Under Benedict XVI, the outlook for liturgical conservatives in the Church looked more promising than ever. Two of Benedict’s most significant documents – Summorum Pontificum and Sacramentum Caritatis – sought to renew the liturgical life of the Church in different ways. Reverence in the liturgy, it seemed, was making a comeback, and the “reform of the reform” – the curbing of post-Vatican II excesses – appeared to be advancing.
But for the last four years Pope Francis has not made liturgy a priority and the little he has said has not been terribly reassuring for “reform of the reform” supporters. He recently asked young people who are devoted to the Latin Mass: “Why so much rigidity?” This prompted outrage and upset among some priests and laypeople.
Unsurprisingly then the recent news that the Pope has established a commission to review Liturgiam Authenticam – the 2001 Vatican decree outlining the principles on which vernacular Mass texts should be drafted – has been greeted with unease in some quarters.
The 2001 decree, which ultimately led to the new English translation of the Mass adopted in 2011, mandated that Mass texts be more faithful to the original Latin. It sought to make the liturgy not only more dignified and reverent but also more theologically accurate. The fear is that the review may lead to a reversal of this approach, returning the language to a more “everyday” vernacular that loses the precision of the Latin.
The traditionally minded have raised a number of concerns about the prospect of revising Liturgiam Authenticam. In a blog post, Fr John Zuhlsdorf said: “What I think might happen is that they will make various translations ‘options’ which priests can choose from. That is, after all, what the Novus Ordo is: a rite filled with lots of options. In any event, if they go down this road, and right now I don’t see anything preventing it, I think it might get pretty ugly.”
Does this mean there is a possibility that some parishes will revert to the old Missal translation?
This would prove an unwelcome development for priests such as Fr Leo Chamberlain, former headmaster of Ampleforth College. “We bore with the previous wretchedly inadequate translation for a lot too long,” he said, adding: “It has been disappointing to hear well-informed people defend the old translation. The theory on which it was made, dynamic equivalence, was abandoned by its progenitor. For example, it led to a Gloria which simply did not give the full text – presumably on grounds of avoiding repetition.”
Are fears about the consequences of revising Liturgiam Authenticam overblown? Fr Hugh Somerville-Knapman has a suspicion that the development is “less about liturgy and more about bishops’ conferences”. namely giving local bishops more of a say in the text’s translation.
According to America magazine, the new commission will examine “what level of decentralisation is desirable” within the Church on matters of liturgy. This process could lead to different English-speaking countries using distinctive texts, which is already the case in the Spanish-speaking world.
That could mean “partly unravelling the legacy of Pope Benedict, perhaps as collateral damage more than directly intended,” explains Fr Somerville-Knapman. “Symbolically it could well return us to the days of paraphrases rather than substantive translations, undermining the unity in worship of Latin Rite Catholics and reintroducing the spectre of politically influenced translations rather than upholding a perennial liturgical spirituality.”
But the Vatican cannot realistically survey what is being said at every Mass in every parish across the world. Mgr Bruce Harbert, former executive director of the International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), puts it like this: “There are so many languages in which Mass is celebrated that, if the Holy See wished to maintain close surveillance of them all, a skyscraper would have to be built to accommodate the necessary staff. Moreover, a printed Missal is only a guide to what is actually said at Mass: everybody changes the words, consciously or unconsciously.”
Whatever results from the Pope’s new commission, it is unlikely to affect English-speaking Catholics in the near future given that the new translation of the Mass took almost 10 years to prepare. Those anxious about the changes can comfort themselves that liturgical reform is generally worked out over decades rather than years.
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