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 was controversially released.

The English translation of the missal, uses the phrase "for many," suggesting, on the face of it, Jesus did not shed his blood for all.

The change of just two words in the Italian translation is a hallmark of Francis' papacy according to Christopher Lamb, the Rome Correspondent for The Tablet.

In 2006, Rome ruled that "pro multis" should be translated as "for many" with Benedict XVI insistent on this point, however the Italian bishops held out, resisting Rome and voted overwhelmingly to keep the "for all" phrase.

The consistent theme of the Francis pontificate is that God's mercy is all-embracing, and the Church is a field hospital welcoming all sinners. No one is excluded, says Lamb.

"Although a less literal translation of the Latin, the phrase 'for all' better reflects the teaching that Christ's sacrifice was for the whole of humanity, and is in keeping with Vatican II.

"As the old Latin motto explains: lex orandi, lex credendi. The rule of prayer is the rule of belief," comments Lamb.

Bishop Claudio Maniago, president of the Italian bishops' liturgy commission, said the commission worked hard to remain faithful to the Latin text.

There was "also, and most of all, an effort to render the text as usable as possible and, so, also make it an instrument of growth for the Italian church," he said.

Admitting there were also some changes to the Our Father and Gloria, Maniago said the bishops worked hard to keep changes to the people's prayers to a minimum.

He said the differences in the Italian translation have been thoroughly discussed with the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments.

This is the same body the English translation was discussed with.

Controversy and confusion

Controversy surrounded the 2011 release of the English translation, some calling it "wooden", "archaic" and "inflated".

Others accused the translators of producing convoluted syntax.

In 2015, Emeritus Bishop of Palmerston North, Peter Cullinane, called for an overhaul of the new English Missal.

Cullinane told the London Tablet the translation was clunky, awkward and a too literal translation of the Latin original.

In 2017 the New Zealand Bishops' Conference responded to widespread criticism of the translation saying it hoped for liturgical texts that are both accurate and that speak to the heart.

Later in 2017, in "Magnum Principium" Francis removed the requirement that Rome authorise every aspect of translations; instead, its role is to review translations that have been commissioned and approved by the bishops' conference.

Removing Rome's authorisation mandate is consistent with Francis "manifesto" document number 32 in Evangelii Gaudium, where he writes "Excessive centralisation complicates the Church's life and her missionary outreach."

"When it comes to the wordings of prayers, it is the bishops on the ground, not curial officials in Rome, who are the best judges of what is going to most effectively aid evangelisation," explains Lamb.

Twenty years after the work of the Italian translation began and ten years after the English edition was released, priests in Italy will use the new Italian translation from Easter 2021.

Sources

• The Boston Pilot
• CathNews NZ

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 the Roman Rite".

The 1998 draft translation was the result of 15 years of collaborative work that took place between 1982 and 1997.

This draft version had received the approval of all the English-speaking conferences of the world.

But in 2002 the Congregation for Divine Worship refused to give an imprimatur.

It was replaced by a revised translation in 2010 and introduced into parishes in November 2011.

Dunn said as soon as Magnum Principium came out, a number of New Zealand priests started urging their bishops to lead the way and start using the 1998 translation.

He said it was not that simple "because, even with Magnum Principium, you still need to go to the Congregation [for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments] for 'confirmatio' (Latin for confirmation)."

He stressed the Congregation "does play an important role because it preserves the unity of the Roman Rite".

Dunn said the New Zealand bishops are also not inclined to go it alone because they acknowledge the importance of working collegially with ICEL.

He said at ICEL's February meeting that it would be interesting to see what the other episcopal conferences think about revisiting the 1998 translation.

"What I suspect is that many [ICEL] bishops' conferences may not want to be bothered with a whole new Missal. They'll think, ‘dear God, not again'," he said.

Dunn said his personal opinion is that it might be worthwhile reviewing the 1998 translation for the Eucharistic Prayers but keep the people's responses the same.

Source

• NZ Catholic
• LaCroix
• Liturgy
• Image: America Magazine

The Vatican is insisting on a precise translation from the Latin text approved in 2002, as it did for the translation into English.

The planned new translation will be for French-speaking parts of Europe, Canada, Africa and the Caribbean.

It will replace the first translation made after the Second Vatican Council.

A first draft of a new translation from bishops in the French-speaking world was rejected by the Vatican in 2007.

