translators who are agreed on the oracular character of the original are thus faced with a dilemma. If you follow the one alternative you may arrive at nominal translations of scripture’ in which the originals are made to mean anything that the translator and his sect happen to believe. If you follow the other you may arrive at the idea of a magical text (like the hymn of the Salii) whose virtues are quite independent of meaning – at devotions to ‘the blessed word Mesopotamia’. Fortunately none of our translators is at either extreme; but Tyndale is nearer to the first and Rheims to the second. This does not mean that Tyndale is dishonestly periphrastic or Rheims nonsensical: both are honest and skilful attempts to solve the problem. Thus Rheims leaves many words as near the Latin as it can, writing veritie instead of ‘truth’, benignity instead of ‘kindness’, justice instead of ‘righteousness’ (which is misleading) and longanimity instead of ‘patience’ (which can be very strongly defended). (211)

Perhaps there truly is nothing new under the sun. We Catholics have been translating Latin into cod-English since the 16th century – ‘longanimity’, indeed.

Lewis’s comments on translation seem entirely right to me: ‘The business of a translator is to write down what he thinks the original meant. … all translations of scripture are tendentious: translation, by its very nature, is a continuous implicit commentary.’

And he makes a nice distinction between what the text says and what it means, a distinction some bloggers would do well to ponder: ‘we shall be forced to abandon the design of writing down what (we think) the sacred text means, and merely write down the English of what it actually says, whether this makes sense or no.’

Jonathan Day is a consultant and writer; he is also a member of the parish council of the Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception (Farm Street) in central London.

Pray Tell has a couple articles on ecumenism to share. Here is the first, an incisive reflection on recent backward moves in liturgy and ecumenism by Max Johnson:

“Ecumenism and the Study of Liturgy: What Shall We Do Now?”

(Liturgical Ministry 20, Winter 2011, 13–21. Reprinted with permission.)

More specifically, there seems to be no consensus as to where the pauses go in the first line. What seems to happen is that people say it rather tentatively, trying to follow the lead of the celebrant, who doesn’t seem to have a very clear idea himself of where he is going to pause. This doesn’t seem to happen when the Sanctus is sung, since the music provides guidance.

I have heard at least three different different variations and have pondered where they find their source.

1. Perhaps influenced by the former translation:

Holy, / Holy, / Holy Lord / God of hosts.

2. Perhaps influence by the Missal chant or by strict reading of the punctuation:

Holy, / Holy, / Holy Lord God of hosts.

3. Perhaps influenced by. . . who knows? Maybe the hymn Holy, Holy , Holy:

Holy, / Holy, / Holy / Lord God of hosts.

#2 has the advantage of following the punctuation and the chant, though “Holy Lord God of hosts” seems like a lot to say without a pause. For some reason #3 seems to make more sense rhythmically. I don’t think #1 has much to commend it and I suspect it is the result of people getting halfway through the first line before they remember that we have a new translation.

What have other people heard? What do other people prefer?

The German-speaking bishops overwhelmingly voted to retain “für alle,” and in fact to retain their current Order of Mass translation because it is sufficiently faithful to the Latin. But at special request of the Congregation for Divine Worship, pro multis will be rendered “für viele” (“for many”).

The Italian bishops voted overwhelmingly to retain “per tutti,” and a representative of the conference reported this in person to Pope Benedict. His response was that his opinion on the matter is well-known, but if that is the consensus of the bishops’ conference, it will have to be respected. I’m not sure this story has reached its end, though.

Meanwhile, Pray Tell is seeking to confirm reports that Bishop Olmsted of Phoenix will be heading up Vox Clara, in the position held until now by Cardinal Pell.

I can’t tell whether the new translation first struck him at Christmas Mass (the fifth Sunday of its use) so I’m not assuming that’s the case.

More importantly, I can’t tell whether DeGraff’s views are mostly just his, or his is a representative voice-from-the pews. No doubt we’ll gradually find out in coming months.

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Many of us have been highly critical in recent months both of the process of preparation of the new texts and of the outcome from those deliberations that has brought us to this point; I include myself in that group. After our experience in England over recent months since September I do not find myself wavering in that critical opinion.

