Saying God's instead of His

[drpmjhess]

benedictgal;3238952:

I find it hard to believe that no one has authority to change the mass, in terms of minor language. Priests do this all the time. I’ve noticed it in every parish regarding one thing or another. They are not of import to the purpose of the Mass, and I’ve never known anyone to object. My first priest always omitted “men” in the “for us and our salvation:” from the creed.

At my parish I’ve heard at least one of the priests says “for us and for our salvation” and while I haven’t done a survey I would say that more people at the “family Mass” omit the “men” than say it. Some of the people at the 11:30 Mass – at which the Schola Cantorum sings Latin Masses – say “men” and some don’t. It’s a non-issue with us. The important thing is that we are all there for our Eucharistic celebration together, and the people in the parish really care about each other in Christian charity. That’s what matters.

 

[benedictgal]

benedictgal;3238952:

I find it hard to believe that no one has authority to change the mass, in terms of minor language. Priests do this all the time. I’ve noticed it in every parish regarding one thing or another. They are not of import to the purpose of the Mass, and I’ve never known anyone to object. My first priest always omitted “men” in the “for us and our salvation:” from the creed. . And if you go to different parishes, you find some differences, although minor. I cannot believe anybody is seriously upset by this. A Hispanic mass for instance is certainly different in some language from a Polish one. Certain idiosyncracies exist with a particular priest sometimes. Nothing of substance is changed. The Ordo mass is much different than the Latin mass. I see no reason why a parish may or priest may not decide to alter some language to be sensitive to others. Surely God is not Male or Female, so it’s arbitrary in the first place that we assigned him male gender in general speech. It’s comes from what was common in paternalistic communities thousands of years ago.

Just because someone started doing this and the result was a trend doesn’t make it right. Please see this from Redemptionis Sacramentum:

[11.] The Mystery of the Eucharist “is too great for anyone to permit himself to treat it according to his own whim, so that its sacredness and its universal ordering would be obscured”.27 On the contrary, anyone who acts thus by giving free rein to his own inclinations, even if he is a Priest, injures the substantial unity of the Roman Rite, which ought to be vigorously preserved,28 and becomes responsible for actions that are in no way consistent with the hunger and thirst for the living God that is experienced by the people today. Nor do such actions serve authentic pastoral care or proper liturgical renewal; instead, they deprive Christ’s faithful of their patrimony and their heritage. For arbitrary actions are not conducive to true renewal,29 but are detrimental to the right of Christ’s faithful to a liturgical celebration that is an expression of the Church’s life in accordance with her tradition and discipline. In the end, they introduce elements of distortion and disharmony into the very celebration of the Eucharist, which is oriented in its own lofty way and by its very nature to signifying and wondrously bringing about the communion of divine life and the unity of the People of God.30 The result is uncertainty in matters of doctrine, perplexity and scandal on the part of the People of God, and, almost as a necessary consequence, vigorous opposition, all of which greatly confuse and sadden many of Christ’s faithful in this age of ours when Christian life is often particularly difficult on account of the inroads of “secularization” as well.31

[12.] On the contrary, it is the right of all of Christ’s faithful that the Liturgy, and in particular the celebration of Holy Mass, should truly be as the Church wishes, according to her stipulations as prescribed in the liturgical books and in the other laws and norms. Likewise, the Catholic people have the right that the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass should be celebrated for them in an integral manner, according to the entire doctrine of the Church’s Magisterium. Finally, it is the Catholic community’s right that the celebration of the Most Holy Eucharist should be carried out for it in such a manner that it truly stands out as a sacrament of unity, to the exclusion of all blemishes and actions that might engender divisions and factions in the Church.32

Thus, no one, not even the priest, has the right to arbitrarily change things just to suit a politically correct whim or idiosyncracy. This is not justifiable.

Changing a pronoun here or there simply because it does not fit with my personal preference then makes me the arbitrator of what should be or what should not be said at the Mass. That is an authority that does not belong to me. Unfortunately, when one starts to mess with the little stuff, the bigger things are sure to follow, and, sadly, they have.