Several francophone bishops' conferences, especially in Belgium, Canada and Switzerland, have raised objections to the latest text.

Bishops from these conferences say that they find the latest text pompous and unnatural, the French daily La Croix reported.

The French bishops are less critical, but still have reservations.

But Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, told the French magazine Famille Chrétienne that Pope Francis had recently told him "the new translations of the Missal must absolutely respect the Latin text".

The latest French text uses the word "consubstantial" in the Nicene Creed.

It also brings back the "through my fault" sequence that had been replaced by "Yes, I have truly sinned" in French.

For the chalice, it turns the current word for chalice "coupe" back to the older "calice", which has become a swear word for exasperated French Canadians.

The introduction to the Offertory ("Orate fratres") has become stilted and hard to recite.

By contrast, a change to the Lord's Prayer has been well received.

The currently used French prayer now says "do not submit us to temptation", which theologians say implies that God tempts people to sin.

The new translation, which France's Protestant churches also support, says "do not let us enter into temptation".

Sources

• The Tablet
• Image: Catholic Herald

In an article in L'Osservatore Romano, Cardinal Robert Sarah stated that the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy should not be read with a "hermeneutic of rupture".

"It would be wrong to consider the extraordinary form of the Roman rite as coming from another theology," he said.

It would be "desirable" that there be an appendix in an upcoming edition of the Roman Missal that would permit celebrants in the ordinary form to use the penitential rite and the offertory of the extraordinary form.

This would show that the ordinary form and the extraordinary form are "in continuity and without opposition", Cardinal Sarah stated.

"If we live in this spirit, then the liturgy will cease to be the place of rivalry and criticism," he wrote.

Instead it would be the place in which we participate actively in the heavenly liturgy, the cardinal added.

Cardinal Sarah also it consistent with the conciliar constitution that, "during the rite of penance, the singing of the Gloria, the orations, and the Eucharistic prayer, everyone, priest and faithful, should turn together towards the East".

This is "to express their will to participate in the work of worship and of redemption accomplished by Christ," he continued, adding that this would be especially appropriate in cathedrals.

He recalled Vatican II's teaching that the faithful should "be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them".

He also critiqued the "contemporary Western mentality" in which the faithful are to be "constantly busy" and in which the Mass is to be rendered "convivial".

The cardinal said the council suggested sacred silence as one of the means of active participation.

"The liturgy is essentially the action of Christ," he noted.

"If this vital principle is not received in faith, it is likely to make the liturgy a human work, a self-celebration of the community."

Sources

• Catholic World News
• Image: Salt and Light TV

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 and too literal a translation of the Latin.

In The Tablet earlier this month, Jesuit theologian Fr Gerald O'Collins wrote an open letter to English-speaking bishops, urging them to press for adoption of the 1998 text

But Archbishop Arthur Roche said using a different English version of the Missal could not happen.

The archbishop told The Tablet that the Roman liturgy "expresses the unity of the entire Church".

While the 1998 version translated the 1975 Roman Missal, a new Latin Missal was introduced in 2002, thus making the 1998 edition outdated, he said.

Archbishop Roche, as Chairman of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), oversaw the introduction of the current English Mass text.

He said that "the principles governing the translation of liturgical texts of the Roman Rite had altered by 2001 which would have, in any case, required a new translation of the Roman Missal".

He was referring to the document Liturgiam Authenticam which was approved by St John Paul II.

This document called for translations to convey the "integral manner" of the original Latin "even while being verbally or syntactically different from it".

But Emeritus Bishop Maurice Taylor of Galway, a former chairman of ICEL, said a precedent existed for Catholics who want to have the choice to be able to use the 1998 missal.

Rome could give its recognitio to this text, which was approved by all the English speaking bishops' conferences which are full members of ICEL, he said.

"Those who prefer to continue with the [2011] Missal, on grounds of either taste or expense, would do so; others would opt for the 1998 translation."

Sources

• The Tablet
• The Tablet
• Image: Galleryhip

Fr Gerald O'Collins, who taught at the Gregorian University in Rome for 33 years and who holds several doctorates in theology, sent The Tablet an open letter to the bishops.

In the letter, he called for the adoption of a revised 1998 translation completed after 17 years of work by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy.

But this translation, which had been approved by bishops' conferences, was "summarily rejected" by Rome, without any dialogue, the Australian Jesuit wrote.

