Catholic World News published a leaked letter from Cardinal Arinze to USCCB President William Skylstad, the content of which ur-Diogenes summarized as “sorry, not buying it.” Arinze, head of the Congregation for Divine Worship, was following up on a meeting in which, it’s surmised, Skylstad explained that some of Liturgiam authenticam’s directives on translations won’t sit well with U.S. Catholics. Arinze emphasized that Liturgiam remains binding.
Commonweal readers will recall the John Wilkins article on the liturgical translation controversy, which we published last year (ur-Diogenes called it “shoddy and tendentious,” judgments I disagree with, of course). In light of the current debate, it’s worth revisiting some of Wilkins’s paragraphs on Liturgiam:
Liturgiam authenticam did not recommend, it commanded. It insisted that translations follow an extreme literalism, extending even to syntax and rhythm, punctuation, and capital letters. The clear implication was that in this way it would be possible to achieve a sort of “timeless” English above the change of fashion, a claim reminiscent of that made for the Ronald Knox translation of the Bible, which today is so dated that it is not read except as a period piece.
A stipulation that appeared to mark a further retreat from Vatican II perspectives ruled out ecumenical cooperation over liturgical translations. This meant the end of pioneering links begun in 1967 between ICEL and the North American Consultation on Common Texts and the International Consultation on English Texts. Moreover, according to Liturgiam authenticam, “great caution is to be taken to avoid a wording or style that the Catholic faithful would confuse with the manner of speech of non-Catholic ecclesial communities or other religions, so that such a factor will not cause them confusion or discomfort.”
(snip)
A slashing critique of Liturgiam authenticam appeared in four articles in 2004 in Worship, the American journal of liturgical renewal published by the monks of St. John’s Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota. The writer was Peter Jeffery, Scheide Professor of Music History at Princeton University and an oblate of the abbey, whose judgment was significant as it came from a conservative academic-in his own words, “as conservative as one can get without rejecting Vatican II.” He too, he testified, “would like to see translations more literal than some of the ones we use now.” He was at one with the authors of Liturgiam authenticam in desiring “a more profound sense of the sacred.” Still, their instruction struck him as “the most ignorant statement on liturgy ever issued by a modern Vatican congregation.” It should be “summarily withdrawn,” he argued, to allow time for “proper consultation with a sufficient number of experts.” (Incredible to say, those who wrote Liturgiam authenticam never consulted ICEL as such, despite the commission’s offer of its services.)
Drawing on his own wide understanding and on exhaustive research, Jeffery described the authentic tradition of the Latin Church and the Roman rite as “a huge garden,” filled with every sort of tree and flower and weed. By contrast, he wrote, the authors of Liturgiam authenticam perceived the treasure of the liturgy as “fully excavated, catalogued, and safely stored in the Vatican museum.”
The truth was otherwise, declared Jeffrey. The Catholic Church was still on its way: it had not arrived at its destination–all Catholics could at least agree on that. Let there be a clear view of the true task of liturgical renewal today. It was “an unprecedented effort.” The challenge was “to develop a worship for a new world, in which near-universal access to scholarship has made most people capable of taking a more active role than was ever possible before in the history of the church.”
For more on the debate, Rocco Palmo has been on the trail. The blog Catholic Sensibility has much wisdom on the subject too. For the scoop on the proposed changes and an excellent summary of the current dustup, see Jerry Filteau’s Catholic News Service piece.