 

[benedictgal]

benedictgal;3238952:

Benedictgal, I thought that we had been engaging in theological debate for the past two days, but evidently it’s only debate if you prevail in browbeating you interlocutor into accepting your own position. I have taught theology and philosophy since 1984 (in seminaries and universities on both the graduate and undergraduate levels), and have rarely encountered such intransigence! Your pronoun obsession is truly astonishing to me, as I have never come across it in all my years in the Church, despite participation in liturgies in a dozen languages on five continents. Since constructive discussion is clearly not possible, I will continue to pray.

However, in parting, let me recommend two books bearing upon the topic of our discussion:

William E. Phipps, Genesis and gender: Biblical myths of sexuality and their cultural impact

Kari Elisabeth Borresen, Image of God and Gender Models in Judaeo-Christian Tradition.

Petrus

It’s no so much a pronoun obsession as it is the need to get the point across that the Mass is not something that we can cobble up and do with as we please. This includes changning pronouns here and there to suit our fancy. That is the point that I have been trying to make.

I notice that the renowned theologians Rev. Hans Ur Von Balthasaar, Avery Cardinal Dulles and the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger are not on your required reading list. Could it be that they have elucidated a rather effective argument against the claims that you are trying to make?

I do not hold a PhD in theology nor liturgy. However, I do have a deeply rooted faith and have read the documents issued from the Holy See. What these documents indicate is 180-degrees to the opposite of the point that you are making with regard to changing a word here and there. It is simply not allowed. It’s like the old country song, “what part of NO don’t you understand?”

 

[Finkelstein]

It’s no so much a pronoun obsession as it is the need to get the point across that the Mass is not something that we can cobble up and do with as we please. This includes changning pronouns here and there to suit our fancy. That is the point that I have been trying to make.

I notice that the renowned theologians Rev. Hans Ur Von Balthasaar, Avery Cardinal Dulles and the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger are not on your required reading list. Could it be that they have elucidated a rather effective argument against the claims that you are trying to make?

I do not hold a PhD in theology nor liturgy. However, I do have a deeply rooted faith and have read the documents issued from the Holy See. What these documents indicate is 180-degrees to the opposite of the point that you are making with regard to changing a word here and there. It is simply not allowed. It’s like the old country song, “what part of NO don’t you understand?”

I have been reading this Liturgy and Sacraments forum for quite some time and I thought I might opine. Not on this specific topic but in general based on your comments.

You comment a great deal on liturgical matters. Some of your comments appear to be correct, while others appear not to be correct. Some of your arguments appear to be valid, while others appear not to be valid. What is common throughout your comments is your terrible display of intransigence and lack of tact.

I have seen in more than one instance where someone has clearly showed fault with your pronouncements yet you kept on fighting. All the while digging a deeper and deeper hole for yourself. I think one of the greatest aspects of this forum is the ability to learn, and not simply the chance to argue.

Not everything is black and white, nor is everything absolute including your personal interpretations of Church documents and comments by ranking Church clergy. While you may think everything is cut and dried and that you have it all figured out, I would suggest that it is not, and that you do not.

I would further suggest that such a mindset will ultimately damage your credibility here and in real life.

 

[benedictgal]

I have been reading this Liturgy and Sacraments forum for quite some time and I thought I might opine. Not on this specific topic but in general based on your comments.

You comment a great deal on liturgical matters. Some of your comments appear to be correct, while others appear not to be correct. Some of your arguments appear to be valid, while others appear not to be valid. What is common throughout your comments is your terrible display of intransigence and lack of tact.

I have seen in more than one instance where someone has clearly showed fault with your pronouncements yet you kept on fighting. All the while digging a deeper and deeper hole for yourself. I think one of the greatest aspects of this forum is the ability to learn, and not simply the chance to argue.

Not everything is black and white, nor is everything absolute including your personal interpretations of Church documents and comments by ranking Church clergy. While you may think everything is cut and dried and that you have it all figured out, I would suggest that it is not, and that you do not.

I would further suggest that such a mindset will ultimately damage your credibility here and in real life.

I have noticed that there is a problem with the quote button on this particular thread. My posts and someone else’s seem to bleed into each other when they get quoted. Since what you quoted comes from my post, I would be correct to assume that you are directing your comments at me.

