Bishop Cullinane calls for an overhaul of English Missal

Tuesday, March 31st, 2015

The Emeritus Bishop of Palmerston North, New Zealand, in a letter to The London Tablet, says that there should be an overhaul of the English missal.

Bishop Peter J Cullinane says critics describe the present translation as clunky, awkward and a too literal translation of the Latin original.

However, Cullinane believes no purpose will be served by any overhaul unless the current guidelines behind liturgical translations are changed.

These were set out by the 2001 instruction Liturgiam Authenticam and said translations must convey the “integral manner” of the original Latin “even while being verbally or syntactically different from it.”

Bishop Cullinane was a member of the Episcopal Board of ICEL between 1983 and 2003.

Another retired Bishop, Donald Trautman is calling “for the 1998 English Missal translation, which was approved by more than two-thirds of the United States bishops, to replace the present failed text of the New Roman Missal.”

Bishop Trautman is the emeritus Bishop of Eire, and has also served as chairman of the US bishops’ conference’s Committee on the Liturgy.

The Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) in Ireland has also called for a review of the current English edition.

The ACP has asked that, as a temporary solution, the Irish Bishops allow priests to use the 1998 translation of the Missal.

Last week Archbishop Arthur Roche, the Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, said the option to use the 1998 translation was not possible as the Roman Liturgy should express the unity of the Church.

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