Roman authorities set up a committee called Vox Clara, which is largely responsible for the current translation, he added.

"Ironically, the results produced by Vox Clara were too often unclear and sometimes verging on the unintelligible," Fr O'Collins wrote.

He noted that those who prepared the current English translation aimed at a "sacral style".

It "regularly sounds like Latin texts transposed into English words rather than genuine English".

This is "something that is alien to the direct and familiar way of speaking to God and about God practised by the psalmists and taught by Jesus", Fr O'Collins stated.

"What would Jesus say about the 2010 Missal? Would he approve of its clunky, Latinised English that aspires to a ‘sacral' style which allegedly will ‘inspire' worshippers?"

If the texts of the 1998 "Missal that wasn't" are set beside the current translation, "there should be no debate about the version to choose", Fr O'Collins wrote.

He told the Anglophone bishops that his "hope is now that you will act quickly to help English-speaking Catholics participate more effectively in the liturgy - a central recommendation in Vatican II's very first document".

He concluded: "I yearn for a final blessing, a quick solution to our liturgical woes. The 1998 translation is there, waiting in the wings."

Sources

• The Tablet
• The Tablet
• Image: The Guardian

This is the finding of a survey of clergy views carried out by the Association of Catholic Clergy (ACP) in Ireland.

The survey also showed a significant percentage of priests still use texts from a 1973 missal.

Views were taken from 191 priests, who were randomly selected from the alphabetical listing of clergy in Ireland.

The survey was taken between March 31 and April 11.

It shows 35 per cent of priests surveyed favour replacing the current translation immediately and 45 per cent "as soon as a revised missal becomes available".

Close to two thirds of those surveyed said they were either dissatisfied (33.5 per cent) or very dissatisfied (27.2 per cent) with the missal.

This compared with just a quarter who were either very satisfied (4.7 per cent) or satisfied (19.9 per cent).

Even among those who were satisfied, more than half wanted to see a revised missal within a few years.

Some 147 respondents said they used texts from the new missal exclusively, 32 used a combination of texts from the new missal and a 1973 missal, while ten priests used text solely from the latter.

The findings of the survey were presented to three Irish bishops.

The ACP asked the bishops to encourage parish councils to express their views on the missal and, if possible, to survey those views.

Fr Sean McDonagh, SSC, a linguist who attended a meeting between the ACP and the bishops, said one bishop expressed surprise at the survey findings.

Fr McDonagh called on bishops in England and Wales to conduct a similar survey among their priests and people

The full text in English of the new translation of the Mass was introduced in Advent, 2011.

Before and during its implementation there were complaints from clergy and laity that the translation was too literal, with antiquated words and over-long sentences.

The new missal was translated according to Liturgiam Authenticam, issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in 2001.

This called for a more direct translation from the Latin to vernacular languages.

Sources

• The Tablet
• The Journal
• Association of Catholic Priests (survey)
• Catholic Herald
• Image: Mullingar Parish

Half of the 539 parishes who responded to questions from Georgetown's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) agreed that the translation "urgently needs to be revised".

The translation went into effect in 2011 in the US and has been criticised because of its use of awkward and stilted English in translating from the Latin version of the Mass.

An exact word-for-word approach to translations was called for by Roman instruction Liturgiam Authenticam in 2001.

The CARA survey shows the struggle many parishes are still having in adopting the new text.

About75 percent of respondents said they either "agree" or "strongly agree" that "some of the language of the new text is awkward and distracting".

"Forty-seven percent answered "strongly agree" to that statement.

Likewise, an even 50 percent of those answering said they "agree" or "strongly agree" that "the new translation urgently needs to be revised," with 33 per cent answering "strongly agree".

Release of the new CARA survey also comes shortly after one of the former leaders of the US bishops' conference said publicly that the new translation has "flaws and difficulties".

Speaking at a liturgical conference in St Petersburg, Florida on March 29, Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory said it was time for priests and bishops to say of the translation: "We've tried it, we've lived with it, we think it needs correction."

CARA sent its survey to 6000 parishes before receiving the 539 responses.

Of the 539 responding, 444 were members of the clergy (421 diocesan or religious priests, 13 deacons) and 75 were lay leaders (57 women religious or other laywomen, 18 religious brothers or other laymen).

