Stilettos and heels

Our friend Diogenes has skewered the craven Fr. Thomas "Bear The Brunt" Reese, SJ, and his ilk with an elegant twist of the left-wing’s favorite stilettos (and I don’t exclude the reference to "heels", in more than one way).  Here is the whole thing.  If you don’t subscribe to CWN, just to get Diogenes, you ought to.

The pure sweet springs of the English language — the tongue of Shakespeare, Dryden, and Sr. Joan Chittister — are being contaminated by Vatican pollutants, and the Woodstock Center is protesting.

"This is another example of Rome taking authority away from bishops and bishops’ conferences. Basically, it’s saying that people in Rome — including people for whom Spanish and German is their first language — know how to translate the Mass into English better than the American bishops and the other English-speaking bishops do," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington, D.C.

Dear Father Reese,

This Congregation thanks you for your valuable comments regarding the peril of submitting English translations of Latin liturgical texts to the judgment of non-English speakers. Your cautions are duly noted. Perhaps it is opportune to point out that, in the quotation above, the word "taking" should not be understood as a participle modifying "Rome"; it is, rather, the gerund. Therefore, conformity to the rules of English grammar requires the correction to "This is another example of Rome’s taking authority away …"

Wishing you, and your spirit, every blessing, I am,

faithfully dynamically equivalently yours,

Akpan Udo Okon
Under-Sec’y
Dept of Anglophone Patronisation
Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments
Rome

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2 Comments

  1. Cathy_of_Alex says:

    I’m outraged that the name Chittister is being including in a list of strong
    English writers like Dryden and Shakespeare! Their words have stood for centuries,
    her words will be forgotten as soon as she is “alas too soon retired”
    Permanently. :-)

    On the bright side, Bishop Trautman, after 30+ years, has finally realized
    we need a catechetical movement! Hallelujah.

  2. Andrew says:

    On the other hand, a question might be asked in all seriousness: how can individuals who don’t know how to say as much as “good morning, how are you” in Latin, be responsible for correctly translating Latin liturgical texts?

    Oh I see: bishops can put “experts” in charge of the translation. But doesn’t that curb the bishop’s role as shepherd? Can bishops delegate the creation of liturgical texts to others? Hmm? Strange things are happening these days.

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