First of all, the liturgical documents speak for themselves. The sources that I have offered come from authoritative Church leaders (you can’t get any higher than the Pope) who know much more than I could ever understand. Furthermore, if the matter weren’t so very important, the Holy See would not have issued a document such as Redemptionis Sacramentum, nor would two Popes have called for and convened a Synod on the Eucharist to discuss the shadows that occur during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

You are right in that we come to these forums to learn. While there are many who know that documents such as Redemptionis Sacramentum exist, many others do not and have learned from reading the threads. These threads have also prompted me to do some research, especially where Youth Masses are concerned.

The big problem is that we need to read the documents issued forth from the Holy See and not “read into” them. These documents exist for a reason. You may think it’s a trivial matter to change a word here and there, but, I submit to you that we don’t have the authority to delete, copy and paste texts from the Roman Missal or the Lectionary. The priest doesn’t have that authority. Even the bishops’ conferences have to get the necessary recognitio (approval) of the Holy See before anything can be done.

There have been folks who have insulted me and have made some rather disparaging remarks. However, I am not one to be so easily discouraged. If my defense of the integrity of the liturgy makes me lose credibility in the eyes of some, then be it. I’d rather stand with Peter than apart from him.

 

[Dietrich]

How about you concentrating on constructing a solid theological argument for why God is to be conceived – both genetically and anatomically – as exclusively male? Until you can demonstrate this, I will regard angry attacks on expressions of the feminine dimension of God as utter rubbish.

Argh! Take a breath! Again, it’s you who hasn’t constructed a solid theological argument for why 2000 years of tradition, patristics, interpretation, and biblical scholarship is faulty in it’s exclusion of the ‘feminine dimension’ of God! That was my whole point. Citing things like ‘some feminist theologians’ and the like does not an argument make. There are a lot of loonies out there making a living as ‘theologians’ of one kind or another. That doesn’t mean what they say is doctrine.

As for me doing the same, I think others in this thread have put it succinctly and rationally more than once, so as to make my contribution redundant. But still you just launch broadsides against these statements by firing off pious statements to make yourself sound ‘holier than thou’. You’re not responding to them in kind and not sustaining a line of reasoning to support your assertions, thereby furthering the discussion.

The only angry attacks are coming from you in the form of your pesky silence when asked to support your argument. Can’t you understand that? You haven’t offered any evidence to support what your saying, and that’s what is irritating all the other people on this thread. So put up, or…

By the way, don’t think that because someone has a difference of opinion that they’re focused like a laser on this thing to the point of distraction. Of course I agree that we should strive to not let these things take away from the reason we are at Mass, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have an opinion or discuss different viewpoints.

 

[drpmjhess]

. Of course I agree that we should strive to not let these things take away from the reason we are at Mass, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have an opinion or discuss different viewpoints.

Forget the pronoun haters and just pray, or, better yet, show me proof of God’s exclusive maleness. The center of gravity in the Church is moving away from a male-only conception of God.

 

[A2SciTeach]

Forget the pronoun haters and just pray, or, better yet, show me proof of God’s exclusive maleness. The center of gravity in the Church is moving away from a male-only conception of God.

How so? I’m wondering what is the “center of gravity in the Church” and what evidence you have to support your statement that the Church is moving away from a male-only concept of God.

Thanks

 

[Dietrich]

Forget the pronoun haters and just pray, or, better yet, show me proof of God’s exclusive maleness. The center of gravity in the Church is moving away from a male-only conception of God.

Again and again, and…again, you make blanket statements with no evidence to back it up. What’s your deal? Are you just playing games with people here, or do you have any evidence? “The center of gravity in the Church is moving away from a male-only conception of God.” Oh, really? Based on what evidence? From whom? Can you answer any question posted here? You must be accustomed to people taking your word for it, but that doesn’t cut it here. I’ll say it plainly so you don’t misunderstand me: put up or shut up.

 

[JimG]

How about you concentrating on constructing a solid theological argument for why God is to be conceived – both genetically and anatomically – as exclusively male?