Fr Anthony Cutcher, president of the National Federation of Priests' Councils, said in a statement that the survey may help lead "constructive criticism" of the missal.

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• Huffington Post
• Image: Hawaii Catholic Herald

The objective of the survey was to determine as accurately as possible the views of U.S. Catholic priests about the new translation of the English Missal which was introduced on the First Sunday of Advent (November 26-27), 2011.

All 178 Roman Catholic Latin rite dioceses in the U.S. were invited to take part in this study.

The 32 participating dioceses are from all parts of the country and 12 of 14 Latin rite ecclesiastical regions of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In the period February 21 - May 6, 2013, priests in participating dioceses were invited to participate in the online survey via an email to all priests on the diocesan distribution list.

A total of 1,536 priests responded, with a response rate of 42.5%. Continue reading

Sources

• St John's School of Theology
• Image: CathNews NZ Pacific

The book is about how to achieve real participation and engagement in liturgy.

People who want to find creative solutions to the tension between the needs of the their local church and the official liturgical books will find this book useful.

It is a resource for planning and leading liturgies in parishes and communities.

The authors hope to promote informed discussion and to support those who want to make adaptations and changes so that the liturgy will reflect the culture and people who celebrate it.

Themes include: Eucharist for our time & context; shared leadership & ministry in Eucharist, local spirituality and Eucharist, Eucharist that builds an inclusive church and, overcoming the tensions of planning & celebration.

The authors, Neil Darragh and Jo Ayers, well known in Catholic circles in New Zealand, bring together their experience of teaching liturgy at university and of many years membership of local liturgy committees. They provide differing perspectives and experiences of a layperson and a priest.

Accent is niche publisher that concentrates exclusively on publishing spirituality and theology from Aotearoa-New Zealand.

Accent's intention is to be a resource for people who want to talk about and search out mature responses to the major issues of Christian life in the 21^st Century.

Accent's publications are written by people who live Aotearoa New Zealand .

Accent is interested in establishing a dialogue with others who like them want to create a contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand spirituality.

Source

• Accent Publications
• Image: Pangeablog

If you are a regular Mass-goer, you are probably no longer stumbling over 'Lord I am not worthy to receive you under my roof ...'. You now mumble, 'And with your spirit' in the same reflex, slightly absent minded-way you used to say, 'And also with you'; and you are now used to hearing 'For many ...' where once you heard 'For all' without it striking you as odd.

There's always a certain refreshment in any new translation of a familiar text, just as any new telling of an old story - even a clumsy new version - throws light on a previously neglected episode or character.

In a really successful new translation, the original is brought alive for a new audience with new force and power. In a bad translation, what was clear and elegant becomes muddled and flat-footed, and what was exciting and dramatic becomes colourless and prosaic.

No one seems to have been entirely happy with the process of arriving at the new text for the Mass, and irritation at feeling that it was foisted on us without proper consultation may have clouded our initial judgement of the new translation.

But now that we've been living with it for a year or more, perhaps this is a good time to ask Catholics whether or not the new translation has freshened and deepened their understanding of the extraordinary things that we are celebrating and remembering Mass.

The London Tablet is asking New Zealanders and people throughout English-speaking world to take a survey about their experience of the new English translation. What do you think? Have your say in the Tablet's survey.

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

Already available for the iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Windows Phone 7, and Android, iBreviary contains the complete Roman Missal, all prayers of the Daily Office, Mass readings and all prayers said and sung during Mass throughout the liturgical years.

Developed by Father Paolo Padrini, a parish priest in Tortona, north Italy, the Vatican consultant has made the free application available in English, French, Spanish, Italian and Latin.

Fr Padrini expects future upgrades to feature audio as well as commentaries and suggestions for homilies as well as musical accompaniment.

Earlier in the year the New Zealand Bishops' conference banned priests from using all electronic Missals in the liturgy.

"The Missal is reserved for use during the Church's liturgy. iPads and other electronic devices have a variety of uses, e.g. for the playing of games, using the internet, watching videos and checking mail. This alone makes their use in the liturgy inappropriate," the bishops said in a signed letter to priests.

The bishops commended the use of electronic Missals for private prayer and study purposes.

Sources

• Independent Catholic News
• CathNews
• Image: Coffee and Canticles

Father Bill Rowe, 73, has been removed from St Mary Catholic parish in Mount Carmel, Illinois, where he had been pastor for 18 years.

