They\u2019ve made it worse, said my 11-year-old, of the new translation of the Mass when we left church on Sunday. The Vatican will doubtless be unimpressed by the verdict of a child. But it is instructive, for the Eucharist is there for the theologically unformed as much, if not more, than for the obscurantist powerbrokers of the Curia.<\/p>\n
The new translation set out to deepen understanding of the liturgy and elevate its tone. The demotic trendiness of the Sixties had rendered the language of the Mass banal, uninspiring and lacking dignity, the argument went.<\/p>\n
Undoubtedly some bits of the new version are better. Flow has been restored to the language of Collects previously filled with snappy short sentences. \u201cFrom east to west\u201d lacks the poetry of the new \u201cfrom the rising of the sun to its setting\u201d. Behold is better than \u201cthis is\u201d. The language of the living room is not always apt for exalted subjects. The Book of Common Prayer shows that.<\/p>\n
But other parts are clumsy, wooden, sexist and archaic \u2013 in a rather arch cod-Hollywood way. The \u201ccup\u201d elevated by the carpenter from Nazareth has been gilded into a \u201cchalice\u201d.\u00a0 The simple eloquence of \u201cI am not worthy to receive you, but only say the Word and I shall be healed\u201d has been replaced with a clunky reference to the centurion\u2019s phrase \u201cunder my roof\u201d which used to make us think of hosts cleaving to the top of our mouths as schoolboys.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne with the Father\u201d has been replaced with \u201cconsubstantial\u201d which enthusiasts justify by insisting it offers clarity to any would-be Arians (not many of those in my parish). If they wanted to be really clear on that – or aimed to up the hocus-pocus factor – they should have gone back to the original Greek h<\/em>omoousios. <\/em>But \u201cone with\u201d did perfectly well for my 11-year-old.<\/p>\n There is much talk of echoing the original Latin. Original? So far as we know Jesus never spoke a word of Latin. His tongue was Aramaic. The Old Testament is in Hebrew, and the new in Greek. The much-vaunted Tridentine Latin Mass came only after the Reformation.<\/p>\n But there are more problems than mere style. In the Creed \u201cwe believe\u201d has been replaced by \u201cI believe\u201d which summons up a fractured Post-Enlightenment individualism which Pope Benedict elsewhere reminds us is a key problem in modern secular relativism. At the consecration Christ\u2019s blood is no longer shed \u201cfor all\u201d but \u201cfor many\u201d. Christ died for all, but not everyone chooses to be saved, is the theological gloss. But the semiotics suggest exclusivity.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd also with you\u201d has reverted to the transliteration from the original Latin \u201cand with your spirit\u201d. Cynics have suggested this is because, in a Church so dogged with sex scandals, separating a cleric\u2019s bodily and spiritual functions may rebuff tarnished reputations. It certainly separates priest from the people and elevates ordination above baptism. So does the priest saying \u201cmy sacrifice and yours\u201d where previously he said \u201cour\u201d.<\/p>\n Apologists talk of recapturing the mysterium tremendum. <\/em>But it also reasserts the authoritarian clericalism which was the cause of so many of the old problems. The behind the scenes power-plays during the translation process only underscore the idea that Pope Benedict is intent on rowing back on the Second Vatican Council\u2019s vision of a collegial Church \u2013 and of a liturgy in which the people fully participate.<\/p>\n There was no sermon on Sunday, only a letter from the bishop announcing the restoration of the ban on eating meat on Fridays as a \u201cweekly witness to our Catholic life and identity\u201d.\u00a0 It all smacks of the identity politics of tribalism, greater exclusivity and the preference of a smaller purer holy remnant of a church which once looked out to universality. They have made it worse. They have indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" They\u2019ve made it worse, said my 11-year-old, of the new translation of the Mass when we left church on Sunday. The Vatican will doubtless be unimpressed by the verdict of a child. But it is instructive, for the Eucharist is there for the theologically unformed as much, if not more, than for the obscurantist powerbrokers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,41],"tags":[708,66,719],"class_list":["post-4324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholic-church","category-religion","tag-catholic-church","tag-god","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4324"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8030,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4324\/revisions\/8030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}