DECEMBER 2017 47/4 up. In the current issue of the Irish There are also new texts in 2002. A composed for all the Sundays in the what the Second Vatican Council asked In an Open Letter published in Theological Quarterly (82:4), for new version of the General Instruction three year cycle of the Lectionary, them to do in preparing liturgical The Tablet in 2015, O’Collins example, Neil O’Donoghue examines of the Roman Missal, currently taking their cue from the readings. books, I believe they should move to wickedly noted that the ‘sacral the history of the translation of the available only in the difficult There were prayers for needs and set aside the unacceptable 2010 style’ of the 2010 Missal was quite Missal over the last fifty years, translation of 2010, includes extensive occasions in contemporary life translation imposed on them and foreign to the Psalms or the comparing texts from 1973, 1998 and cross references to the 2010 Missal. (including the unemployed, the engage again with treasures waiting to Lord’s Prayer. Jesus, he said, 2010. He concludes by proposing that Some of the texts for new saints homeless, the addicted, prayers in time be revealed since 1998. We are not never encouraged us to say: an edited version of the 1998 introduced since 1973 were already of industrial conflict and so on). New starting from scratch. It will still ‘graciously grant, we pray, that Sacramentary be offered for use as an incorporated in 1998, but there is a list greetings, blessings and introductions however demand some years of intense you give us our daily bread’ or option alongside the current Roman of eleven new commemorations which were prepared for the Order of Mass. work to review the 20-year-old book ONWARDS ‘may thy will, we pray, O Lord, Missal. The best would win out and, were not in 1998. Other miscellaneous Additional Prayers over the Gifts and and decide what we need to carry be done through your prevenient in due course, a new edition prepared new texts were added in the commons Prayers after Communion were across from the 2010 Missal. grace’. He asked us to pray and Masses for various needs and composed, and new Prefaces. Early in TO 1998 ? accordingly. Politics will be the stumbling block. simply and directly to God: ‘thy occasions. The Apostles Creed is the process new Eucharistic Prayers Unlike other language groups, English Closer to home, Gerald O’Collins SJ has will be done; give us this day allowed, optional Prayers over the were composed and trialled but, when requires the cooperation of a dozen just published a useful book entitled our daily bread’. People are given during Lent, Vigils are it became clear that these would no independent bishops conferences. How Lost in Translation: The English provided for Epiphany and Ascension, longer be approved in Rome, they were Language and the Catholic Mass can we align the duckies in a row? hat a pity we missed out on and there is a new Preface for Martyrs. reluctantly dropped from the (Liturgical Press, 2017). As the book Traditionally discussion and the 1998 Sacramentary. Revised was going to press, Pope Francis WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE? Secondly there have been changes collaboration was assured by ICEL. But Sacramentary! Painstakingly since 2002-2010. Some new saints ICEL now operates under statutes W released his motu proprio Magnum Magnum Principium has rightly There was also considerable work done prepared by excellent scholars over a Principium and O’Collins has included have been introduced to the Roman on developing a consistent Table of reshaped by Liturgiam Authenticam. period of 16 years. Approved by all the restored control of the liturgical books a postscript describing its import. With Calendar (for example, John XXIII and Contents, the layout of the prayers on There is great uncertainty. Who says English-speaking conferences of to bishops conferences, as it was in the help from John Wilkins, he presents a John Paul II). Texts from the ritual the page, headings and outlines for the they are no longer answerable to the bishops who examined the text fulsome and well-informed account of beginning after the Second Vatican books were added to the 2002 Missal rites, reworking the rubrics, Congregation for Divine Worship and carefully in eight separate segments the translation saga. O’Collins then Council. However I do not think it is (ordination and matrimony, for restructuring the introductory rites, the Discipline of the Sacraments? The during the 1990s. Rejected by the Holy compares the translation philosophy of quite as simple as taking a 20-year-old example). What do we do with these and preparing pastoral notes to bishops conferences themselves are See. Comme le Prévoit (1969) with that of book off the shelf and making it now that we