Bishop Edward Braxton of Belleville diocese also suspended his priestly faculties, so he is not permitted to celebrate public Masses or preside at weddings, funerals or baptisms.

Sixteen fellow priests signed a statement calling Father Rowe "a beloved and effective pastor" and calling the bishop's demand that he step down "irrationally disproportionate to the supposed crime".

A public protest took place outside the bishop's office and an online petition has gathered around 1600 signatories, many from overseas. Some added comments such as "The new English translation of the Mass is so awkward and very un-prayerful" and "I am sure Jesus improvised".

In a public statement, Bishop Braxton said Father Rowe had told him "forthrightly on several occasions, he simply could not and would not pray the prayers of the Mass as they are translated in the new Roman Missal".

Bishop Braxton also said he had "repeatedly and over several years asked him to pray the Mass as it is presented in the Sacramentary and, currently, in the new Missal".

Father Rowe said he is appealing to Rome, but termed this a long shot. In the meantime, the priest suspended for improvising prayers of the Mass has been welcomed by the pastor of St Joseph parish in Olney, as a volunteer who will play guitar in the parish school and do Bible study for teens.

St Mary's parishioners farewelled Father Rowe with an "ice cream and dessert celebration" on July 8, and the suspended priest was also named the surprise parade marshal for the annual Fourth of July Parade in Mount Carmel.

Sources:

Independent Catholic News

Daily Republican Register

Image: Free Republic

Father William Grimm then asks the question: " If a machine that has no faith, no emotions, no aesthetic sense and no connection with the Church produces a translation that is indistinguishable from or even better than the official one, what does that say about the quality of the official translation or translators."

Read Deus ex machina by Fr William Grimm's article

Father William Grimm is a Tokyo-based priest and publisher of UCA News, and former editor-in-chief of "Katorikku Shimbun," Japan's Catholic weekly.

Image: UCA NEWS

• Read Fr Merv Duffy's liturgy article in the Marist Messenger
• Image: Orthodox Church Supplies

Fr Merv Duffy sm lectures in Systematic Theology and is Dean of Studies at Good Shepherd College, Auckland.

Such language, so different from the plainspoken words of Jesus in prayer and parable, is in contrast to the directive of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of Vatican II: "In this restoration [of the liturgy], both texts and rites should be drawn up so that they express more clearly the holy things which they signify; the Christian people, so far as possible, should be enabled to understand them with ease and to take part in them fully, actively, and as befits a community."

We have also become accustomed to hearing presiders stumble over the convoluted syntax of the prayers and watching them hurriedly turning pages as they wend their way through the labyrinthine new missals. Yet, there is one new expression that involves a significant translation error with serious implications for a proper understanding of the Last Supper as a Passover meal, along with implications for continued Jewish-Christian understanding. In the final analysis, it enshrines poor pastoral theology in the Sunday liturgy.

"Traduttore, Traditore"

All translators are familiar with the caution that translations often distort or even betray the nuances of the original language. This is dramatically true in the substitution of the term "chalice" for "cup" in the words of institution in the Eucharistic prayer from the 1970 missal approved by Pope Paul VI:

When supper was ended he took the cup [chalice].
Again he gave you thanks and praise,
Gave the cup [chalice] to his disciples, and said:

Take this, all of you and drink from it;
This is the cup [chalice] of my blood,
The blood of the new and everlasting covenant.
It will be shed for you and for all
So that sins may be forgiven.
Do this in memory of me. Continue reading

Sources

• Commonweal
• Image: Marist Messenger
• See also The Marist Messenger, "Chalice versus Cup" by Fr Merv Duffy sm

The New Zealand Bishops have told their priests that only the official printed copy of the Roman Missal may be used at Mass and at the Church's other liturgies. They say that the Roman Missal apps for iPad and the use of other tablets, mobile phones and e-readers are excellent for study purposes, but their use in the Church's litugry is inappropriate.

A letter sent to priests and signed by all the Bishops of New Zealand says that that all religions have books which are reserved which are reserved for the rituals and activities at the heart of the faith, and the Roman Missal is one such book.

"The Missal is reserved for use during the Church's liturgy. iPads and other electronic devices have a variety of uses, e.g. for the playing of games, using the internet, watching videos and checking mail. This alone makes their use in the liturgy inappropriate," they say.

