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Recognitio for Canadian Lectionary with inclusive language
The Catholic Register in Toronto reports that the Holy See has granted a recognitio for a Lectionary with the NRSV, which has inclusive language.
My emphases and comments.
The Catholic Register: After years of inclusive language war, Bible gets Vatican recognition
By Michael Swan
9/6/2007
TORONTO, Canada (The Catholic Register) – Eighteen years into a sometimes divisive debate, the Vatican has put a final stamp of approval on the Canadian lectionary – granting a recognitio to the inclusive language of the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible in English.
“That this has come is obviously a positive thing, not just for women but for all people,” said feminist theologian Doris Keiser, a lecturer in theology at the University of Alberta’s St. Joseph’s College. “When we’re moving forward in the world and allowing our understanding to open up, everyone benefits.” [Everyone except, perhaps those who want to hear what the texts really say.]
Canadians have been reading the NRSV at Mass since 1992, when the first edition of the new Sunday lectionary was published with approval from the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. The Canadian NRSV lectionary for weekdays was published in 1994. It was only then that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith objected to NRSV translations.
The NRSV uses inclusive language, referring to both men and women, when the text refers to people. References to God in the NRSV use the pronoun “He.”
In the Pauline letters, this sometimes results in forms of address to a group of people which reads “Brothers” in Greek rendered “Brothers and Sisters” in the NRSV.
Without the recognitio, Canadian Mass texts were left in the position of being the only approved texts for English-language Masses in Canada, but at the same time lacking final Vatican approval. At World Youth Day in 2002, Pope John Paul II used the Canadian lectionary.
“The main issue was not the question of inclusive language,” Archbishop James Weisgerber, Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops vice president, told The Catholic Register.
The Vatican’s concern over NRSV translations has been a matter of technical issues and accuracy, said Archbishop Weisgerber.
“There is a concern that when you try to make the scriptures speak inclusively it’s important to be accurate,” he said.
A special committee of Canadian bishops has been meeting regularly with Vatican officials working on the details of the text since 2003. With the recognitio in place, the bishops can begin publishing a second edition to the books already in use, starting with Year B, Nov. 30, 2008.
Though it’s been a battleground between right and left in the church for almost a generation, Archbishop Weisgerber doesn’t think most Catholics will even notice the changes.
“The ordinary person in the pews, the ordinary celebrant, would not even notice it,” he said. [Doesn’t think beg the question? Who really wanted inclusive language?]
With most of its inclusive language intact, and an 18-year fight behind it, theologians were careful about the question of who won the language war over the Canadian lectionary.
“I don’t know who won and who didn’t,” said Archbishop Weisgerber. “I actually think it’s kind of a compromise, and kind of a happy compromise between our tradition and more modern kinds of translation.”
“The big question is how it affects people in the pews, because it’s their lectionary,” said theologian Keiser. [Ummm…. Noooo…. it’s the CHURCH’s Lectionary. The Church is more than English speaking Canadian people in the pews.]
“It’s an encouraging kind of decision,” said St. Paul University theologian Cathy Clifford.
The slow pace of decision making between the conference of bishops and the Vatican should surprise no one who really knows the church, said Keiser.
“The reality is that the church is not a fast-moving entity. Things take time,” she said. “Even though in my life time 20 years is a long time, in the life of the church it’s a drop in the bucket.”
With the question of which Bible we read in church out of the way, the left and right in the church will likely find new topics for debate, said Archbishop Weisgerber.
“I suspect other issues will emerge and we will divide in similar ways,” said the archbishop.
“If we can’t have that conversation, then there’s something wrong with the way that we’re perceiving ourselves as faithful persons,” said Keiser. [Does no one use "people" anymore?]
Michael Swan is the associate editor of The Catholic Register.
Blech.
So Father, why did the Vatican allow this if these inclusive language anamolies are a mistranlation of the scripture’s?
Comment by danphunter1 — 6 September 2007 @ 11:22 amDoes this mean Liturgiam Authenticam is a dead letter in Canada?
Frankly, I think both Canada and the U.S. desperately need a new Catholic translation of the Holy Scriptures into English, one that takes better account of the Latin Vulgate, of the past 2,000 years of Catholic biblical tradition, and that eschews the ideological inclusive language fad in favor of accurate translation. It would be nice to be able to acclaim the Scripture lessons as “The Word of the Lord” without an asterisk (kind of, sort of, mostly the Word of the Lord).
