Liturgiam authenticam insisted on greater fidelity to the Latin original in liturgy translations.

The conference president Cardinal Reinhard Marx has called Liturgiam authenticam, a "dead end". Read more

The new liturgical rite includes material from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer — the 1662 text which became the main point of reference for prayer in the Anglican Church — and from the Roman Rite followed by the Catholic Church.

It also contains prayers written by Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, who was burnt at the stake in 1556 during Queen Mary's brief attempt to restore Roman Catholicism in England.

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Befitting a translation that despite papal calls for opposition to "relativism" begins the Church year by slavishly following Latin word order to pray that "as we walk amid passing things, you teach us by them to love the things of heaven," it ends the year with a 93-word sentence in the Preface. Since the norm in modern English is to speak sentences in a single breath or two, oxygen tanks and oils for anointing the dying may become standard liturgical accoutrements to mark the end of the Church year.

Priests fearful

Lately, I have been asking English-speaking priests about their experience of using the Missal for a year. Just about all admit to editing the texts to make them more comprehensible and more easily proclaimed, since the Missal itself declares that "the primary purpose of the translation of the texts is not for meditation, but rather for their proclamation or singing during an actual celebration."

However, those priests also admit that they are fearful of doing very much because of what they call "the temple police," people who go to Mass not to join their fellow Catholics in worship, but to nose out "crimes" they can report to the Vatican or (as a seeming second choice) the local bishop.

Lay complaints and contempt

Laypeople have complained about their prayers and the wordy incomprehensibility of the priest's prayers, and I have yet to be at a Mass where "Lord, I am not worthy" has not turned into a mumbled jumble.

A year's worth of familiarity has bred increasing contempt for the translation and for those who have imposed it upon the People of God.

Though no one to whom I have spoken personally has admitted to liking the Missal, one priest did mention that he knew a cleric who claims to favor the new translation. He added, though, that everything the man says and does is calculated to advance his goal of one day being a bishop.

Earlier in the year, a priest writing in the English Catholic journal The Tablet asked, "How do we priests recover our enthusiasm for celebrating the liturgy?" Good question.

Personally, every time I "celebrate" Mass in the new form, I am reminded once again of the high-handed chicanery that produced the translation in spite of there already being a generally acclaimed new translation that had been unanimously approved by the English-speaking bishops of the world in 1998. It gives a painful depth of meaning to the phrase "distractions at prayer." Mass has become a cross.

In the year that we obedient ones have endured being forced to "proclaim" Latinate gibberish, the pope continued to woo ultra-traditionalists with promises that they can celebrate the liturgy in whatever form they choose.

Well, Your Holiness, what about the rest of us? If we were to start refusing to use the Missal, could we expect the same solicitude that you are giving the disobedient ones? Or, would our predisposition to obedience be used as a weapon against us?

Judging from the treatment of ultra-traditionalists, there seems to be no other way to be heard.

Originally appeared in ucanews.com

- Fr Bill Grimm is a Maryknoll priest working in Japan. He is the publisher of ucanews.com

Last Sunday, I celebrated Mass in a semi-private setting. Before going public, I wanted to try out the new translation of the Mass using our brand new Missal.

This was the first time the congregation and I had used the complete new translation and our new Missal, and afterwards, my effort, our reactions to the language and the navigation through the new book were all topics of discussion.

Some people, those who are having to defend the translation, are saying it's poetic. Well that may be their definition of poetry, but let's just say it's a long way from William Blake, and, while three English scholars in my midst all agreed "it's just not English", we were similarly of the view it's what we've got and those that make these decisions have decided that this is what we should use. Time to move on.

However, what the people who translated the new Missal didn't do, was decide how the new English translation should look. They didn't decide the layout of the New Zealand edition of the Missal.

Given the first effort was rejected, I can only but imagine what it might have looked like.

I'd suggest this edition still has layout issues. Among them

• page turns in awkward places
• the capitalisation of the words of consecration, making them almost impossible to read, and
• some of the text is so closely aligned to the gutter of the book, that standing in a normal upright position makes it also almost impossible to read e.g. the Prayer of the Gifts on the 4th Sunday of Lent.

Negotiating the new text is one thing, negotiating poor formatting is another.

If this were a normal book, I'd be tempted to return it.

After my Sunday experience, I chatted with other priests who like me have tried-out the new New Zealand Missal.

Alas, they reinforced my view; one going as far as saying his experience was "dreadful", and another, "forget the words, the layout is all over the place."

Where to from here?

I'm fortunate enough to have an iPad, and for some time have had the Universalis App.

This week, Universalis released a new free upgrade and with it came a feature "Mass Today".

My initial reaction, it's fantastic.

Some of its features include the ability to:

• select the New Zealand liturgical calendar
• make the font size either smaller or larger
• select "Mass Today" and you get the whole Mass from the Sign of the Cross through to the Dismissal, including readings and your choice of Preface and ten Eucharistic Prayers.
• take it with you in portable form.

Universalis on the iPad is not without its issues:

• some of the pagination still interrupts the flow a little, (but because you don't have to turn the page as often, this inconvenience is minimised)
• it's only in English; there's no Maori translation
• unlike a book which you just open and use, it's important to make sure the iPad has enough battery-life to get you through Mass. A full-charge lasts for 10 hours. Hint: Turn the screen off during your sermon :-)
• managing the iPad itself, navigation, updates and the like, may be a challenge for some
• it probably requires a cover to make it look more like a book
• it costs NZ$26

Using the iPad as a replacement missal may not be everyone's "cup of tea", but I'd pose it's at least worthy of consideration.

Those looking to do something useful with their old iPad could now perhaps dedicate its use as "liturgical", and for those thinking about the additional text quality and the high definition screen of the new iPad; now just might be time to buy.

Additional links

• Apple New Zealand
• iPad Video
• iPad Ad
• Universalis App

John Murphy is a Marist priest working in the Marist Internet Ministry, New Zealand. He recently completed a two-year contract with ucanews.com. He has a Master of Communications Studies from Victoria University.

The last few weeks have seen some significant and high-profile comments about the new English translation of the Missal. Vox Clara, initially conceived as a supervisory committee of bishops but seemingly now the dominant executive agency, met in Rome earlier this month. Its subsequent press release ended by expressing "satisfaction that the completion of the English translation of the Roman Missal has been welcomed throughout the English-speaking world".

Meanwhile, in Britain, The Catholic Herald reported that church authorities in England and Wales "do not expect resistance to the new translation of the Roman Missal when it is introduced in September." The acting secretary of the bishops' liturgy commission was quoted as saying: "There are people who like it and people who don't and some who aren't so sure. But I think you'll find that clergy are a fairly pragmatic group of people in the end …"

Yet elsewhere there is evidence of disquiet.

Read more of the discussion of the new English Translation of the Missal at the London Tablet.