{"id":24476,"date":"2014-03-02T14:27:46","date_gmt":"2014-03-02T20:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=24476"},"modified":"2014-03-02T14:27:46","modified_gmt":"2014-03-02T20:27:46","slug":"cardinal-pell-on-liturgical-translation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2014\/03\/02\/cardinal-pell-on-liturgical-translation\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinal Pell on Liturgical Translation"},"content":{"rendered":"

This will interest Pray Tell readers who remember the whole Roman Missal Crisis<\/a>: \u00a0Cardinal George Pell, chairman of Vox Clara, talked on translation<\/a> at a Vatican II 50th anniversary conference in Rome recently.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a lengthy talk. The first part is an interesting and very informative review of the history of vernacular in the liturgy. Then it gets dicier in the second part, with Pell\u2019s version of the history of the Roman translation documents Comme le pr\u00e9voit<\/em> (1969) and Liturgicam authenticam<\/em> (2001).<\/p>\n

Alas, Pell apparently thinks it useful to distinguish between \u201cdynamic equivalence\u201d ( = bad, 1960s, inaccurate, from Eugene Nida and he\u2019s Protestant) and \u201cformal equivalence\u201d (= good, up-to-date, accurate, where scholarship has now moved). Pray Tell<\/em> once ask leading translation expert Anthony Pym (\u201cAcademic Justification for Liturgiam Authenticam<\/em><\/a>?\u201d) about all this. He said this:<\/p>\n

Does this mean that we are all reacting against Eugene Nida and his concept of dynamic equivalence, supposedly embodied in the prior doctrine of Comme le prevoit in 1969? Not at all. I think it is quite plausible to read Nida in terms of a spectrum of possible translation solutions, ranging from \u201cdynamic equivalence\u201d at one end (\u201cLamb of God\u201d becomes \u201cSeal of God\u201d for Inuits) to \u201cformal correspondence\u201d at the other (it becomes Agnus Dei, teaching us Latin). Nida recognized that there is a time and place of everything along that range, and his great historical virtue was to open up that plurality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pell drags out the old Good News Bible (also known as Today\u2019s English Version) as Exhibit A for dynamic equivalence in action. This sleight of hand reminds me of a talk Msgr. Bruce Harbert (former executive director of ICEL) gave at Mundelein, later published in Antiphon, \u201cThe Roman Rite and the English Language<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0Surprise, surprise: the primitivistic Good News Bible falls short in every way, so Liturgiam Authenticam<\/em> comes to rescue us from that, and from Comme le pr\u00e9voit<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But putting out the Good News Bible as the exemplification of Comme le pr\u00e9voit<\/em> and dynamic equivalence is rather like arguing against Classical music (rationalistic, thin) and for Romantic music (rich, complex) by comparing Salieri and Clementi negatively with Beethoven and Mahler. Anyone heard of Mozart and Haydn? Anyone heard of a certain missal translation worked on for some 17 years and approved by all the English-speaking bishops\u2019 conferences by 1998? Dealing with the fine 1998 translation, which doesn’t fit neatly into the supposedly opposed categories of “dynamic equivalence” and “formal equivalence,” would be highly instructive.<\/p>\n

And then Pell says this: \u201cI have been surprised to find that there is so little academic examination of Liturgiam authenticam<\/em>.\u201d Good grief. What about Peter Jeffery\u2019s Translating Tradition: A Chant Historian Reads Liturgicam Authenticam<\/em><\/a>,\u201d the 168-page LitPress book based on four articles previously published in Worship<\/em> magazine? 209 footnotes in English, Latin, French, German, Italian, and Polish; references to history and experience in numerous Western European lands, South India, China, two Mayan groups, Chiapis, Fiji, and to rites Coptic, Ethopian, Chaldean, Armenian, Byzantine, hagiopolite, Egyptian, and West Syrian, and throw in the Rastafarians and a Caughnawaga manuscript besides. Sure looks like \u201cacademic examination\u201d to me.<\/p>\n

The devastating conclusion of Jeffery\u2019s \u201cacademic examination\u201d might interest Pell. Jeffery says this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

But the most worrisome thing about LA is that what it lacks in factuality it makes up with naked aggression. It speaks words of power and control rather than cooperation and consultation, much less charity\u2026 It is particularly embarrassing that all this muscular Christianity comes to us vested and mitred in the most ignorant statement on liturgy ever issued by a modern Vatican congregation. But in a millennium when a Pope can apologize to the Jews, it is not too much to hope that the Dicastery, too, will find the courage to lead by example, and practice what it preaches on the matter of accepting correction. \u2026 Liturgiam authenticam<\/em> should be summarily withdrawn, on the grounds that it was released prematurely, before proper consultation with a sufficient number of experts had been completed. Then only the hard part will remain: what to do about the issues and tensions that produced it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This reminds me of Msgr. James Moroney\u2019s claim (see \u201cNo, Msgr. Moroney, I Don\u2019t Think So<\/a>\u201d) that Liturgiam Authenticam<\/em> came about in response to calls for something like it in the academy.\u00a0But when 600 scholars at a liturgy conference in Rome heard the speaker extemporaneously critique Liturgiam Authenticam<\/em>, as Robert Taft reports<\/a>, they broke into applause that thundered on for about three minutes.<\/p>\n

Pell is aware that the new English missal was not exactly greeted by all the clergy. Responding to an informal Tablet<\/em> survey<\/a> which registered discontent, Pell\u00a0conceded,<\/p>\n

Neither is there a unanimous enthusiasm, especially among the clergy as they adapt to more sophisticated patterns of thought and language. It is also of interest that those who were apprehensive before the texts appeared generally felt their fears were justified.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(This is the same survey discussion in which Abbot Cuthbert Johnson of Vox Clara admitted that \u201cthere is a desire for an improvement that will ensure that the English flows more smoothly, and that the vocabulary, while being more dignified is not, as sometimes appears, a little abstruse and pretentious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh well, so it goes. Meanwhile, Pray Tell<\/em>\u00a0is expecting any day now the results of the CARA study we commissioned on the reactions of clergy and lay church staff to the new translation. And with that, I will offer a few thoughts, constructive thoughts I hope, on the missal situation and some helpful paths forward.<\/p>\n

awr<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It gets dicier in the second part, with Pell\u2019s version of the history of the Roman translation documents Comme le pr\u00e9voit <\/i>(1969) and Liturgicam authenticam<\/i> (2001).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[455],"class_list":["post-24476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-translation-new-missal","tag-cardinal-george-pell"],"yoast_head":"\nCardinal Pell on Liturgical Translation - Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2014\/03\/02\/cardinal-pell-on-liturgical-translation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cardinal Pell on Liturgical Translation - 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