Comment by Jordan Potter — 6 September 2007 @ 11:39 amA tiny example of the issues, easily found in last Sunday’s Gospel: the text at Luke 14.12 says, literally, “he also said to him who invited [to kekletoti] him”. The NRSV text there is needlessly inclusivized to “he said also to the one who had invited him”. The lection we Canadians heard last Sunday says “Jesus said also to the Pharisee who had invited him”. Perhaps the reiteration of the Lord’s name at this point is harmless, but there is no warrant for “the Pharisee” at that point in the text. And so of course it adds a little extra interpretation.
Thus, this recognition is not just of the NRSV, but of hundreds and hundreds of tiny additional changes, not all of which could possibly have been necessary.
Comment by AM — 6 September 2007 @ 12:00 pmLet’s just thank God they’re still calling Him Him. Aside from the theological questions that inclusivizing God raises, it causes even more linguistic awkwardness than inclusivizing people does.
I’ve never really got the whole inclusive language thing. Surely English WAS inclusive until someone declared it wasn’t. “Man” could mean “humankind”; that was an accepted meaning. Then someone decided it could only mean “males” and as a result, now that is becoming the only accepted meaning. But if people hadn’t de-inclusivized the language in the first place, they wouldn’t need to be reinclusivizing it now..!
Comment by Dev — 6 September 2007 @ 12:02 pmI think this is very sad. We are looking forward to the new translation of the missal and the implementation of Summorum Pontificum, and this seems out of sync with these positive things.
Comment by P — 6 September 2007 @ 12:36 pmWow…my self-esteem has just shot up so much now that women are officially recognized in scripture.
Before you know it I’ll be officially recognized as a priest by the Vatican and my lesbian trans-gendered, former male partner and I can get married!
All the sage-burning enneagram sessions have finally come to fruition! Thank God for Myers-Briggs!
I can hardly wait to tell my Reiki Master, Sister Jo of the Congregation for the Divine Assistance of the Holy Labyrinth.
Wymyn unite!
Kim, with tongue planted firmly in cheek :)
Comment by Kim — 6 September 2007 @ 12:39 pmSpeaking of translations, I know a priest who uses “for you and for all women and women” at the consecration. “For you and for many women and men” doesn’t really have the same ring to it, does it? I suspect he’ll have to reexamine his personally adapted canon when the new translation is put in place.
Comment by P — 6 September 2007 @ 12:44 pmThe NRSV is really quite awful because of the gendered language concerns, particularly in the Psalms. Hopefully they don’t use those . In their gymnastics to avoid such horrible words as man, son and he/him/his, they slaughter English as well as the Psalms, a treasure of the Church turned into dross.
This was, however, not entirely to the liking of various translators on the project, who left in a huff when the changes were implemented by the editors as a requirement of the National Council of Churches, the extremely liberal confundation of former-hippies in Christian-themed social clubs which sponsored the project, and which owns the copyrights to both the RSV and the NRSV translations. There are some very fine renderings in the NRSV, but this gender crap is what makes it unusable. (It is forbidden, for instance, in Eastern Orthodox liturgies and Bible studies.) If someone is so anti-masculine that they can’t even bear to hear such language, their problem lies elsewhere than with those using the language.
And just to clarify, “inclusive language” technically refers to standard English usage wherein “man” and “he” and related words are used to include also those of the other sex. That the term “inclusive language” is typically used to refer to describe this new phenomenon of actually factually NON-inclusive gender specificity in the translation just goes to show the level of true linguistic ability and intelligence involved. “Inclusive” sounds better, so they use it. The fact is that the former way, the way the language still actually works, for heaven’s sake, is the inclusive way. Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and English, as most modern Western languages, use such inclusive language. These are cultural and linguistic facts that can’t be changed by a concerned feministic or anti-masculinist agenda.
Theologically, removing the inclusive sense of “he” and “man” has profound implications for an individual’s understanding of salvation as achieved by one particular man, Jesus Christ, the incarnated God as a “he.” The prophecies in the Old Testament that for more than two millennia have been understood as referring to Him are destroyed by this foolish language farce. Subconsciously, inclusion of all humanity in “man” in English usage lends a cultural resonance to this fact of our salvation, and is wiped out by, as the NRSV does, pluralizing the pronouns and entirely wrongly disambiguating the texts. It cuts the NRSV off from the history of Christian theology entirely. Another “fun” bit you’ll notice is that those quotations from the Psalms and such in the New Testament are not altered, so that a person reading in the NRSV an OT quote in the NT who then goes to the OT to read the context, will not find the same passage!