The Church has never considered God to be “genetically and anatomically” exclusively male. God is pure spirit and has no genetics or anatomy at all. The Word of God became incarnate as a male, but that was something for which He did not ask theological advice from humans.

Inclusive language in English texts is a fad that will, I think, pass. It causes too many inelegant wordings and just plain wrong translations. It results in bad theology and bad English. When Jesus refers himself as “Son of Man,” I don’t think he is belittling his mother. When advised that a man-eating tiger is on the loose, I doubt that women feel safe.

 

[drpmjhess]

“The center of gravity in the Church is moving away from a male-only conception of God.” Oh, really? Based on what evidence? From whom?

.

You sound very angry, and theologically rather naive.

My evidence that “the center of gravity in the Church is moving away from a male-only conception of God” is as follows:

(1) Based on my interactions with people in numerous parishes in dioceses around the country,dropping masculine pronouns in liturgical or credal language is commonplace, and in any case is not the big deal it’s made out to be on Catholic Answers. People who say “for us and for our salvation” don’t pillory people who say “for us men and for our salvation,” and vice versa.

(2) Most university students are far more conscious of the impact of gender-inclusiveness than are most posters on CAF (that may be a generational issue). We act and think as we speak, and when liturgical language is no longer exclusively male-oriented, it changes people’s thinking about keeping females in subservient roles in society or in the Church.

(3) I interact with hundreds of theologians – clergy and laity – both in the US and around the world, and I have yet to encounter one who defends a conservative male-only concept of God, or who adamantly defends male-only liturgical language. This is as true of the CTSA (Catholic Theological Society of America) as it is of the Catholic Biblical Association, or the American Academy of Religion, or the Australian Theological Forum, or the ISSR (International Society for Science and Religion).

(4) John Henry Newman noted a century and a half ago that there is evolution in doctrinal development. When Christian doctrine was laid down in the Patristic era, a common biological notion at the time (following Aristotle), was that that women were imperfectly formed men, and this lay at the root of exclusion of women from power, authority, political administration, and theology.

From Aristotle’s The Generation of Animals (765b9-16)
“The male and the female differ from each other in the possession of an ability and in the lack of an ability. The male is able to concoct, formulate and to ejaculate the sperm which contains the origin of the form [of the being to be born]-I do not mean here the material element out of which it is born resembling its parent but the initiating formative principle whether it acts within itself or within another. The female, on the other hand, is that which receives the seed but is unable to formulate or to ejaculate it.”

We now have a a very different understanding of the respective roles played by males and females. They are co-equal partners both in the sex act and in generation of new life. There is no longer a biological basis for exalting masculinity in society, theology, the Church, or anywhere else. We could invent such a basis, of course, but it doesn’t exist in nature.

Petrus

 

[drpmjhess]

Inclusive language in English texts is a fad that will, I think, pass. It causes too many inelegant wordings and just plain wrong translations

Inclusive language is not a fad – it is here to stay, in business, in academe, in government, and eventually, even in the Church. Inclusive language reflects the growing conviction that the world and its opportunities belong to all people, not only to an elite white male minority (a minority of which, incidentally, I am a member) that uniquely reflects God.

I agree that inelegant translations are not good. So we must strive for inclusive-language translations that are elegant.

 

[JimG]

Inclusive language is not a fad – it is here to stay, in business, in academe, in government, and eventually, even in the Church. Inclusive language reflects the growing conviction that the world and its opportunities belong to all people, not only to an elite white male minority (a minority of which, incidentally, I am a member) that uniquely reflects God.

I agree that inelegant translations are not good. So we must strive for inclusive-language translations that are elegant.

Well, I haven’t yet seen “Son of Man” translated as “Child of Humankind,” but I’m bracing myself for it. There are already places in the scriptures where “son” is translated “child,” not only inelegantly, but changing the meaning of the original scripture.

It is true that inclusive language has made inroads into the world of business, government, and church. Having spent time in the government, I hated all those policy directives which resulted in forced language. But the reason for the inroads is precisely that there has been a concerted attempt from various pressure groups to artificially change the language. Artificial changes are neither natural nor necessarily permanent. It is possible that equal pressure from the opposite direction could begin to reverse the process.

