Life is full of ironies. And life in the Church is no different. In fact, this past week we just witnessed a bit of irony that stretched right across the Atlantic Ocean, though most people seem to have missed it. On October 4, as English Archbishop Arthur Roche had just finished giving his first major Read more
Pope Francis, May 27, announced that British Archbishop, Arthur Roche (pictured) will be the new head of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. (Liturgy Office.) Roche replaces controversial conservative Cardinal, Robert Sarah, whose resignation Pope Francis accepted on 20 February. The Vatican liturgy office is charged with overseeing the Catholic Read more
Jesus’ blood was poured out “per tutti” – “for all” rather than “per molti”, meaning “for many”, according to the new Italian Missal presented to Pope Francis on 28 August. The pope normally celebrates Mass in Italian. The approved Italian translation from Latin of the new Roman Missal comes nine years after the English version Read more
Msg Andrew Wadsworth (pictured), the executive director of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) is defending his social media posts calling liturgical events at the Amazon Synod as “scenes of pagan worship”. “I, Andrew Raymond Wadsworth, do not wish to belong to the new idolatrous Pachamama Church currently being brought into being,” Read more
The New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference want the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) to review the 1998 draft Roman Missal translation early next year. The conference’s president, Auckland Bishop Patrick Dunn, told the NZ Catholic their request seeks to balance demand for use of the missal while ensuring “unity is preserved with Read more
There are reports that Pope Francis has set up a commission to review of Liturgiam Authenticam. This decree provided the principles that guided the recent translations of liturgical texts. The report in America Magazine states the commission will also examine what level of decentralisation is desirable in the church on matters such as this. But Read more
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 Read more
The secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship has ruled out going back to a 1998 English translation of the Missal. There have been a number of calls to use the 1998 version instead of the current Missal text. Critics have charged that the language used in the current version at Mass is clunky, awkward Read more
Pope Francis spoke English in public for the first time on October 18, when he sent a video message to a conference on evangelisation in the Philippines. On the same day he met representatives of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy and praised their translation of liturgical texts. In the video message to Read more
The International Commission on English in the Liturgy was a legitimately constituted body set up in 1963 by the main episcopal conferences in the English-speaking world, including Ireland. A significant number of other conferences who decided the English translation would be beneficial for their pastoral purposes became associate members. It had teams of experts in Read more