The 'schoolboys' have no real authority

[Matilda]

I am now 76 years old. I have served the church as a priest for the last 40 of those years. I don’t think I will live long enough for anyone to convince me that the new translation is so much better, so much more spiritual, so much more pleasing to God, and will make me a so much more holy person to say, as we are now required to say at the beginning of the Second Eucharistic Prayer: “You are indeed Holy, Oh Lord, the fount of all holiness” than to say, as we used to say: “Oh Lord, you are holy indeed, the fountain of all holiness.” Or how about this? What is so much better about saying, “Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father,” as we are now required to say, than to say “Pray, brothers and sisters, that this our sacrifice may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father,” as we said until recently?

http://ncronline.org/news/spirituality/schoolboys-have-no-real-authority


The writer has summed up very well so much of what's wrong. These "experts" don't seem to really grasp that Latin isn't meant to be translated word by word into English. They have a different word order to English, and the real ability of a good translator is how they keep the meaning intact while switching words into the correct English order in a way that flows smoothly. If anyone knows German, it's a similar situation- they have the nouns, then the adverbs, then the verbs at the end - but when you translate into English, you have to switch the word order, and if it's done correctly, the meaning won't be lost.

I think the correspondent who said this in reply to the article: "... I suspect that all of this is simply a lead-in to a more Orthodox model of Church governance (national or linguistic patriarchs) and reunification with Constantinople and New Rome", has probably hit the nail right on the head.

[hedgehog]

1. Going by the comments on the article,

it is clear that the new translation is perceived as a litmus test to determine your obedience to Rome.

[tjwmason]

2. Isn't this the same criticism which was made of the reform in the '60s?

When I read Abp. Bugnini's memoirs (The Reform of the Liturgy, 1948-75) there were certainly comments about complaints from older members of the curia who disliked the then youngsters changing everything so dramatically.

[Matilda]

3. This, though, is the "reform of the reform".

In other words, the kind of people who complained in the sixties about liturgical reform are now turning back the clock to pre-Vatican II days.

And I think it's got a lot to do with Benedict's authoritarianism, and his wish to take everything back to "the good old days".

I wonder what's next?

[tjwmason]

4. I think you missed my point.

The dismissive - I've been doing this for years, so I know better than you - is what the reformers of the '60s faced, the new older generation (what one might call the new establishment) is now saying it about those who propose their own changes.