The greatest error of the liturgical reform of 1969/70 might not have been the flattened and linear structure or even the bad translation but the illiberal method that was used to impose it as against a stable Missal that had been in place for 500 years.
If the new Missal had been an option, something to be used to not based on parish preference, history would have turned out very differently. As it was, the use of force to overturn in a matter of months a ritual known by countless generations all over the world caused unprecedented devastation to the Catholic world, with people fleeing their parishes, priests and religious sisters leaving their vocations, and average people losing heart for the entire enterprise. It was a shocking and brutal act of ecclesiastical power, and surely one of the most un-pastoral events in Catholic history. We are still in recovery mode.
If the goal was to suppress the conciliar (and preconciliar) Mass, it didn’t work. To me the failure of this generation’s methods are best illustrated by this most wonderful iPad and iPhone application: iMass. It shows daily Mass (with a homily!) on your digital device. But even if you are not interested in watching the daily Mass on an Apple product, the application offers something that I personally find of great value: it provides the text of the daily Mass with all prayers including daily propers (according to the old calendar of course).
I think we can probably say that the exposure of the world to the Tridentine form has never been more universal than it is today. Let this be a lesson to anyone who would be tempted by the belief that force is a more effective tool than persuasion to bring about reform!
Thank you so much for the information. (I have an IPhone)
I was very young when the NO Mass started and don't remember the Latin Mass at all, but I have attended a few of them now and I LOVE them. I don't even have to understand the words….the reverence, the sanctity…God is there!
But imposing the new translation by force is not a problem?
Rome has a responsibility to oversee the translation of the Roman Missal. It's not like the new translation is displacing a settled tradition of a millennium. This is about reversing an obvious contemporary error, one that had been previously forced upon the faithful. When you liberate a jail, you are not forcing prisoners to leave so much as insisting that the wardens cease and desist holding people captive.
The Episcopal church is split over the ordination of an openly gay bishop.
The Catholic Church may split over the Reform. Will those that refuse to reform remain in communion with Rome?
The second paragraph above is a very concise explanation of what has devastated the church. While there are those that do not want rules, the rules kept people in the church. Relaxation of the rules has emptied the pews.
Imposing a new translation? Give me a break, it's in English.
By the time the Novus Ordo was imposed a great deal of damage had already been done. The fleeing began in 1965 when many of the "reforms" had come out but certainly the fleeing certainly accelerated after the Novus Ordo was imposed. Too bad the Church wasn't as sensitive to the peoples "feelings" as they are today.
I'm really irritated by the threat of clergy who have so worked themselves up to a fever-pitch about the new translation as to suggest they might continue to use the existing one. It's not just that they're suggesting schism, or that their ideology has blinded them to the very real problems with the existing translation. It's also because I've put up with the innacuracies and infelicities of the existing translation for so long, because that's what the Church authorised. That's part of being a Catholic. If they want something else, they should be honest about it and join another ecclesiastical body.
I haven't heard anything about threats from clergy *leaving* due to the corrected translation. I suspect if that happens it will be a tiny minority.
I'm sure very few will, Matt. But you only have to look at the internet to see the suggestion made by some priests that they might simply carry on saying the current translation or elements of it. If any of them are serious about that, then it's a matter of schism, just as if a priest who balked at the 1973 translation had insisted on staying with a post-Conciliar interim vernacular text. Sure, the new vernacular was flat and a diminished version of the Mass, but it was authorised, and it was his duty to grin and bear it – just as those laity with half an ear for religious and poetic English have had to.
Doing the current one past the change date would seem to be a direct disobedience, no?
Might be a good time to clean house.
The change in the translation is miniscule. The ethos is much the same as 1969, albeit it is an improvement. It is a very minor change and it can be lived into.
Sorry — I'm cranky. It is not the Knott Missal, but it is surely better…