Masculine pronoun in the responses

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hbookbinder

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Hello, at the Mass I attend some people say a slightly different response where they take out the male reference. For example, during the creed they’ll take out ‘men’ and say ‘For us and for our salvation’ or in the Eucharistic response they’ll say not ‘for our good, and the good of all his Church’ but ‘for our good, and the good of all God’s Church’ where ‘God’s’ is emphasized. Likewise, instead of saying ‘It is right to give him thanks and praise’ they’ll say ‘It is right to give God thanks and praise,’ again, in such a way that the use of ‘God’ instead of ‘him’ sticks out. Is it acceptable to adjust the response?
 
hbookbinder said:
Hello, at the Mass I attend some people say a slightly different response where they take out the male reference. For example, during the creed they’ll take out ‘men’ and say ‘For us and for our salvation’ or in the Eucharistic response they’ll say not ‘for our good, and the good of all his Church’ but ‘for our good, and the good of all God’s Church’ where ‘God’s’ is emphasized. Likewise, instead of saying ‘It is right to give him thanks and praise’ they’ll say ‘It is right to give God thanks and praise,’ again, in such a way that the use of ‘God’ instead of ‘him’ sticks out. Is it acceptable to adjust the response?
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No. It’s not acceptable. But it’s something I hear a lot of.
 
No, it’s not acceptable. The liturgical texts have approved translations and everyone must adhere to them for licit celebration of the sacraments. You don’t have much recourse in this case, since it is the people who are changing the text. If it were the priest doing it, you could go up the chain of command to rectify the situation. But in this case just stick to what is in the missal and try not to stick out too much. If the pastor actually objects to this practice, he might be convinced to have a word with the people about it.

I can sympathize with you; I used to go to a Newman Center where this same thing went on, and it grated on my nerves. The Dominicans there were rather lax in their interpretation of the liturgy, and allowed other irregularities, but it seems this is not representative of all Dominicans everywhere.
 
It is not acceptable to deny that God has chosen to reveal himself to us as male, Father, Son. Do they also say the “Our Parent”?

I hear a lot of what you’re describing, and it’s always inconsistent. They’ll change the pronoun in one place and leave it alone in another. It’s distracting and annoying and childish.
 
I’ve left several parishes over the last few years because of inclusive language. And if it occurs again, I’ll be traveling.
 
Doing this everywhere is bad enough, but even in a CREED?

Entire God-watched Councils labored to hash out a creed and it’s destroyed by one feminist one Sunday morning.
 
bradwilcox said:
Doing this everywhere is bad enough, but even in a CREED?

Entire God-watched Councils labored to hash out a creed and it’s destroyed by one feminist one Sunday morning.
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What was reported in the OP is ilicit. According to Redemptionis Sacramentum:
[59.] The reprobated practice by which Priests, Deacons or the faithful here and there alter or vary at will the texts of the Sacred Liturgy that they are charged to pronounce, must cease. For in doing thus, they render the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy unstable, and not infrequently distort the authentic meaning of the Liturgy.
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This is a serious abuse that should be stopped. Even the new translations of the Mass retain the masculine pronoun.
 
My college’s Newman Center is terribly unorthodox, and a lot of people say that there, too.

I was wondering why. That makes sense.
 
We who speak English, at least in America, have lost the understanding that grammatical gender is not the same as physical gender. In German, for instance, nobody thinks that girls have no gender until they become women, even though the noun for “girl” is grammatically neuter and the noun for “woman” is grammatically feminine. Nobody thinks all cats have the same physical gender. Perhaps the biggest problem in having lost this understanding is that we don’t appreciate that in English the pronoun for a gender-neutral or gender-unknown person is “he”.

You can’t use “it”, because the pronoun is restricted to objects, and you can’t use “she” because the pronoun is restricted to persons whose gender is known to be female (or to things that carry the grammatical feminine, but even that rare usage is dying out…who ever calls an island or a ship a “she” anymore?)

Instead, people get their noses bent out of shape because they think the Church is making God out to be a male whenever the masculine pronoun is used. That is really too bad. It is a lot of strife over nothing.
 
From my experience, the vast majority of educated women in my parish have no problem with the use of horizontal terms like “mankind” or masculine references concerning God the Father. Here, everything is pronounced exactly as written in the book. As one woman explained to a friend of mine who, at his first Mass, used “inclusive” language, “When you use inclusive terms, you insult the intelligence of women.”
 
Cavaille-Coll said:
From my experience, the vast majority of educated women in my parish have no problem with the use of horizontal terms like “mankind” or masculine references concerning God the Father. Here, everything is pronounced exactly as written in the book. As one woman explained to a friend of mine who, at his first Mass, used “inclusive” language, “When you use inclusive terms, you insult the intelligence of women.”
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I think so, too, but there are intelligent women who would stone me for saying it!
 
EasterJoy said:
I think so, too, but there are intelligent women who would stone me for saying it!
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I wonder how many of those women would go in a pen with a “Man eating” tiger, thinking that it would not apply to women :rolleyes:
 
hbookbinder said:
Hello, at the Mass I attend some people say a slightly different response where they take out the male reference. For example, during the creed they’ll take out ‘men’ and say ‘For us and for our salvation’ or in the Eucharistic response they’ll say not ‘for our good, and the good of all his Church’ but ‘for our good, and the good of all God’s Church’ where ‘God’s’ is emphasized. Likewise, instead of saying ‘It is right to give him thanks and praise’ they’ll say ‘It is right to give God thanks and praise,’ again, in such a way that the use of ‘God’ instead of ‘him’ sticks out. Is it acceptable to adjust the response?
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These exact changes are used at a parish I know of. You aren’t in the Diocese of Arlington, are you?

😉
 
Unfortunately, it’s common enough that we hear all those examples frequently. But here is something sooooooooooo funny that I heard about 2 weeks ago. There’s a woman I see frequently a couple of pews ahead of me, and I’ve heard her make those changes in prayers or songs. When we had the gospel a couple of weeks ago that started out to “the brothers”, she said out loud “and sisters”, and then we heard the words about circumcision! She then had a funny look on her face, so I can only hope it taught her a lesson!
 
Brendan said:
I wonder how many of those women would go in a pen with a “Man eating” tiger, thinking that it would not apply to women :rolleyes:
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Well, hopefully the man is a good cook. I would expect tiger meat to be kinda chewy.😉
 
hbookbinder said:
Hello, at the Mass I attend some people say a slightly different response where they take out the male reference. For example, during the creed they’ll take out ‘men’ and say ‘For us and for our salvation’ or in the Eucharistic response they’ll say not ‘for our good, and the good of all his Church’ but ‘for our good, and the good of all God’s Church’ where ‘God’s’ is emphasized. Likewise, instead of saying ‘It is right to give him thanks and praise’ they’ll say ‘It is right to give God thanks and praise,’ again, in such a way that the use of ‘God’ instead of ‘him’ sticks out. Is it acceptable to adjust the response?
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I have heard it too.
It is just another “benefit” of having Mass said in the vernacular.
I have never heard anyone do this when they are giving the responses in Latin.
 
roadsend said:
I have heard it too.
It is just another “benefit” of having Mass said in the vernacular.
I have never heard anyone do this when they are giving the responses in Latin.
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And just think of the possibilities – if the people weren’t assigned any responses at all, then they couldn’t possibly screw them up!
 
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