I’ve posted the 1988 and 1992 Progress Reports of ICEL on the translation of the Roman Missal, which, according to these documents, seems to have begun in earnest as early as 1982. If you think about it, this is a mere 12 years following the promulgation of the New Mass.
The widespread consensus is correct many times over: it was rushed into existence without problem planing, research, or serious work on the translation. The extent of the problems in that first Missal – the bulk of which is still heard in our parishes on a daily basis – go a very long way toward explaining the probably unprecedented upheaval that followed the introduction of the revised liturgy.
Speaking of musical issues alone – and this blog tends to do that! – there was so much confusion from 1970s onward that musicians themselves had no idea what they were supposed to sing, if there were any rules or rubrics or guidelines. Celebrants couldn’t help them because they didn’t know either. Confusion reigned and chaos followed.
You can get a flavor of that in these documents. The opening document from 1988 states the issue plainly: the goal of a translation is to faithfully represent the Latin original. It seems very clear in retrospect (and it was clear to many at that time) that the original translation did not embody that spirit. You only need to set the current English Gloria against the Latin Gloria to observe that the first round of release gave us something entirely new, an attempt at a unique product, prepared with a methodological priority of making the English preeminent thing.
This could not stand. As the documents here demonstrate, the criticisms were widespread. ICEL placed the Latin next to the English and offered a detailed critique. Here is just one sample of hundreds, offered as a critique of an oration on the first weekday in Advent.
Fac nos, quaesumus, Domine Deus noster,
adventum Christi Filii tui sollicitos expectare,
ut, dum venerit pulsas, orationibus vigilantes,
et in suis inveniat laudibus exsultantes.
The early Missal rendered this as follows (and this translation is what we heard this year):
Lord our God, help us to prepare for the coming of Christ your Son.
May he find us waiting, eager in joyful prayer
ICEL comments on this:
The present ICEL version (1973) is short and succinct, but is so spare that it scarcely does justice to the Latin original with its wealth of scriptural references. It comprises two sentences, which, if the introductory “Lord our God” is ignored, have respectively eleven and nine words only. The committee felt that it was so short and ordinary that it would be over before it had any impact on the congregation and the second sentence in particular conveys nothing of the thought or allusions of the Latin.
Read that again: Nothing of the thought or allusions of the Latin.
Keep in mind: this is not Michael Davies. This is not Cardinal Ratzinger. This is not some editorial drawn from the pages of The Remnant or some other traditionalist publication. This is the International Commission on English in the Liturgy saying that early attempt at translation – and so much of this survives to this day – conveys nothing of the thought or allusions of the Latin.
The translation of the text coming next year reads as follows:
Keep us alert, we pray, O Lord our God,
as we await the advent of Christ your son,
so that when he comes and knocks
he may find us watchful in prayer and exultant in his praise.
Through our Lord.
Here we have it: blessed Catholicism. It’s coming back!
It will be many decades, I should think, before the reality of what we have gone through will be fully processed in our minds. In the end, the striking irony here is that ICEL will deserve so much credit for having led us toward better language and liturgy.
It turns out that ICEL in 1988 offered tremendous amounts of criticism of the existing translation. That criticism can only be described as blistering. Of another Collect, ICEL wrote: “The Latin prayer is built around the concepts of health and wholeness, which the present ICEL text does not mention. In general it so pares down the Latin that it says very little that is marked or interesting.”
Of the initial attempt at translation, ICEL wrote: “there was little time to do research and detailed background preparation before translating the Latin texts into English. The responsible agencies in Rome were also under great pressure at this time to make the revised Latin ritual books available to the worldwide Church and were as a consequence unable to provide those preparing the vernacular translations with the background research and notes that had been done as part of the work….”
There are many reasons for the crisis of Catholicism in our time. But if you are looking for the cleanest and clearest evidence of any crisis in any public faith, looking at the status of its ritual is a good place to begin to discover reasons. If you find an imposition of a new ritual that bears little in common with everything that came before, you might begin to see the problem.
The great news is that this period of our history is ending. The process of healing has begun, and the biggest milestone on this journey begins one year from now. Thanks be to God.
Oh, please.
