28 Replies to “The Translation War”

  3. I have to say, I've been very disappointed with the lack of coverage of the recent new translation issues on this and the other "conservative" or "traditional" blogs (WDTPRS,TNLM, etc.) I'm definitely on board with LA, but the "Areas of Difficulty" report has convinced me that there are serious problems with the 2010 received text. Granted, the Praytell folks may be looking for any reason to derail the entire project. However, as someone who is "pro-LA," I am equally concerned at this point.

  4. I've heard several people express this "disappointment" but what facts are there to base any "coverage" on? That "Areas of Difficulty" piece could have been written by anyone – it might be serious and real but how can anyone know? It would be grossly irresponsible to comment, much less vent, on a story built on innuendo, rumor, and unattributed floating PDF files. Not even the NCR story was able to garner anything concrete or substantive.

  5. Pray Tell is bonkers. They are so hopelessly mired in the past, so rigid, so doctrinaire, so incapable of change. Maybe they can petition the Holy See to allow them to continue to use the current garbage translations in their private chapels and nursing homes.

  6. "Pray Tell is bonkers. They are so hopelessly mired in the past, so rigid, so doctrinaire, so incapable of change."

    Yeah, right. They like chant, too, and awr sings more in a day than most people here do in a week.

  8. I just read the "Areas of Concern" report. Am I understanding this correctly? Now that the Church has developed a translation that is immensely more literal and faithful to the Latin than the original ICEL translation, the defenders of the ICEL translation are now complaining that the new translation is not faithful or literal enough. Quick! Let's concede defeat and address their concerns as quickly as we can before they realize what they are saying and change their minds.

    Honestly though, the new translation seems such a vast improvement over the ICEL translation that it's hard to see the report as anything more than sulking and nitpicking and a bad case of sour grapes. The "areas of difficulty" outlined probably represent compromises that were made in an attempt to appease the very people who are now complaining about them.

  9. No matter the underlying reasons for many of those who have jumped on the anti-2010 text bandwagon, as someone who actually is pro-LA, I am simply disappointed that the latest version of the text apparently deviates from the principles set forth in that document.

  11. When I saw the headline and subhead I thought that the post would be about how the translation wars have been invented by Pray Tell. Lol.

  12. While the concerns raised in "Areas of Difficulty" are certainly valid ones, I wonder as to the point of leaking these texts. There is a lot of unsubstantiated rumormongering going on which does not help anyone. The obsession some critics have with that they call the "transparency" of the consultative process borders on pathological. The whole process has been consultative. St Jerome and Ronald Knox translated the Bible on their own. Cranmer composed the BCP basically on his own. I think the hysterics over this shows two things:

    1. people who refuse to pray that invocation from Merry Del Val's Litany of Humility "From the desire of being consulted. deliver me, O LORD."
    2. a deliberate attempt at a hermeneutic of inventing crisis so that popular opinion formed by the blogosphere will be poisoned against the new translation
    3. that a lot of people refuse to accept the validity of Canon 331, that the Roman Pontiff has universal jurisdiction over the Church.

    I am not uncritical of certain aspects of the new translation, but neither do I see it as my mission to derail the whole process (dream on). Just as there is no perfect liturgy this side of heaven, idem for translations. None of that should cause us to refuse communion with those who have tasked by the Roman Pontiff to oversee this process.

    I am interested to see if in Peter Seewald's new book interview with the Pope, how he answers the question, "Is there a schism in the Church?" When people are threatening apostasy over whether the Pope has a tiara on his coat of arms and over the use and abuse of Liturgiam Authenticam, seems to me that the schismatic tendencies are becoming clearer and clearer.

  13. I don't get the logic of "Well, they're better the the 1973 "translation," so what's everyone complaining about?"

    If the reports are to believed, the 2010 revisions deviate significantly from the mandate of Liturgicam Authenticam as well as the "Ratio Translationis" issued by the Vatican, which is a cause for concern. We shouldn't be satisfied simply because it's "better than 1973" – I think you'd agree that isn't saying much.

    I basically agree with what Fr. Smith has to say, except that there is the question as to whether the 2010 revisions represent what the pope actually approved last spring.

  15. In the end, it is really difficult to make much comment on any of this because the main source here is an anonymous critique rooted in specialized issue of Latin usage that compares two documents that are not public and to which only a few have access.

  16. Mr Schmitt is right. In one sense if there is challenging of the revising done after what was presented to the Pope going on, that is not necessarily a bad thing. I am not upset in the least by revising until the last minute.

    I would remind the "haters" of the 2000-whatever translation who are distraught over the scrapping of 1973 ICEL of something from Church history.

    The original drafts of Vatican II were scrapped without mercy. The Fathers started all over again, and produced what we now have as the documents of Vatican II.

