GB Nuncio to UK bishops on the new missal

Pray Tell reader Philip Endean, SJ, alerts us to the irenic words of the nuncio to Great Britain, Archbishop Antonio Mennini, in his first address to the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales:

I also think of the introduction of the new translation of the Roman Missal, which is a great opportunity to look once again, along with our priests and people, at the liturgy and to grow in our understanding as well as in the worthy celebration of the Eucharist. It is also a time for sensitivity towards those persons who are perhaps less enthusiastic about this, because we, as well as the faithful, do not always find change easy.

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28 responses to “GB Nuncio to UK bishops on the new missal”

  1. Joe O’Leary

    The Nuncio repeats the dishonest meme that the opposition to the new translations comes from people who do not find change easy.

    Reply
    1. Samuel J. Howard

      Certainly that’s some of the opposition.

      Reply
      1. Joe O’Leary

        Not at all — you won’t find it represented here, for example, where we constantly say that the 1998 translations would have been greeted with joy.

  2. Paul Inwood

    This Nuncio seems to be a good man, and perhaps is voicing an opinion that has been provided for him.

    Reply
  3. Grace Marcello

    Mary Quinn
    It has absolutely nothing to do with peole finding change difficult. It has everything to do with the fact that the “New Translation” does not reflect the way we speak and think in English speaking countries.Jesus will not come under my roof, he will be placed by me in my mouth. I did an adult education eevening in our parish and people were saying in this country” spirit” is not used very often in reference to the Holy Spirit and it certainly never sets people apart. The bishops need to listen to the people.

    Reply
    1. Samuel J. Howard

      It has absolutely nothing to do with peole finding change difficult. It has everything to do with the fact that the “New Translation” does not reflect the way we speak and think in English speaking countries. Jesus will not come under my roof, he will be placed by me in my mouth. … The bishops need to listen to the people.

      Shouldn’t there also be some degree of conforming ourselves to the liturgy’s way of speaking and thinking?

      (Yes, yes, I get it that there are other issues with the new translation, but the kind of issue being cited here, refusal to entertain a metaphor somehow alien to one’s own experience is a pretty plain example not of mistranslation, but resistance to the unfamiliar that has been in the Latin all along.)

      Reply
    2. Brigid Rauch

      A friend entrusted with introducing the new translation to a group of adults reported a very similar experience – people wanted to know why they weren’t involved in any discussion of a new translation.

      Reply
  4. Philip Endean SJ

    Maybe I am being naive–but it seems to me the lack of any real commendation of the translation as such, and the focus on the fact that there are difficulties, represents some progress.

    Reply
  5. Stephen Manning

    I occasionally read through this blog and comments, as a curious “alumnus” of and now outsider to the liturgical culture wars. Does that make me a lurker? Oh, well.

    I have to say that sometimes the level of pique I detect here is no better than Novus Motus Liturgicus on a bad day. Really, if “come under my roof” is a minimally “eucharistized” version of the Centurion’s response to Jesus “coming under his roof”, why is it such a tragedy to translate it so that the connection to the Bible is clear? Are people unable to detect a metaphor? If so, the entire Eucharist must be a blur.

    And a general comment: it seems to me that one of the common values of the renewed liturgy folks has been a high doctrine of the laity, and in the US, an assumption that they are smart enough and educated enough to be treated like adults rather than children. But some of the same lay-power advocates seem to think that the words “consubstantial” and “incarnate” will bring these otherwise high-functioning adults to a drop-jawed cognitive standstill. Hey, they learned to say “eucharist” instead of “Mass”. They’ll cope.

    Reply
    1. Bill deHaas

      You are correct and appreciate your emotion. OTOH, most of the detailed documentation on this blog and even most of the comments have more to do with the PROCESS; with the RULES – LA, RT; with the inconsistencies; some indirect theological confusion, etc.

      But your caution is well said.

      Reply
    2. Joe O’Leary

      This is the meme that was used so relentlessly against Bp Trautman, “he things we are dumb!”. You know better, just as the nuncio does.

      Reply
      1. Fritz Bauerschmidt

        Joe, I’m afraid that Bp. Trautman brought that meme upon himself, with his remarks about “Joe and Mary Catholic” not being able to grasp the vocabulary of the new translation. I would wince every time he trotted out this point.

        His cause would have been much better served if he had simply attacked the poor literary quality of much of the new translation — i.e. that it is often ugly and stilted and unworthy of use in the worship of God.

        And, of course, it has only gotten worse since the bishops passed it in 2008.

  6. Sandi Brough

    Yet another abusive, dissembling male hierarch with absolutely no connection to the sensum fidelium. When will we work up the Christian courage to tell these sad old men (cue Donald Trump) “Yer fired!”?

    Reply
    1. Mary Wood

      Sandi, In the Catholic Church it’s usually the layfolk who are fired. Sadly, rarely are we sufficiently “Fired up” to make an impact.

      Language has resonances. The problem is not just slavish literalism or ungainly obfuscation: lifelong Catholics aged about 70 often have some very distressing memories of their childhood church practice. To learn that they are to re-member “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault” is causing some of us anger, anguish and dark memories of the pseudo-guilt that prevailed.

