Friday, June 02, 2006
Allen With Pell On Translations
A lot of the early brouhaha over the latest ICEL work was with the English and Australian bishops. Pell says they're on board, so I suspect the Yanks are not far behind.
Where do things stand on the new Order of the Mass?
Basically pretty healthy. It's been approved in Australia, it's been approved in England. There's a big vote coming up in June in the United States. Do you have any sense of what you think will happen? I think it'll get through.
If so, are the big battles over? Experience has taught me that it's always dangerous to claim that. Nevertheless, if it gets through, that represents a significant achievement. I think the approval by Australia and England of the Order of the Mass is also significant.
I also suspect the approval will "get through," though I don't share Pell's affirmation of the Ordo Missae work. I think the Gloria is certainly a solid improvement. I think the people's responses will prove to be extremely difficult. Instead of one big bureaucratic battle, brace yourselves for thousands of pastoral ones. The approval by the bishops of two significant English-speaking countries is definitely significant. If the Americans are the only ones to send the OM back for more work, it won't look good. Maybe there are some Canadians in the readership here who could shed some north-of-the-border light on what might happen there. Pell sees more work ahead on the Missal: We have a big challenge to make the English [texts] powerful modern, appropriate and strong. We don't want to just achieve doctrinal fidelity but have clumsy English. We've got the doctrinal fidelity now. The ICEL translations are coming through beautifully on that score. But I think with some of them, a few of them, the quality is quite uneven. So there you have it. Last I heard, they're probably looking at putting the approved Ordo Missae on ice till the presidential prayers get redone. Advent 2007 won't happen. But thirty months from now might still be in play. More than enough time for the Big Three liturgical publishers to retool and sell you their retooled Mass parts.
