{"id":14009,"date":"2012-04-10T17:46:55","date_gmt":"2012-04-10T23:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=14009"},"modified":"2012-04-10T17:46:55","modified_gmt":"2012-04-10T23:46:55","slug":"i-know-something-about-liturgical-authenticity-it-doesnt-exist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2012\/04\/10\/i-know-something-about-liturgical-authenticity-it-doesnt-exist\/","title":{"rendered":"I know something about liturgical authenticity. It doesn\u2019t exist."},"content":{"rendered":"

Lawrence Hoffman is a rabbi, academic, popular writer and blogger. He is Professor of Liturgy, Worship and Ritual at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, in New York; he was formerly director of the College\u2019s School of Sacred Music. He writes an interesting blog<\/a> called \u2018Life and a Little Liturgy\u2019. Liturgy, he says, \u2018is the place where text meets life. Everyone has a liturgy, usually more than one, in fact.\u2019<\/p>\n

About a year ago, Rabbi Hoffman commented on the new translation of the Mass in a blog post called post called The Catholic Liturgical Controversy and Why We All Have A Stake In It<\/a>. For some reason, his post didn\u2019t surface in the usual Catholic blogs — including this one, as far as I can tell.<\/p>\n

It is nonetheless well worth reading. Here are some excerpts.<\/p>\n

Advocates of change think the liturgy of the past forty or so years has twisted church doctrine and liberalized Catholic thinking to the point of encouraging moral laxity. The new texts are supposed to produce what the Vatican has labelled liturgiam authenticam<\/em>, a liturgy that is \u201cauthentic.\u201d<\/p>\n

As an outsider, I have no legitimate standing in this internal debate. But as a liturgist, I know something about liturgical authenticity. It doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n

We legitimately call a suspected Rembrandt or Ming vase \u201cauthentic\u201d because we can compare them to a set of unarguably authentic specimens (the corpus of Rembrandt paintings or collections of undisputed Ming vases). When it comes to liturgical translations, however, there are no originals to point to. Nor can you point to the Latin, since it is precisely the meaning of the Latin that is at issue. The same is true of theology: what counts as authentic belief is what the argument is all about to start with.<\/p>\n

Conservatives frequently use the word \u201cauthentic\u201d to chide liberals for playing fast and free with \u201cthe real thing.\u201d Using \u201cauthentic\u201d that way is not, well, not \u201cauthentic.\u201d It\u2019s not the way \u201cauthentic\u201d is authentically used. By all means, let the Church do due diligence in debating what it wishes to pray, but not under the misleading rubric of authenticity.<\/p>\n

The real issues are much deeper than a pseudo-debate on authenticity. What should Catholics believe about God, human nature, and the promise of salvation? What is the proper relationship between the laity and the clergy? Should Catholics be in communion with Protestants? What do Catholics believe about Jews?<\/p>\n

How the church goes about deciding these deeper liturgical questions says a lot about who has power and who doesn\u2019t. How hierarchical should the twenty-first century Church be? Who gets to weigh in on liturgical matters? Whose opinion counts and whose does not?<\/p>\n

As a Jew, I have no say on Catholic doctrine, but I do have an interest in it. \u2026 I don\u2019t have to be Catholic to pray that the new translation does not further divide Catholics from others, or return the Catholic Church to the day when it thought Jews were damned, men counted more than women, and no one else had God\u2019s truths. I hope the Church does not decide that \u201cauthenticity\u201d to the Catholic past trumps possibility for the human future.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I agree with the rabbi\u2019s basic point: \u2018authenticity\u2019, like \u2018continuity\u2019, is not in itself useful as a principle of interpretation. Of course we want \u2018authentic liturgy\u2019; what other kind would we want? The question is, what makes liturgy more or less \u2018authentic\u2019?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Conservatives frequently use the word \u201cauthentic\u201d to chide liberals for playing fast and free with \u201cthe real thing.\u201d Using \u201cauthentic\u201d that way is not, well, not \u201cauthentic.\u201d It\u2019s not the way \u201cauthentic\u201d is authentically used. By all means, let the Church do due diligence in debating what it wishes to pray, but not under the misleading rubric of authenticity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,24,32],"tags":[1941],"class_list":["post-14009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecumenism","category-translation-new-missal","category-vatican-ii","tag-rabbi-lawrence-hoffman"],"yoast_head":"\nI know something about liturgical authenticity. 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