      Reply
      1. Joe O’Leary

        I find myself unable to grovel with this triple “through my fault” — you are right, it brings back the masochistic world of 50 years ago. If the faithful take this to heart, so that at every Mass they go into dolorous mode, ardently recitint their mea culpas, I will feel sick! But it can be sidelined still, I hope, by replacing the Confiteor with the other forms.

    2. Samuel J. Howard

      I find myself unable to grovel with this triple “through my fault” — you are right, it brings back the masochistic world of 50 years ago.

      But that’s the current Latin text. If you have a problem with this, you’re not having a problem with the translation…

      Reply
      1. Joe O’Leary

        “mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa” sounds harmless in liturgical Latin, which is fond of repetition. In English is sounds groveling.

      2. Mark John

        If there is anyone before whom I ought to grovel, it is before the Lord, as I repent of my sins. And yet before him, who loves me, and exalts me when I humble myself, it never really becomes grovelling.

        Seen from the perspective of the one who knows he is loved by the Lord – and we don’t have a shortage of preaching of the love of God – I don’t see how the text could appear to be grovelling. Rather, for me it seems more likely to emphasize the seriousness of sin, without which we cannot understand the love of God maturely.

  7. John Quinn

    How useful IS the current Latin text?

    Reply
  8. Joe O’Leary

    The current Latin text should only have been a sort of elementary benchmark. A vibrant Church would produce many more texts, more usefully reflecting the variety of cultural contexts in which Eucharist is celebrated. Liturgical myopia is one of the most devasting illnesses in our suicidal church.

    Reply
  9. Joe O’Leary

    Anyway, the triple form of mea culpa only entered the Mass in 1570 — like the Domine non sum dignus, it is a devotional accretion. To transfer it into English is to saddle the faithful with a very stale and dated locution, not at all reflection current understanding of sin etc.

    Reply
    1. Mark John

      Out of curiosity, not aggression, I have to ask: “…current understanding of sin” … What would that be?

      Reply
  10. Joe O’Leary

    Sean Fagan has a book called “Has Sin Changed?” I think the social dimension of sin would be something that differentiates post Vatican II Catholicism from the narrow individualism of before. Current understanding of forgiveness, grace, has similar inflections.

    Reply
    1. Mark John

      The social dimension of sin – as in formal and material cooperation in sin; or the analogy by which we refer to “sinful” social structures (systems and structures that reflect the sins of individuals and groups) – still leaves the individual nature of sin intact. I wonder whether we can’t simply have it both ways. In other words, could a focus on the individual in a liturgical prayer really eclipse the social aspect, after the social aspect has already become a part of our way of thinking the way it has? We do pray the prayer together, after all… Or am I off base?

      Reply
      1. Joe O’Leary

        The opening penitential rite suffers from a kind of empty formalism (“You were sent to heal the contrite. Lord have mercy”) and tinkering with the translation of the Confiteor does not do anything to help. Why not create new prayers that reflect a contemporary sense of sin? I remember a beautiful evening prayer of Les petits freres des pauvres which begin “Avons-nous vecu, Seigneur, cette journee selon Toi, Avons nous ete patients, humbles, aimants, Avons-nous ete des freres pour nos freres…?” Imagination is lacking and lazy lip service is prevailing, hence our litrgy drifts along inertly.

  11. Tom Poelker

    Only comments with a full name will be approved.

    Mark John :

    If there is anyone before whom I ought to grovel, it is before the Lord, as I repent of my sins. And yet before him, who loves me, and exalts me when I humble myself, it never really becomes grovelling.
    Seen from the perspective of the one who knows he is loved by the Lord – and we don’t have a shortage of preaching of the love of God – I don’t see how the text could appear to be grovelling. Rather, for me it seems more likely to emphasize the seriousness of sin, without which we cannot understand the love of God maturely.

    Can you cite any contemporary English writer not deliberately imitating old ecclesiastical styles who use phrases similar to “my fault, my fault, my most grievous fault”?

    Reply
    1. Mark John

      No, I cannot. But we’re talking about the liturgy here! Is it supposed to be a reflection of what contemporary writers are saying? I agree with those who argue that the liturgy ought to be something that is not subject to frequent, non-incremental changes like that. Let our personal piety change more freely with the age, but let our liturgy be an anchor.

      Reply
  12. Mark Hornbacher

    Joe O’Leary :

    The opening penitential rite suffers from a kind of empty formalism (”You were sent to heal the contrite. Lord have mercy”) and tinkering with the translation of the Confiteor does not do anything to help. Why not create new prayers that reflect a contemporary sense of sin? I remember a beautiful evening prayer of Les petits freres des pauvres which begin “Avons-nous vecu, Seigneur, cette journee selon Toi, Avons nous ete patients, humbles, aimants, Avons-nous ete des freres pour nos freres…?” Imagination is lacking and lazy lip service is prevailing, hence our litrgy drifts along inertly.

    I think I agree about the formalism you detect in the “You are sent to heal the contrite…”.
    But it is enough, I think, that the liturgy be compatible with a contemporary sense of sin (so long as that contemporary sense of sin is already compatible with the biblical/traditional sense of sin). Otherwise we will find it necessary to change our prayers every generation of two. It won’t be the anchor we need it to be, then.

    -Mark John
    I just realized you want full names on this site, so I put in my last name

    Reply

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