The USCCB website offers a summary of the changes to the Roman Missal now under preparation, comparing the new and existing translations. Unfortunately, it neglects to situate the translations in the appropriate context, which is (pace Fr. Zuhlsdorf): what does the prayer really say? Unless the changes are placed next to the latin editio typica text, readers may find the changes arbitrary, and are more likely to deem them needlessly inelegant and intrusive. The table below is intended to complete that provided by USCCB, to the benefit of the faithful generally and catechists particularly.
| Changes in the people's Parts | |||
| PART OF MASS | ORIGINAL LATIN (Roman Missal 2002 editio typica) | PRESENT TEXT (1973 ICEL text) | NEW TRANSLATION |
| Greeting |
Priest: Dominus vobiscum. |
Priest: The Lord be with you. People: And also with you. |
Priest: The Lord be with you. People: And with your spirit.1 |
| Penitential Act, form A (the Confiteor) |
Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, cogitatione, verbo, ideo precor beatam Mariam semper Vírginem, |
I confess to almighty God, in my thoughts and in my words, and I ask blessed Mary, ever virgin, |
I confess to almighty God in my thoughts and in my words, therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin, |
| Penitential Act, form B |
Priest: Miserere nostri, Domine. |
Priest: Lord, we have sinned against you: Lord, have mercy. |
Priest: Have mercy on us, O Lord. People: For we have sinned against you. Priest: Show us, O Lord, your mercy. People: And grant us your salvation. |
| Gloria |
Glória in excélsis Deo Laudámus te. Benedícimus te. Adorámus te. Glorificámus
te. Grátias ágimus tibi propter magnam glóriam tuam.
Dómine Deus, Rex caeléstis, Deus Pater omnípotens.
Dómine Fili Unigénite, Iesu Christe, Quóniam tu solus Sanctus. |
Glory to God in the highest, Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and Father, we worship you, we give you thanks, we praise you for your glory. Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father, For you alone are the Holy One, |
Glory to God in the highest, We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you, we give you thanks for your great glory, Lord God, heavenly King, O God, almighty Father. Lord Jesus Christ, only Begotten Son, For you alone are the Holy One, |
| Nicene Creed |
Credo in unum Deum, Et in unum Dóminum Iesum Christum, Et in Spíritum Sanctum, Et unam, sanctam, cathólicam |
We believe in one God, We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, We believe in the Holy Spirit, We believe in one holy catholic |
I believe in one God,2 And in one Lord Jesus Christ, And in the Holy Spirit, And one, holy, catholic |
| Apostles' Creed |
Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, Credo in Spiritum Sanctum, |
I believe in God, the Father almighty, I believe in the Holy Spirit, |
I believe in God, the Father almighty, I believe in the Holy Spirit, |
| Suscipiat Dominus |
Suscípiat Dóminus sacrifícium de mánibus
tuis, |
May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands, |
May the Lord accept the sacrifice |
| Sursum Corda |
Priest: Dóminus vobíscum. People: Et cum spíritu tuo. Priest: Sursum corda. People: Habémus ad Dóminum. Priest: Grátias agámus Dómino Deo nostro People: Dígnum et iústum est. |
Priest: The Lord be with you. |
Priest: The Lord be with you. |
| Sanctus |
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dóminus Deus Sábaoth. |
Holy, holy, holy Lord, |
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts. |
| Mystery of Faith (formerly the
Memorial Acclamation) |
Priest: Mysterium fidei. People: |
Priest: Let us proclaim the mystery of faith: People: |
Priest: The mystery of faith. People: |
| Sign of Peace |
Priest: Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum. |
Priest: The peace of the Lord be with you always. |
Priest: The peace of the Lord be with you always. |
| Ecce Agnus Dei |
Priest: Ecce Agnus Dei, All: Domine, non sum dignus ut intres sub tectum meum, sed tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur anima mea |
Priest: This is the Lamb of God All: Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, |
Priest: Behold the Lamb of God, All: Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under
my roof, |
As a postscript, it should be noted that not everyone is happy with the new translation.4 While I am not wholly unsympathetic to their concerns, I want to respectfully address a few words to them.
We should not be dismayed. Yes, change is difficult, and—truth be told—not everything in the new translation is as I would have preferred, given my druthers.5 Nevertheless, there is so much more good in it than there is problematic. Vatican II's call for liturgical renewal can be misread,6 and the council surely never supposed translation would be a vehicle for liturgical disintegration. Its watchword was aggiornamento, not disgregamento.
One need only look at the table above, however, even without a deep grasp of latin, to see that there are differences. Granted, some of us may prefer the current formulations, from either inertia or considered preference.7 We might prefer to say "we believe" rather than "I believe" in the creed, for instance, but all will agree that there is a difference. Should we not also be willing to consider at least the possibility that these differences undermine the liturgical unity of the Church?8
Let me be franker still: in the context of the Mass, I love the collective "we believe." There is value in the collective confession of faith of the entire assembled congregation. Is there not, however, great value also in saying "I believe" along with the entire Church, assembled spiritually? As the Bishops have noted in another context, "[t]he Mass is not simply a private encounter between an individual and Jesus Christ. In a mystical manner, the whole Church is present in every celebration of the Mass, including the angels and the martyrs and saints of all ages.”9 And in any event, does the atomic "I" rather than the collective "we" really detract from the former so very much?10
With this in mind, we should be able to appreciate fully the Congregation for Divine Worship's command that in translating the missal, "the greatest care is to be taken to maintain the identity and unitary expression of the Roman Rite, not as a sort of historical monument, but rather as a manifestation of the theological realities of ecclesial communion and unity."11 This is about unity.12 It is about what the prayer really says, and offering the same prayers as our brothers and sisters in Christ across the world; many languages, one prayer. "I beseech you, brethren," says St. Paul, "by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing and that there be no schisms among you…."13
The new translation has laudable goals: liturgical unity in the universal Church. And I submit that on this matter, Roma locuta est, ideo, causa finita est. The new translation is going to happen, like it or not. We should therefore see those things in the new translation that trouble us as water over the dam, and more than that, see the entire enterprise as a golden opportunity for catechesis.