It’s truly a shame that such fine scholars as Bruce Metzger and the others who worked on the NRSV had to get mixed up with this. It is entirely mysterious to me as to why this is the preferred translation for universities and academic circles. It’s irrational to take an entirely inaccurate translation for a standard.
Finally, this unfathomable recognitio plays precisely into the hands of the anti-masculinist forces. Look to see the Canadian Lectionary showing up for use in the United States and other English-speaking nations even more now, with the justification that “if it’s okay for Canada, it’s okay for us.” It’s inevitable, this slippery slope. Look for the smarmy, plump, feminized eunuch priests and their manly “extraordinary minister” priestesses to have many a Celebration of Inclusion for their victory! BAH!
Comment by Kevin P. Edgecomb — 6 September 2007 @ 12:47 pmCan I just place myself on record right now, as a woman, as declaring that I HATE, DESPISE, AND OTHERWISE CAN’T STAND “inclusive language”; that I find neither the male sex nor male pronouns offensive; that I understand that “he,”, “his,”, “him” and “man” are inclusive terms; that I am offended by these attempts to condescend to me by bastardizing the language; and that I think the inclusive language people need to get a life?
The liberals decry the stereotype of women as hysterical beings; but they obviously are the ones who think we are hysterical, since it would take hysteria to take offense where none is intended, and to move heaven and earth to avoid the non-existent offense.
Comment by Anita Moore OPL — 6 September 2007 @ 12:52 pmThank God for Hungarian, which I speak rather well. The word for brother and sister is the same: “testver”. The word for “he” and “she” is also the same: “o” (with two dots on top). “Ember” is a “human” – no gender implied. Interesting, isn’t it? English can also be somewhat gender neutral at times: “friend” can be either male or female. Not so in Latin: it’s either “amicus” (male) or “amica” (female). I wonder why there is such a linguistic variety as far as gender goes. One of the hardest languages to learn in this regard is German. Even after many years of speaking it and living in Germany some non-native Germans make mistakes in “der, die, das”. Is it because gender differentiation is somewhat of a challenge for us humans?
Comment by Andrew — 6 September 2007 @ 1:07 pmHumans, animals, and many plants have sex.
Only objects have gender.
Comment by Maureen — 6 September 2007 @ 1:17 pmThis is so eighties. And not in a good way. More of a Flock of Seagulls hairdo sort of way.
Comment by Boko Fittleworth — 6 September 2007 @ 1:23 pmSorry, but as a Canadian, this is very, very disheartening and I for one
feel utterly betrayed.
It validates my thesis that liturgical “renewal” continues to spawn from
1. Illicitness
2. Disobedience
Rather than fidelity to Tradition.
The Holy See made it clear 13 years ago that this lectionary was
1. deficient
2. to be revolked by 1997.
The disobedience of our Bishops has again WON out over prudence and fidelity
to Christ.
Just like altar girls, it sets a horrible precedent that dissent PAYS OFF for
dissenters and will add gallons of fuel to the fire for the organized drive to
push for female priests (of which Weisgerber is a chief proponent himself
...having publicly preached the need for female priests as far back as 1985,
when he was the rector of the Cathedral here).
We are talking about a lectionary which translates messianic prophesies such
as Ezekiel as “behold, I saw one coming like a human being”....instead of
“I saw one coming like the Son of Man”.
It also inserts “Dear brothers and sisters” into EVERY single reading from Paul
even ones which do not mention “brothers” in the actual text.
This is a very tragic setback for Liturgical Authenticam as well as
Comment by Matt Robinson — 6 September 2007 @ 1:33 pmSummorum Pontificum in Canada.
Kevin: in answer to your implied question, In Canada we have two official approved Psalters: the Lectionary one is, yes, the NRSV; but in the (episcopally approved) Catholic Book of Worship the Psalter is (based on) the Grail version. Thus at Mass most people hear the Grail, not the NRSV.
I think the NRSV is the “preferred translation for universities” for several reasons: one is precisely “inclusive language”, for the many people who cannot bear traditional so-called non-inclusive language; but also because it