    1973 is scrapped. We have started all over again. Perhaps this is in the design of Providence. Will the final result be without its lacunae and question marks? Probably not. Will it be better than what came before? Dominum oremus!

  17. I think it's very easy to comment on this. That is to say, if these texts are legit, it would seem that LA is not being followed in all circumstances. If so, this is a serious problem. I'm not inclined to think that someone concocted a fake set of 2008 and 2010 texts, wrote an extraordinarily detailed and well reasoned 29-page critique of the latter based on the former, tried to keep this critique a secret for several weeks, but then was betrayed in some fashion, resulting in the "leak" of a fake document concerning fake texts. What would be the point of all of this? Sounds pretty implausible to me.

  18. "I'm not inclined to think that someone concocted a fake set of 2008 and 2010 texts, wrote an extraordinarily detailed and well reasoned 29-page critique of the latter…"

    Good, because nobody is claiming that. You've missed the point.

  19. Before the advent of computers, the net, the telegraph and the printing press for that matter, the process of revision was happily or unhappily impeded by the inertia of hand copying the texts.

    Our "modern" access to technology aids in the rapid communication and rapid transformation of everything, or at least the relatively rapid transformation of things. What formerly took centuries to modify (revise, renew) now can be done in a near instant. Sometimes a "go slow" approach is necessary. The challenged of our day is to employ the tools we have in a thoughtful and erudite manner so as to continue the process begun centuries ago so that the Faith may be handed on in a faithful manner. By all intelligent accounts, the process which has given rise to the latest translation has been intellectually rigorous.

    I am thrilled that the new translation of the Mass is forthcoming. The naysayers have had their chance to offer criticism and the legitimate criticism has been addressed. Soon, we will be wearing a new pair of shoes (or perhaps a pair of re-souled shoes). Like any new pair of shoes they are bound to pinch a bit. We have to wear them in. Some (dissenting) folk are simply not prepared to walk a mile in those shoes because they probably don't like shoes of any kind.

  20. It's cool that PT seems to be copying NLM's cartoon…I wish they'd learn more from NLM…at PT, they call it "The New Liturgical Bowel Movement," which I find highly offensive and unbecoming.

  21. Fr Smith and the various anonymous commenters here might do better to keep to their own points of view and not try to posit what others' might be.

    As a critic of both the MR1 and MR3 renditions, I'm far from distraught over losing the 1970/1975 texts. I will continue to be a critic of MR3 in the future, as many others have criticized MR1. Criticism does not equate with dissent, otherwise, Fr Z would be slavishly translating in schism by now.

    This translation process betrays a need for competence and organization. Either the words of the Mass and their rubrics are important, or they aren't. And if they are, they should be attended to as if our lives depended on them. And if not, they should be farmed out to the lowest necessary level, even to any Joe with a liturgical muse and a copy machine.

    As it is, publishers of not only liturgical books but catechetical resources depend on getting the words right. The bishops have said they want an Advent 2011 implementation. Fair enough. Rome is five months late. Time to get going. With authority comes duty and responsibility, not a free pass to do as whim dictates.

  22. Robert,

    I'm not sure what you're saying, since the "Areas of Difficulty" takes no stand on the merits of the 1973 translation. If anything, it supports Liturgicam Authenticam in that it wants the new translation to be accord with it – unlike those who want LA thrown out. Just because a blog and newspaper who are unfriendly to LA are publishing the report doesn't mean that the report follows the same line. Quite the contrary, it seems.

  23. Why does everyone feel the need to comment on a process to which they are not privy? While the translation concerns all of us, why should any of us pretend we can do anything about it? If they wanted our opinion, they would have asked us. They didn't. So get over it. Why these assumptions about competence and organization when we don't know the whole story? And for someone in a blog comment to lecture Rome on what they should do and what timeline they should do it in – get real! It will be done when it gets done.

  24. Because we have to use the result. We have to implement, so in a sense, we can do something about it. My assessment of incompetence is based on facts: what I read, and what I see. Thanks, but I'll keep my critic's hat.

  25. "We have to implement, so in a sense, we can do something about it"

    Todd, isn't that something like saying that since I drive a car, I should be consulted on how they are engineered and built? Certainly SOMEONE should be consulted about that, but not everyone. And just as you have a choice to drive, or if you really feel left out of the process, you can walk, you are similarly free as regards the new translation. And we actually do trust your ability to assess incompetence.

  26. Given the "competence" of most pastors, parish liturgy committees and their liturgical and musical minions over the past 40 years, and their stellar record to date, I'm willing to take a flyer on Rome. Sorry, I know this doesn't apply to "all" but to "the many."

  27. recently, the musicasacra.com forum has discovered that an "awruff" has been involved in leaking a private document on the internet. This was discovered in metadata in a PDF. I think it's important to the Church hierarchy to have a record of "awruff" doing this action.

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