What Does The Prayer Really Say?
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If you haven’t seen the updates to the great Summorum Pontificum/USCCB Latin Text Discrepancy Caper, be sure to check then out.

This is really interesting stuff.

UPDATE:   10 October 2007 (1951 GMT):  On the website of the USCCB Liturgy office there has been an addition change concerning their links to texts of Summorum Pontificum.  Yesterday they added the disclaimer that the Latin text (that doesn’t match the website of the Holy See) was provided them by the Nunciature.  Now they have also added a link to the Latin text on the Holy See’s website together with an explanation of where they got the texts.   I did some underlining of my own in red.



I can only stand up an applaud the liturgy office for being straight forward and indentifying the sources and setting our minds to rest.  Also, I am told that they are actively seeking clarifications.  They want to do the right thing and provide good and accurate sources.

End Update 

UPDATE:   9 October 2007 (1530 GMT): A change has been made to the website of the USCCB Liturgy office.  At the link to the text of Summorum Pontificum a disclaimer has been added.  Here is a screenshot detail with my addition in red:



Here is what we can surmise.

Some days before the official release of the Motu Proprio, the USCCB received a text through the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington D.C.   Below, in the comments, you can see I posted a screen shot showing that USCCB’s pdf is dated 6 July. After the official release of the Motu Proprio on 7 July, it was found that the document distributed the the world’s bishops through the Nunciatures had discrepencies.  One of those was the one I identified between continenter (in the official release on 7 July and on the Holy See website) and stabiliter (on the USCCB site from the text the Nunciature gave them).   So, it seems that the problem actually originates NOT with the USCCB but probably with the way the Holy See sent out the document.  When dicasteries want to distribute documents to the world’s bishops, they send through through the Secretariate of State’s diplomatic mail bag.  Sometime between the time the text of Summorum Pontificum was sent to the bishops through the Nunciatures and 7 July when the document was released, there were changes made to the text.  You might remember that just before 7 July, the Holy Father met with a group of bishops from around the world.  It was said at that time that some changes were made.

I think this is what explains the discrepency.

This is not a conspiracy to undermine the implementation of Summorum Pontificum.  If anything, this merely reveals some not insignificant flaws in the communication process between dicasteries of the Holy See, the Nuniciatures and the bishops.  In this day of rapid communication, this is deeply disturbing.  However, this is a matter of lousy lines of communication, not conspiracy.

God forbid that on 7 July, the wrong text was released to the world.   That is unthinkable.  The only explanation is that noone bothered to send corrected versions through the Nunciatures to the bishops at the time the changes were made and approved by the Supreme Pontiff.

In my opinion the USCCB, or any other episcopal conference that might be linking to a text that pre-dates the official 7 July release, if they choose to maintain a link to the text they received from the Holy See through the Nunciature, then they should also link to the text as it appears on the website of the Holy See. 

Eventually the text of the Motu Proprio will be confirmed one way or another.  However, linking to the Holy See’s text would do a lot to help some of the conspiracy theorists out there that the USCCB (or other conference) is plotting to undermine Summorum Pontificum by distributing false texts.

At the same time, the fact remains that many bishops might be forming policies about Summorum Pontificum based on a faulty Latin text sent to them in innocence, and therefore inaccurate translations.

END UPDATE

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There is a huge problem in the online versions of provided by the and the pdf document provided online by the website of the USCCB Liturgy office.

Art. 5, § 1. In paroeciis, ubi coetus fidelium traditioni liturgicae antecedenti adhaerentium continenter exsistit, parochus eorum petitiones ad celebrandam sanctam Missam iuxta ritum Missalis Romani anno 1962 editi, libenter suscipiat. ...

My translation: In parishes, where there is continuously present a group of the faithful attached to the previous liturgical tradition, let the pastor willingly receive their petitions that Mass be celebrated according to the Rite of the Missale Romanum issued in 1962.

There are several terms in the Latin that are a little tricky.  We don’t know how big a coetus is.  We are not sure what exsistit means, for it can be both "emerge" and "exist". 

And then there is the adverb continenter.

Again and again some tendentious translations of Art. 5, § 1 are offered so as to narrowly define what sort of group may make a petition.  For example, many will say "stable group", for coetus continenter exsisit, which implies either that the group doesn’t change or that it has been around previously or even that it is comprised only of people who belong to the parish.  They morph that concept of continenter into an adjective and change it to something more like the term used in Canon Law stabiliter. 

However, continenter is not an adjective and it is not, obviously, stabiliter.

Now look at the text the USCCB is providing as start asking yourselves some questions: 

Art. 5, § 1. In paroeciis, ubi coetus fidelium traditioni liturgicae antecedenti adhaerentium stabiliter existit, parochus eorum petitiones ad celebrandam sanctam Missam iuxta ritum Missalis Romani anno 1962 editi, libenter suscipiat.

Notice anything?  The USCCB has a different text.

On what authority?