-Simon Dodd, Dec. 15, anno nostræ salutis 2009.
1. See Liturgiam Authenticam (2001), no. 56:
Certain expressions that belong to the heritage of the whole or of a great part of the ancient Church, as well as others that have become part of the general human patrimony, are to be respected by a translation that is as literal as possible, as for example the words of the people’s response Et cum spiritu tuo, or the expression mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa….
2. See id., no. 56:
The Creed is to be translated according to the precise wording that the tradition of the Latin Church has bestowed upon it, including the use of the first person singular, by which is clearly made manifest that “the confession of faith is handed down in the Creed, as it were, as coming from the person of the whole Church, united by means of the Faith.”(Footnotes and internal quotation marks omitted.)
3. See id., no. 50(a) ("In translating words of greater theological significance, an appropriate degree of coordination should be sought between the liturgical text and the authoritative vernacular translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church….").
4. Bishop Trautman in particular has made no secret of his objections. See, e.g., Bishops split over Mass translation, in the Pittsburg Post-Gazette, Nov. 16, 2009; 'Slavishly literal' translation of missal criticized, in the National Catholic Reporter, Oct. 26, 2009.
5. See, e.g., And With Your (Not Thy) Spirit, at New Liturgical Movement, Nov. 24, 2009. Some of the changes, moreover, seem to border on the pedantic. For instance: Was it really necessary to substitute "my sacrifice and yours" for "our sacrifice" in the suscipiat Dominus? The Holy See has told us what it expects of translations. They are not an opportunity for "creative innovation," but a commission to
render[] the original texts faithfully and accurately into the vernacular language. While it is permissible to arrange the wording, the syntax and the style in such a way as to prepare a flowing vernacular text suitable to the rhythm of popular prayer, the original text, insofar as possible, must be translated integrally and in the most exact manner, without omissions or additions in terms of their content, and without paraphrases or glosses. Any adaptation to the characteristics or the nature of the various vernacular languages is to be sober and discreet.Liturgicam Authenticam, no. 20. If these goals are our masters for the translation, are they in any way ill-served or disobeyed by declining to split the "our"/"your and mine" hair? If anything, are they not ill-served by splitting the hair, since doing so provide critics of the new translation with an opening, sowing seeds of discord in a project whose purpose is unity (or rather, liturgical unification)?
6. See, e.g., Fr. Michael Ryan, What If We Said, 'Wait'?, in America, Dec. 14, 2009. Legitimate debate is often hampered by terminological imprecision, and the term "Vatican II" can sometimes fall into that category. It seems to me that it is sometimes—perhaps subconsciously—misused as a pars pro toto for the entire complex of changes that took place in the Church during that era, including not only what the council said (e.g. changes to the liturgy), but also those things that it at least arguably set in train (e.g. the comprehensive vernacularization of the liturgy), and even those things about which the council said nothing but which coincided with it (e.g. the de facto normalization of communion in the hand, or disuse of the maniple). Thus, Fr. Ryan's criticism of the tension between the new translation and "Vatican II" depends for much of its force on our willingness to treat the 1973 ICEL translation as an integral part of "Vatican II." Yet what the Second Vatican Council itself said about the liturgy was this:
[T]he use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites … [b]ut since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended. … Translations from the Latin text into the mother tongue intended for use in the liturgy must be approved by the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned above.Sacrosanctum Concilium (1963), no. 36; accord id., no. 54 ("a suitable place may be allotted [in Masses celebrated with a congregation] to their mother tongue. This is to apply in the first place to the readings and "the common prayer," but also, as local conditions may warrant, to those parts which pertain to the people…. Nevertheless steps should be taken so that the faithful may also be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them"); cf. Veterum Sapienta (1962). This is not to deny, of course, that the council mandated significant changes to the liturgy, see Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 50., but the changes it envisioned were global, changes to the editio typica liturgy, not liturgical disintegration by translation.
7. The latter is not an irrelevant consideration. Cf. Liturgiam Authenticam, no. 64 ("Without real necessity, successive revisions of translations should not notably change the previously approved vernacular texts of the Eucharistic Prayers which the faithful will have committed gradually to memory.").
8. Fr. Richard Kaley has said, in another context, "if you want to know what we believe, look at the prayers; we pray what we believe." Surely, then, we must agree that what we pray is of paramount importance. Granted, one does not foresee schism over the distinction between "in fulfillment of the Scriptures" vs. "in accordance with the scriptures," but it should be kept in mind that the first great schism was over the addition of one word to the creed. See The Filioque: a very basic introduction, at De unione ecclesiarum, Dec. 7, 2009.
9. U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Happy Are Those Who Are Called to His Supper (2006), at 12.
10. But cf. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity 47-51 (3d ed. 2000).
11. Liturgicam Authenticam, no. 5 (footnote omitted); cf. C.C.C. ¶¶ 814-14 and 820-21.
12. It is thus fitting that it should take place in the pontificate of Benedict XVI, in some circles already being called "the Pope of Christian Unity." See, e.g., The Tide is Turning Toward Catholicism, at The American Catholic, Nov. 22, 2009; The Pope of Christian Unity, at Vox Cantoris, Nov. 13, 2009.; Whose Ecumenism?, at What Does The Prayer Really Say?, Oct. 22, 2009.
13. 1 Cor 1:10 (DRV).