Changes to English Missal well underway

If you attend Roman Catholic Mass regularly, you probably know what to say and how to respond to the priest by heart. Well, get ready to do some homework, because pretty soon youll have to start learning the new English missal.

Cardinal George Pell is on the committee responsible for the changes in the English Missal. He explains that the liturgical texts in English are more of an interpretation rather than a true translation.

Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney (Australia)
The main goal of the translations is to get them accurate, faithful to the Latin. But also beautiful, strong and compelling English. And that means a lot of hard work.

The transition to the new English Missal may prove difficult because the current one has been in place for thirty years.

Father Randifer Boquiren
Professor, Pontifical University of the Holy Cross (Rome)
There are changes which are less important, more secondary, and there are changes which are probably more substantial.

Father Randifer Boquiren is a professor of liturgical theology in Rome. He says that the English speaking world will soon see changes in the textual part of the way people celebrate Mass because the Church wants the missal to stay true to the original Latin text.

Father Randifer Boquiren
Professor, University of the Holy Cross (Rome)
For example, the first change that the Faithful will encounter is when the priest says the Lord be with you and the faithful will have to respond not and also with you but will say and with your spirit.

Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney (Australia)
And with you was a mistranslation. It was an abbreviation. It wasnt an accurate translation. The Latin is et com spiritum tuo, and with your spirit.

Its estimated that the new missal be in full use in about two years time. Cardinal Pell and others in the Church say that ultimately it will be up to the individual parishes and clergy to help churchgoers adapt to the new text of the Mass. RS

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• romereports
• ROME
• REPORTS
• Pope
• Benedict
• XVI
• Ratzinger
• Church
• Vatican
• Basilica
• Religion
• Catholic
• Italy
• St
• Peters
• Papal
• God
• English
• Missal

[Pookatube]

Epic Fail!

[kiddtut]

I was an alter boy back in the days when the Mass was said in Latin, I believe it should have stayed that way to this day.......

[nojoso]

@pfpnewhope You sound like an Orthodox Christian :D

[TenderTrap86]

@pfpnewhope If the change is about power, then why are only English speaking parishes being affected? If somebody says "Catholic country", the nations that immediately pop into your head are Britain, America and Australia?

[TheLancashireladdy]

Will someone, preferably a cleric, give a straight answer to this question? When it was decided at Vatican 2 to introduce the vernacular, why didn't they simply use the translation which already existed in the (Latin) Roman Missal?

[pfpnewhope]

Someone noted that "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church" referred to everyone doing things the same way. That's absurd. Unity does not mean lock step conformity. That was the experience of the church before the counter-reformation and one of the goals of the Second Vatican Council. This change is about power...pure and simple. Otherwise we'd be trying to be more faithful to the original GREEK sources. This is about Rome pissing all over local churches to mark them as their own.

[Portoinfinitivo]

@pfpnewhope Why? Because, as you say in the Creed, you believe in ONE Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church: Credo...UNAM, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam Ecclésiam. It makes sense: otherwise what we proclaim belief in would vary, depending on the language, while the Church ought to be universal.

[pfpnewhope]

And WHY is it so imortant to be literally faithful to the Latin? The translators in the 60's, 70's and 80's were charged to create DYNAMIC translations that would inculturate the language of the liturgy. That principle has been reversed and so it was not an error but a change in direction...a restatement of the centralized authority of Rome and a move away from incultruation.

[LTPaiulellA]

@holyness2 Excellent question. We have some lovely arrangments by composers such as Paul Inwood. I hope that he and others like him will come up with new pieces of work that incorporate the new wording.

[LTPaiulellA]

This latest revision drives a coach and horses through the guidlines contained in Liturgiam Authenticam, the 2000 document of the Holy See on how to translate liturgical prayers into the vernacular, Secondly, many of the changes are simply not correct English.