The project began in the 1990s when members of the Tokelaun expatriate community approached New Zealand's Bible Society about producing the Bible in their language.

The Tokelauan Society for the Translation of the Bible is an inter-church committee comprising principally the Congregational Church, and the Pacific Islands congregations of the Presbyterian Church together with some Catholic involvement.

The first translators were appointed in 1996, and two of them are still at work today - Ioane Teao and Loimata Iupati. Ioane Teao has been the one who's driven the project all the way.

The Bible Society's translation director Stephen Pattemore told RNZ's Dominic Godfrey that the Bible Society has been providing training and technical support since the project officially started.

The Tokelauan New Testament was launched in June 2009.

Pattemore says they have now translated all the books of the Protestant Canon of the Old Testament.

They have also translated several books of the Catholic Deuterocanon, but there is still a distance to go there. "What we would really like is some more involvement from Catholic translators," he says.

They are now working on both community level checking and consultant-checking to have the Old testament finalised for publication, hopefully next year.

Tokelau was evangelised by missionaries from Samoa over 150 years ago. The Samoan Bible has been used until now.

But it was decided very early on that they were not going to refer to Samoan as a source text, said Pattemore.

"This was going to be a new Tokelauan translation which found its way starting from an English base rather than constantly referring to the Samoan."

There are 1,400 Tokelauans living on the islands of Tokelau.

More than 7,000 Tokelauans live in New Zealand, with 50% living in Wellington.

There are also communities in Auckland, Taupo and Rotorua.

Ke manuia koutou i te Alofa o te Atua . "May you be blessed in God's love."

Source

• Supplied: Bible Society, Sarah Richards
• RNZ
• Image: Screen Shot Ministry for Pacific Peoples

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

A new translation of the Order of Celebrating Matrimony will be used in England and Wales from Easter Sunday, 2016.

A new translation of the Order of Confirmation will also be introduced on that date.

In their the summary of the new translation of the Order of Celebrating Matrimony, the England and Wales bishops have included a section entitled: "Can I have my favourite poem?"

The document answers: "Every wedding liturgy is unique . . . It is also a celebration of the Church which means that the structure, texts and how the liturgy is celebrated are laid down.

"Any reading in the Liturgy of the Word should be taken from Scripture (the Bible) and cannot be replaced by another text.

"In a similar way any music played or sung should normally be taken from the Church's long and living tradition of music.

"Texts should be expressive of the faith of Church."

It concludes: "It is important to remember that the Marriage liturgy is one of a sequence of events that make up the whole of the Wedding Celebration.

"It is not therefore necessary that a favourite poem or song is included within the liturgy; it may be better placed within the wedding reception."

Among the changes introduced for nuptial celebrations, the Catholic Herald reported, is the requirement that at least one of the readings must explicitly mention marriage, such as the account of the Wedding at Cana in John's Gospel.

When marriage is celebrated within Mass, a Gloria will now be said or sung to mark the festivity of the occasion.

Under the new translation of the Order of Celebrating Matrimony is also a blessing for engaged couples and a blessing for married couples on their anniversary.

Sources

• Catholic Herald
• Image: St Mary's Stillwater

No official English translation of the Italian language document has been published as yet by the Vatican.

The synod's final report has three parts - "The Church listens to the family", "The family in the design of God", and "The mission of the family".

The English translation can be found here.

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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

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

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 a New Evangelisation conference in the Philippines, the Pope asked Catholics throughout Asia not to "grow tired" of taking God's mercy to the "poor, sick, abandoned, young people and families".

He read in English from a prepared text and his voice was heavily accented.

"Let Jesus be known in the world of politics, business, arts, science, technology and social media," he told the 5000 delegates from across South-East Asia.

"Let the Holy Spirit renew creation and bring forth justice and peace in the Philippines and in the great continent of Asia that is close to my heart."

The Pope's met ICEL members as the translation group celebrated its 50th anniversary.

Speaking in Italian, he told them: "The fruits of your labours have not only helped to form the prayer of countless Catholics, but have also contributed to the understanding of the faith, the exercise of the common priesthood and the renewal of the Church's missionary outreach, all themes central to the teaching of the [Second Vatican] Council….

"By enabling the vast numbers of the Catholic faithful throughout the world to pray in a common language, your commission has helped to foster the Church's unity in faith and sacramental communion.

"That unity and communion, which has its origin in the Blessed Trinity, is one which constantly reconciles and enhances the richness of diversity."

ICEL is made up of representatives of 11 bishops' conferences: the United States, Canada, Ireland, England and Wales, Scotland, southern Africa (South Africa, Swaziland and Botswana), India, Pakistan, Philippines, New Zealand and Australia.

Sources:

Vatican Radio

The Tablet

Audio recording of Pope's Philippines message (Vatican Radio)

Vatican Radio

Vatican Insider

Image: Vatican Insider