The 1970/1975 English language Missal was only intended to be a transitional phase. Just like 1965. It was thought that work would begin earlier than 1981, but that was the date of the promulgation of MR2 in Latin. Consider that an earlier update of MR1 would have been tempered with the knowledge that the Roman Missal second edition was on the way. An MR1 re-do would be seen as something of a waste of effort.
Of course, we could have had the work of ICEL's 1981-98 MR2 for the past twelve years. That would be the not-Davies, not-Ratzinger edition.
I really don't know why there's surprise that the MR1 translation was criticized by the 1980's ICEL. I was in grad school in 1984-88, and we progressives were criticizing it then. Way before Fr Z made it a cottage industry.
The critique of the collect above is a critique of the SAME text heard this week in parishes all over the English-speaking world. You don't find it interesting that ICEL said 23 years ago that this text has nothing to do with the Latin?? Ok, you might not find interesting. I do.
I find it peculiar to say the least that the vernacular was rammed down the faithful's throats ASAP even before the Council ended. Yet the Council documents themselves do not call for this, but rather only speak of the possibility of more vernacular in the readings. It was as if anything Latin was evil, whether chant or the smell of Latin expressions in the translations.
For me, Jeff's exposition of original documents of those times are revealing a concerted effort at promoting a certain ideology even if at all costs, or perhaps what some have called the "hijacking the Council".
You don't find it interesting?
I found out about it twenty-six years ago. It was interesting then.
I've seen the 1998 MR2 in English with its more refined language and a Lectionary-harmonized set of collects as an option. Don't you find it interesting that the the CDWDS unilaterally deep-sixed a Missal approved by all the world's English speaking bishops' conferences and left us with a temporary MR for an additional decade? I'm happy to discuss the hijacking of the Council, but I'm not so sure y'all want to go there.
Todd, I find that very interesting indeed. In fact, I find it stunning and incredible.
As I recall, several bishop-approved versions of that new translation, in the 1980's and 1990's, were all about avoiding male pronouns and converting allusions to more "feminist" ones. Thus the Vatican's disapproval.
This was the Vatican's little way of saying, "When you're in a hole, stop digging."
Btw,
Todd's been on this case for many years. Even before Liturgiam Authenticam.
I just wanted to vouch for Todd on that score, since I suspect there are some who might wonder if Todd is conveniently inventing history here. He and I (and others) have been tangling in a friendly way over Catholic matters liturgical online since before the advent of blogs.
Well, it's easy enough to read the final product. Or check to see how many male pronouns are in the Latin original.
"Confusion reigned and chaos followed." And God asked, "is this good?". Will history repeat itself beginning next Advent 2011? Hopefully not; indeed, probably not since we are able to learn, indeed have learned, much from the chaos of the seventies and subsequent years. It may be, God willing and saints preserving, that we will loose much of the unfortunate musical baggage that so many boomers from that era of the seventies have hung onto and still try to promote along with the Catholic publishers who are of like mind. But that is another topic already touched on in this blog.
Thank you Jeffrey for contextualizing our current language changes in the historic shadow of post-Vatican II, ICET and ICEL.
This all seems to me reason enough to get on with the Advent 2011 implementation, regardless of the concerns over those supposed 10,000 changes from what the bishops approved. 37 years of the 1973 version is way too many!
"I've seen the 1998 MR2 in English with its more refined language and a Lectionary-harmonized set of collects as an option."
I am the furthest thing from an expert on the 1998 English translation. However, I've read that there were two reasons why it was "deep-sixed" by the CDWDS:
(1) Excessive gender neutrality which, for instance, obviated some of the Christological interpretations of psalms.
(2) The rather large number of new alternative collects composed and inserted by ICEL, not being translations of Latin originals.
One common explanation is that, had ICEL not insisted on these matters, and had confined itself to authentic translation of the Latin content of MR2, then we would not have been deprived to this day of its otherwise apparently good work.
The 1998 translation is rather weak – it's more accurate than 1973 but actually retains many of the same problems, as can be seen from the CDW's "Observations" sent to the USCCB in 2002. A sample:
"The rich language of supplication found in the Latin texts is radically reduced in the translation."