In 2010, commenting on an iPad application created by an Italian priest, Paolo Padrini, who was at that time a consultant at the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Father Anthony Ward, an under secretary at the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, said liturgical rules generally refer to 'the book,' and there's been an effort in recent years 'to promote the book, and the embellishment of the book."The idea of having a substitute for the book at public Masses seems to go against that consensus," he said.

Ward said the congregation wasn't specifically considering the suitability of the iPad application, and that there didn't appear to be explicit rules against such devices. But he added that in this case, one should not assume that if it is not forbidden, it is allowed.

Source

• New Zealand Catholic Bishops' Conference (PDF)
• CNS
• Image: iMissal

"There are some critics of the new translation," he says "let's prayerfully keep a perspective on the changes and an open mind that this is, as we have been saying for a long time, 'New words, deeper meaning, same Mass.' We will discover a 'deeper meaning' only when we give ourselves a fair go and approach these words prayerfully."

The full text of Archbishop Dew's Letter to Parish Priests, Lay Leaders and School Principals:

It is not only the new road rules which come into effect this Sunday, this is also the day when the Revised Roman Missal becomes the official text for all Masses celebrated in New Zealand.

There has been a great deal of ink spilled, emails written and words spoken, over the new English translation of the Mass, that is, the new edition of the Roman Missal, which will become the only approved text to be used in New Zealand as from this Sunday. There have been many discussions surrounding the new translations and the process that led to their approval. Depending on who you read — it's a beautiful translation that preserves the majesty of the original Latin; or it's not much of a change at all; or it's an overly literal translation that sounds awkward and clumsy.

It's probably unfair to judge until a few months have passed, and the priests and people have had the chance to hear and speak and pray with the changes. Over 12 months ago people were confused and upset over the change from "and also with you" to "and with your spirit." But people seem to have become used to that now, and are appreciating the biblical source of that phrase. Now some are concerned about the translation of the Our Father we will use at Mass - at all English Masses around the world.

As one priest wrote "This is still the Mass: We are still celebrating Christ who is in our midst... We must not let anything get in the way of that." We remember that we are coming together as one people to pray as Jesus taught us.

Many of the prayers are different, it will take us some time to become used to them, but the Church's prayer and Liturgy is never about our personal preference, but about what Christ is doing for us. As many priests will tell you, it takes a while to move from saying the prayers of the Mass to praying them. From feeling like you are performing to praying with the congregation. And at some point I know we will feel comfortable with the new English translation.

There are some critics of the new translation; let's prayerfully keep a perspective on the changes and an open mind that this is as we have been saying for a long time "New words, deeper meaning, same Mass." We will discover a "deeper meaning" only when we give ourselves a fair go and approach these words prayerfully.

One of the things I would encourage Clergy, Lay Pastoral Leaders, and teachers in our schools to do is to read and become familiar with the General Instruction on the Roman Missal (GIRM) which is at the beginning of the Missal. The GIRM gives the principles and guidelines for our liturgies, which when prayed with and reflected on, will enable us to lead people in prayerful and well celebrated Liturgies.

Source

• Archdiocese of Wellington
• Image: National Liturgy Office

Grammar

I unwrapped it and flicked it open enthusiastically, in the presence of some well-educated adults, to the Sunday collect:

"O God, who have commanded us to listen to your beloved Son,…"

"It hasn't been proof read", was the immediate response of one person. So I turned over the page to the next collect:

"O God, who have taught us to chasten our bodies…"

"Maybe they are referring to God as Trinity," said another person. I forget how many degrees he has. We are, of course, not tri-theists.

Since then, I have run this past three senior staff in our English Department who all see this construction as incorrect, an awkward construction. The question was asked, "How do Roman Catholic priests understand this, deal with this?"

But enough on that - there's plenty of other places that discuss the translation from Latin into English as it is not used, the loss of ecumenically-agreed texts, and our shared musical tradition.

The missal has a strong red cover, good page thickness, and a clear font. Its 1475 pages is bound as 18cm x 23cm x6.5 cm (9"x7"x2.5"). It comes with a Companion to the Missal (same dimensions 518 pages, 2.5cm, 1" thick). This contains Entrance Antiphon, collect, Prayer after Communion; Introductory Rites; Concluding Rites; Blessings at the End of Mass and Prayers over the People - to be used by the priest at the chair. Read more

Sources

• Liturgy
• Image: National Liturgy Office