The translation of an ancient vernacular, Latin, into 20th century English, may have had its problems after the Second Vatican Council but for many of us it became the familiar and acceptable norm. The contrast between the two languages was significant and clear cut then. Now that we have recently moved to a new translation that is within the same linguistic context as that of the last forty years, but varies in detail to match strict translation criteria from the Latin, imposed by Rome, is it no wonder that we are critical of the result. People pray within the language and culture of their time rather than in the holy comfort zone of words that had meaning many centuries ago. Language is a dynamic, lived experience. Scattering the text with which we pray the Eucharist with “graciously,” “chalice,” and a literal translation of the story of the centurion’s servant, to take but a few examples, does not help us.

However we must be realistic.  This is where we are, the new translation is in use; now how do we manage?

We can take the short view that all is lost and walk away, grumbling – but to what end? And where do we go ? Our home is the Church, our parish families come together each week for the Eucharist; splintering that community achieves little other than upset and confusion.

We can stay and silently pray while around us unfamiliar words from both celebrant and people sound somewhat strange and we try to remember in our personal quiet spaces the words and phrases that have been familiar to us over years of Eucharistic prayer. That attitude, in itself, is fragmentary. Yet it is one that I find myself slipping into since we first started using the new translation this past September.

Or we can take a third option, that of expectation and hope. The words of Jesus as he approached his disciples by the lake “It is I, do not be afraid” (John 6:21) should speak to all of us when we are in circumstances of fear or distress. Just now, we are in such a time.

I have recently finished Robert Nugent’s book, Silence Speaks (Paulist Press, 2012) in which he outlines the positions of Teilhard de Chardin, Yves Congar, John Courtney Murray and Thomas Merton in respect to church authority. Their experience is salutary.

Although they dealing with different issues, the vexed question of censorship, there is a lesson that we can learn from the experience of these men. To have an opinion is important, to pursue the argument in support of that opinion is valid, to act in conscience is essential. But it is also necessary carefully to choose language that helps rather than hinders and to be patient for the right time in which to make pertinent comment. Raising the temperature by intemperate words helps no one.  In the present circumstance it will only serve to impede our experience of eucharistic praying.

Maybe in the coming months, our people will be heard by the bishops and revision of the texts will be considered. It would seem that the positive option would be for individuals and groups to write to their bishop, asking for appreciation and understanding of our difficulties. The hierarchies have been singularly silent in acknowledgement of honestly-held disagreements with the new translation. But then their own position has been undermined by Rome, collegiality has been over-ridden and local needs ignored.

It would be a significant sign of recognition if the bishop were to ask his priests and people for their views in the coming months. Listening is a sure sign of wise leadership just as much as the many pronouncements that we are used to hearing.  Is it little wonder that we have problems with the results?

Above all, we must support each other and appreciate views that differ from our own.   Some of the more hysterical comments that have appeared on the blogosphere in recent weeks do not sit comfortably with a pilgrim church seeking to meet the current missionary purpose of the people.

The discussion is about sincerely-held views on language and a recognition that English across our planet in not one universal language, but one that has tones and nuances. The episcopal conferences have been sidelined by the imposition of a translation that seeks to meet all needs, but doesn’t in fact do so. Local concern of bishops for their local church has been supplanted by a centralized statement from Rome that all must accept.

Henri Nouwen often writes of the contrast between fear and love. In his book Lifesigns (1986; page 21) he says “… the house of love is the house of Christ, the place where we can think, speak and act in the way of God-not in the way of a fear-filled world. From this house the voice of love keeps calling out: “Do not be afraid…come and follow me…see where I live…go out and preach the good news…”

Thomas Merton concludes his journal Woods, Shore, Desert (Museum of New Mexico Press, 1982) with the phrase “Hang on to the clear light.”

We could do well to remember both Nouwen and Merton as we struggle together in a difficult place.

Chris McDonnell is a retired schools head teacher living in the Midlands of England. This article is reprinted with permission from the January/February 2012 issue of  SPIRITUALITY (Dublin).