"The language often lapses into sentimentality and emotionality in place of the noble simplicity of the Latin."
"Frequently there are important words translated either in an inadequate manner, or not at all."
"In the text, in particular the Eucharistic Prayers, many significant biblical expressions and allusions continue to be obscured, as do significant allusions to events or notable features of a given Saint's life or works."
"The rubrics and notes have been completely re-worked in ways that obscure the distinction of hierarchical and liturgical roles."
http://www.adoremus.org/CDW-ICELtrans.html
As Henry Edwards suggested, the Holy See was willing to work with ICEL but ICEl kept submitting texts with the same problems.
" … had ICEL not insisted on these matters …"
Correction: ICEL and all the English-speaking bishops.
There is nothing particularly magical or appropriate about Latin collects semi-harmonized to an unreformed missal.
There is nothing particularly enlightening by the CDWDS input either. They are largely inexpert in English. The matter should have been left to bishops and to translators, not bureaucrats.
The CDWDS critique of the 1998 ICEL translation, referred to in the link posted earlier (http://www.adoremus.org/CDW-ICELtrans.html), does appear to be well taken.
For example, in the Ritual Mass of Confirmation, the scholars of ICEL had translated "episcopus" as "priest."
The Congregation observed: "In the Prayer over the People for the Ritual Mass of Confirmation, the translators seem to have wished to alter the universal and constant discipline of the Latin Church according to which the Bishop is the ordinary minister of the Sacrament. In place of the Latin, Deinde Episcopus, manibus super populum estensis, dicit, one finds instead, 'The priest sings or says the following prayer with hands outstretched over the people.'"
I find it comical that the liturgical progressives are so, so, concerned for the "peoples' sensibilities" on translation matters now when they didn't give a tinkers dam in the 1960s when they were ramming their agenda down our throats at lightening speed. If the Church had remained faithful to Sacrosanctum Concilium we wouldn't be where we're at today: divided.
Well, my anonymous friend, I wasn't a Catholic in the 60's. From what I hear and read, the change from Latin to the vernacular was so vigorously received, the bishops and Rome all hurried their timetable and moved beyond the expectations of SC. You can read about it in the 1964, 1967, and 1970 documents.
If the Church had remained faithful to SC, there would never have been SP.
"' … had ICEL not insisted on these matters …'
"Correction: ICEL and all the English-speaking bishops."
Technically that's true, though the bishops at one time practically rubber stamped everything ICEL did anyway.
"If the Church had remained faithful to SC, there would never have been SP."
I wonder. It's safer to say that if Paul VI had never proscribed the EF, there wouldn't have been a need for SP. Though perhaps in a sense you're right – now that the Church is finally being faithful to SC after all this time with the latest revisions and the promulgation of SP, the "liturgy wars" may come to a happy peace after all.
BTW, I lost you on the magical part.
Todd, you have it exactly backwards. If the Church had been faithful to SC then SP would have been totally unnecessary because the Canon and most of the Ordinary would have remained in Latin so the people could sing the parts of the Mass proper to them in Latin as required by SC. I'm tired of people ignoring the plain language of SC. I was around then, the change to the vernacular was not vigorously received except by lefties. The sentient among us opposed the widespread disregard for what the Conciliar documents actually said.
It's interesting that ICEL says this….Let's just get it right.
"Pulsas" should be "pulsans", surely…
Jeff:
The exposition of these two reports (both of which have been in my library for years) should settle the question of "why did this take so long?" One look through these pages underscores the complexity of such an undertaking. For those who wondered why we suffered all the longer after these reports, it should be noted that while the work on the orations was quite good by 1973 standards, most of the trouble was with the theological and ideological disputes associated with the Order of Mass itself. It was here that the progressive intelligentsia reared its head.
As to retaining the use of Latin exclusively in some parts, SC was not specific as to how much ABSOLUTELY could or could not be translated. It simply mandated that Latin was to be retained, with some allowance for the vernacular. If you're going to allow the vernacular at all, and you don't say "here, but not here," it's going to be done everywhere, as an option, if not the "path of least resistance." Hopefully, both traditional and vernacular languages can enjoy a peaceful coexistence, as Eastern churches have experienced for generations.