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

I was alerted to this by one of the veteran WDTPRSers who added: "Does anyone care about this stuff anymore?"

Here is the headline:

Bishop Trautman objects to some proposed language changes

So, a bishop near the end of his long career, firmly mired in the stale old ideas of yesteryear, bravely soldiering on under the baggage of the 1960’s, is still objecting to the Holy See’s norms set for liturgical translation. 

His Excellency Donald W. Trautman of Erie is nothing if not consistent.  He reminds me of a guy who might go to the same old restaurant every day for lunch, sit at the same place every day, and order exactly the same sandwich… but to do so in Rome.
 
Here is the story with my emphases and comments:

BY DANA MASSING
dana.massing@timesnews.com [more details]

"Ineffable."

The word worries Erie Catholic Bishop Donald W. Trautman.

He doubts that "John and Mary Catholic," sitting in their church pew, would understand it.   [Two things here.  Again and again His Excellency has demonstrated in his comments about liturgical translation and the new norms that he doesn’t not believe that you are very smart.  He thinks you are too dumb to understand the prayer.  He thinks you are too thick or detached to wonder what it means if you don’t immediately understand and then think about it or look it up.  Also, he thinks that every prayer must be immediately able to be clearly understood.  This leaves no room for the effect of mystery.]

That’s why Trautman will try to tell other U.S. bishops that such words shouldn’t be in a new English translation of the Roman Missal.

U.S. Catholic bishops are holding their June general meeting today through Saturday in Orlando, Fla. They are expected to vote on an English version of the portion of the Roman Missal involving prayers for seasons like Advent and Lent, unless Trautman can convince them to delay a decision on the translation.  [He wants to delay … the … translation.  Get that?  Because surely we haven’t waited long enough.]

"I am at this point reserved about endorsing it," Trautman said two days before the start of the meeting. "I will try to speak on the conference floor to point out what I consider some major deficiencies in the translation."  [Please, O God Almighty and Omnipotent Father, in your ineffable way inspire the bishops of the conference to keep this fellow in check.]

A presentation on it is likely today, with voting probably on Friday, he said.

The portion of the Missal being discussed is the Proper of Seasons.

"These would be the prayers at Mass for the opening prayer, the prayer over the gifts, the prayer after Communion," Trautman said. "These would be the prayers for all of Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter and then the Sundays of the year."  [I have a copy of the draft of these prayers.  I think you would like them.]

The Vatican wants a translation more faithful to the original Latin text.  [Not … just … the VATICAN!]

Trautman said the draft includes words such as "ineffable" that would not be in the ordinary vocabulary of people.

"This should be the prayer of the people," Trautman said. "I’m not for having street language. ... We should certainly have elevated tone, but words like that are just beyond the common comprehension."  [Okay… figure that out.  Elevated language but not comprehensible.]

Catholics coming out of a lunchtime Mass at Erie’s St. Peter Cathedral weren’t familiar with "ineffable."  [WDTPRS asks … SO WHAT?  The problem here is that if you make everything immediately comprehensible to the lowest common denominator it will wind up being pretty much like what we have now in the old lame-duck ICEL prayers:

God,
you are big.
Help us be big like you.

If people hear and interesting word, they might… oh my gosh… wonder what it all means and slowly but surely get the idea that monosyllables and grunting might not actually convey what the Latin prayers convey.]

According to Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition, the word means "too overwhelming to be expressed or described in words; inexpressible; too awesome or sacred to be spoken."

It’s "not in my daily language," said Shirley Skiba, a member of St. Luke Catholic Church in Erie.  [Maybe Shirley shouldn’t be the measuring stick for the language of liturgical prayer.]

Skiba said words used in the Mass should be "something we feel comfortable with." That’s the case with the current translation, for the most part, she said.  [Enough said.]

"I think it should be language the everyday person can understand," she said.

Trautman called parts of the proposed translation "archaic" and "just clumsy language."  [Then  His Excellency should take the time to explain it to Shirley.]

One proposed change, for the first week in Advent, would replace "old way of life" with "ancient bondage," the Erie bishop said.

"Ancient bondage is very ambiguous and not clear enough to the people," he said.  [Yes. But there is a problem.  I ask you, dear reader, does "old way of life" mean the same thing, even on the surface, as "ancient bondage"?]

Regarding another change, he said, "They speak of ‘into the joy of true peace.’ Well, we would say ‘rejoice in true peace.’ That’s much more understandable."  [However, entering into a state of joy means something different than simply being joyful.]

In another vote related to language, the bishops will decide whether to replace "vosotros" with the more familiar "ustedes" in Spanish-language Masses in the United States. Trautman compared using "vosotros" in Spanish to using "thou" in English.  [Aaaaaaaaand…. that would be… bad?]

