What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

I just received a "solid" on the status of Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio to derestrict the older form of Mass.

A source in the Secretariate of State says the MP is still in the office of Latin Letters.

If we are at this stage, then it is signed and it will be promulgated.

Keep in mind that translation issues have plagued this papacy and the last.  The letter to Chinese Catholics is also in the works.  The Post-Synodal Exhortation was long delayed by the translation problem.  Benedict XVI even referred to the problem with producing a translation.

The Motu Proprio will not need to express modern concepts like "marginal propensity to consume". 

The work ought to be straight forward.

I don’t think that one ought to read anything sinister into this.  First, the Latinists are constrained to work from the ITALIAN translation, no matter what the original draft was in.  I stipulate that there are not a few people who would prefer that this MP not happen at all.  Finally, it is important that they get this right: time is needed to coordinate well all the language versions which will need to be released simultaneously.

I would rather see a delay for the sake of gettin the translation right, than see mistakes and ideologically motivated "errors" along the lines of what appeared in the Post-Synodal Exhoration Sacramentum caritatis.

One of the things I really miss when I am in Rome is cooking for myself.  Oh how I miss that.  This I may only do at the sanctuary which is the Sabine Farm.  And, contrary to what I am sure some of you must think, not everything I cook must be complicated… or Italian!

On rising today and turning up the radio to follow Bill Bennett’s morning program (lots of discussion of the immigration bill), I made some powerful black – not dark – roast coffee, dropped some pumpernickle bread into the toaster (ah, REAL toast for a change!) and, reverting to my short order cook days many years ago, cracked a pair of locally produced brown eggs into the frying pan.

The results:

coffee
two eggs over easy
toast

Ah! Simplicity.