have the newly translated encourage a better liturgical fearful, waiting to see what the others What a pity the Congregation for Liturgiam Authenticam. He exposes available for worship today. ritual books in ‘sacral’style? celebration. All this material is an do, watching the manoeuvring of integral part of the book and cannot officials in Rome. Caution can easily Divine Worship and the Discipline of the 2010 Missal to a critical Firstly there is the new Latin typical More importantly, we have been using just be dropped out. Problem is… all morph into inertia. the Sacraments then felt it necessary to examination and then turns to the edition of 2002 to take into account. the 2010 Missal for almost a decade. this counts as adaptation as distinct produce Liturgiam Authenticam suppressed translation of 1998, Much of the change is a rearrangement We cannot pretend that this period has Where there is a will, there is a way, from translation. Now Magnum (2001)! It enshrined the new statutes both its texts for the Order of of material, sometimes of not existed. Indeed we have discovered but even with good will it will take Principium envisages that bishops which had been imposed on ICEL, Mass and its versions of the little significance, but some felicitous expressions that we time. The proposition put by conferences would do exactly this kind effectively wresting control of the collects. He offers many often not helpful would not want to lose. Can we ask O’Donohue and O’Collins begins to of work, but this would require of the personnel and processes of translation enlightening examples to (Eucharistic Prayers are the people so soon to change their look attractive. Is there a maverick Holy See not just but from bishops conferences. The assess what was lost with found in four places in responses at Mass? To revert to And confirmatio bishops conference (New Zealand The first is a ratification by document demanded a literal approach the rejection of 1998 and the Missal, Prefaces are also with you? To omit through my recognitio. would do it, or maybe Canada!) or the Holy See, based on trust and to liturgical translation employing the burdens saddled upon scattered throughout the fault, through my fault, through my even several who would approve the confidence, of the translations whose Latinate vocabulary and grammar. the English-speaking book). Generally this most grievous fault in the ‘I Confess’? Revised Sacramentary as an interim approval comes from the bishops world with 2010. would not be an issue What about the Eucharistic Prayers? semi-official resource, not to supplant What a pity that the release of the new conference. The second involves because the pastoral The bishops decided in 1998 to make the official Roman Missal (2010), but edition of The Roman Missal O’Collins concludes: review and examination by the Holy arrangement of the book – a only minimal changes in the 1973 to be used in conjunction with it? happened straightaway in 2002 and This book has set out See to ensure that the unity of the that the Vatican-controlled translation to show how far superior the process which was addressed texts because they were so well known. Remember it was canonically approved in the 1998 Roman Rite has been maintained, a process swung into action. translation found in the 1998 Missal Revised Now we have the defective and by all the English-speaking conferences. – is again the concept which has been taken Consequently, for seven years now, the is to that of the 2010 Missal. I have Sacramentary complex texts of 2010. We really need This informal use ad experimentum responsibility of the bishops extremely narrowly in recent decades, liturgical words in our mouths have so written out of a desire that the to sit with them both, alongside the would be invaluable experience as the conferences. We could largely revert to virtually synonymous with uniformity. often been antiquated and arcane, the English-speaking conferences of Latin originals, and make a new painstaking work of revising the Missal the arrangement of 1998, but some phraseology clumsy and complex. bishops will act quickly and, by translation. Gerald O’Collins has rightly pointed out took place. changes would be needed: 2002 that we have a treasure in the 1998 introducing the 1998 Missal, allow Finally, an integral part of the 1998 Widespread dismay greeted The assigned Mass formularies for each Revised Sacramentary. It belongs presiders and congregations to Revised Sacramentary was the Roman Missal (2010) and many weekday in Advent and Easter, for to us, the Catholics of the English- celebrate the liturgy in what is truly introduction of original material, not called for a return to the Revised example. speaking world. Now that bishops their own language. translated from the Latin editio typica.