Bishop Trautman, US Bishops' Liturgy Committee Chair, Strongly Criticizes Proposed Mass Translations

From Catholic World News:

Bishop Trautman strongly criticizes proposed Mass translations; "incarnate," he says, is "not intelligible to the vast majority of those in the assembly"; on translating "praeclarum calicem" as "precious chalice": "Should the agenda of a sacred vocabulary, no matter how well-intentioned, be allowed to circumvent the inspired word?"

(emphasis added)

Here's how John Allen reported it:

Also at the Los Angeles congress, Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, Penn., gave a presentation on contemporary liturgical debates. Trautman, the chair of the bishops' liturgy committee, offered a ringing critique of the proposed new translation of the Sacramentary, or the book of prayers for use in the Mass, which will come up for a vote before the American bishops in June.

The draft is the result of the "liturgy wars" that have rocked the English-speaking world since the mid-1990s, with the new text reflecting the more traditional style of translation, closer to the Latin originals, demanded by Rome in the May 2001 document Liturgiam Authenticam.

Trautman is a critic of that document, so ironically the chair of the U.S. bishop's liturgy committee is now opposed to the text produced by the English-speaking bishops' own translation agency, the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, which is seen as closer in outlook to the Roman approach.

***
Trautman called the June vote on the new Sacramentary a "decisive and defining" moment, acknowledging candidly that the conference is "divided."

"Liturgical language must not just be faithful and accurate, but intelligible, proclaimable, dignified, and reflective of the contemporary mainstream of the English language as spoken in the United States," Trautman said.

The heart of Trautman's argument was that too often, in its search for a "sacred vocabulary," the new translations veer into vocabulary and constructions foreign to the "living language of the worshipping assembly," thus failing to promote the "full, conscious and active participation" that was the vision of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).

Trautman offered several examples.

In the Nicene Creed, for example, the new Sacramentary replaces the now-familiar phrase "one in being with the Father" with the more technical term "consubstantial with the Father." Rather than "born of the Virgin Mary," the proposed translation says "incarnate of the Virgin Mary."

Further, the First Eucharistic Prayer refers to a "precious chalice," not a "cup," an instance, Trautman argued, of "imposing an agenda" on what the Bible actually says.

Often, Trautman said, these new translations are closer to the Latin original, but he argued that they needlessly dislodge "accurate, orthodox formulations of the faith we have prayed for the last 35 years."

Defenders of the new translation, Trautman said, often concede that catechesis will be necessary to explain unfamiliar terms, but he voiced skepticism that such catechesis will work.

(emphasis added)

My Comments:
..."incarnate" is not intelligible to the vast majority of those in the assembly ...

Whose fault is that, Bishop Trautperson? I'd be willing to bet that 50 years ago the vast majority of Catholics knew what the Incarnation was all about. But then, I'd be willing to bet that most bishops back then didn't take such a dim view of catechesis as you apparently do.

But then again, I see you've been too busy stopping those "old Church" people from "imposing an agenda" to worry about proper catechesis. And I'm sure that you haven't been guilty of "imposing an agenda" of any kind with regard to your opposition to adopting a faithful English rendering of the Mass.


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
How I Know Senate Democrats and the Catholic Bishops are Reading from the Same Playbook