...

Listen as Erie Catholic Bishop Donald W. Trautman talks about what the U.S. Catholic bishops will be discussing during their June general meeting Thursday through Saturday in Orlando.

 

Some English words might be hard, but they are the perfect word to do the job.  To replace that word, you need a circumlocution or paraphrase.  That makes translations overly wordy.  But it is part of the very nature of Roman prayer to be concise.  Even the concision is meaningful. 

Enough said. 

This is in from ANSA in my translation:

Ruini pre-announces his farewell to the Diocese [of Rome]

He should be leaving governance of the diocese of Rome at the end of June

CITTA’ DEL VATICANO, 12 June – The words pronounced this evening by Camillo Card. Ruini ring out as a farewell to the Diocese of Rome.  "Without anticipating anything I will say on 21 June in my sermon, I want to tell you that I feel enormously indebted to the Lord for having placed me for 17 and a half years as Vicar of the Holy Father as the leader of this diocese", Ruini said, who should be leaving his office by the end of the month. 

His probable successor is Agostini Card. Vallini.

Cardinal Ruini has been enormously important in the last few years.  He was a firm promoter of the policies of John Paul II, who had appointed him years ago as head of the Italian Bishops Conference.  In that role, Ruini also helped the Italian Church reclaim its voice in the public square after the dominence of the lefty Christian Democrat Party slouched ignominiously off the stage.  Card. Ruini has also helped Pope Benedict reshape that Italian Church to do serious battle in the public square over key moral issues. 

This morning’s session of the annual Acton University sponsored by the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, MI, (392 people participating from 51 countries).  People map out their own courses. 

Today, I began with a presentation by Kishore Jayabalan, head of Rome’s office of Action, on the Catholic Social Encyclicals.  It was a sound presentation, though a bit familiar to me in some respects. 

After a break, Samuel Gregg spoke about globalization from a theological and historical perspective. 

During lunch there was a talk by Mustafa Akyol, on Islam and free markets.  He had been unable to come the day before, probably because of weather, and this gave him a chance to speak to everyone.

In the afternoon, I attended a very engaging talk by Jennifer Roback Morse called Beyond Contracts: Marriage and Sustainable Markets.  From her course description:  Marriage and family play important roles in building and maintaining both a strong society and a market economy. Marriage and family breakdown have short and long term economic costs and myriad externalities. This course will be highly economic.

Tonight we will hear a talk called Theology of Capital in Falling World by Brian Griffiths.

BTW… there is a little bit of a scuffle going on under the entry about Day 1. 

Over at our friends of Rorate there are excerpts of an interview with the ecommunicated SSPX Bp. Williamson.

Rorate has quite a few excerpts, and you should go there to see them, but I want to lift and post some here.  These appear near the end.

My emphases and comments.

[REGULARIZATION OF THE SOCIETY]

[16.] On the future, how would you envision a regularization of the Society if it were ever to come about?

Well, the Archbishop used to say, and he’s quite right: “Once Rome comes back to its senses, there is no more problem”. Already the Romans are making documents, it’s already lined up how they would do it. It’s paperwork, paperwork.  [Probably not an entirely honest answer for someone who has such grave misgivings about doctrine since the Second Vatican Council.  Sure… the excommunications can be lifted pretty easily.  A structure for the Society could be created with a few strokes of a couple pens.  But there will be a lot of debate about, especially, the Church’s teaching on religious liberty and, probably, social doctrinal documents.]

[THE TRANSALPINE REDEMPTORISTS]

[17.] Lastly, would you care to comment on the latest proceedings with the Redemptorists at Papa Stronsay?

It doesn’t look good, it looks like they are going to make an agreement with modernist Rome. So, in my opinion, that’s not a very good idea, because they will be obliged, more or less, to abandon the defence of the Faith. More or less.  [Actually, if you consider it….  the SSPX heavy-weights really act as much like modernists as the old and new theological modernists do.  They set themselves up as the arbiters of what is right and wrong without any serious reference to the Holy See.  Some of them will even carefully attack Vatican I.  Interesting no?]

[18.] How would the change you predict manifest itself?

They will no longer be able to freely criticize Vatican II,  [piffle… anyone is free to criticize "Vatican II", properly understood.  I believe Benedict XVI has himself criticized Councils, saying that there were Councils which perhaps should never have been held.  Not everything about every Council is perfect.   These things can be discussed.  However, causing scandal and rifts in the Church is not the best way to go about it.] and they will come under pressure to celebrate the modern Mass, or at least attend the modern Mass with the local Bishop on a Good Thurs