 

[drpmjhess]

Artificial changes are neither natural nor necessarily permanent. It is possible that equal pressure from the opposite direction could begin to reverse the process.

True, language should evolve organically, not be forced by fiat from above. And I hate inclusive renderings that butcher the language: at my university we do not allow, for example, “a person should follow their conscience.” I encourage either “people should follow their conscience,” or “a person should follow her [or his] conscience.”

When language has evolved toward inclusivity, it is hard to go back to exclusive usage. In my part of the world “humankind” has widely replaced “mankind.” Particularly grating are old-fashioned usages such as I recently ran across in a physiology textbook: “Man is the only animal that experiences excruciating pain during childbirth.” Man giving birth?

Inclusivity in language becomes second nature when one becomes used to it. Now it would be as absurd for me to relegate second-class citizenship to women as it would be to expect an African American to move to the back of the bus.

 

[JimG]

“Man is the only animal that experiences excruciating pain during childbirth.”

That is grating to you only because of the concerted effort within academia to deny the generic meaning of “man” which the word has possessed for centuries. Does the phrase “man does not live by bread alone” also grate?

 

[drpmjhess]

That is grating to you only because of the concerted effort within academia to deny the generic meaning of “man” which the word has possessed for centuries. Does the phrase “man does not live by bread alone” also grate?

No, it’s grating because men can’t give birth. The scriptural passage doesn’t grate too much because I’m accustomed to the prhaseology.

 

[Dietrich]

Pg. 1

You sound very angry, and theologically rather naive.

I *was *very angry, but not because of ‘gender inclusiveness’, but rather your broad assertions paired with an unwillingness to provide any evidence for your position. I see you finally came around to some form of an argument, albeit I think it misses the mark and the point of this entire thread as started. I don’t remember anyone here stating that God was anatomically and genetically a male or a female.

As for being rather naive, there’s another case of you lobbing invective with no evidence. All I’ve done here is ask you questions that you, until now, steadfastly refused to answer. I would counter that there is far more naiveté on part of those members of the church who would discard the foundations of the faith in order to shape it into what they desire. It’s this avant-garde attitude of innovation and the perceived need to change that ignores the history of the Church and the numerous examples of such movements throughout history that invariably result in being corrected, declared Protestant reforms, or heresy. If naiveté is spending one’s energy trying to understand our faith as presented, and not assuming control of changing fundamentals, then by all means I’ll take that intended insult as a badge of honor.

My evidence that “the center of gravity in the Church is moving away from a male-only conception of God” is as follows:

(1) Based on my interactions with people in numerous parishes in dioceses around the country,dropping masculine pronouns in liturgical or credal language is commonplace, and in any case is not the big deal it’s made out to be on Catholic Answers. People who say “for us and for our salvation” don’t pillory people who say “for us men and for our salvation,” and vice versa.

“My friend and all his friends say they saw a UFO, so they must exist!” Not too compelling, but then I’m pretty naive. Are "people in numerous parishes’ now the magisterium? I must have missed the memo. I have yet to hear anyone in Mass ‘pillory’ anyone either. But dropping the male pronoun has less to do with gender inequality, or whatever it’s supposed to correct, and more to do with a failure to understand the English language (or Latin, or Greek, or most languages in general) and the fact that for centuries, ‘mankind’ and it’s various forms have been a catch-all phrase for men AND women, believe it or not. This is about addressing a problem that doesn’t exist! Besides, in your ‘numerous parish’ visits, how many priests begin Mass by saying anything other than, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit/Ghost”? Even in the one (1) parish here in San Francisco I’ve been to that abandons the male pronoun (I too have also been to ‘numerous parishes’), they don’t think themselves so authoritative as to change that, an inconsistency that only adds to my bemusement and confirmation that these people are not very critical thinkers.

Continued in next post.

 

[Dietrich]

pg. 2 (continued from last post)

(2) Most university students are far more conscious of the impact of gender-inclusiveness than are most posters on CAF (that may be a generational issue). We act and think as we speak, and when liturgical language is no longer exclusively male-oriented, it changes people’s thinking about keeping females in subservient roles in society or in the Church.

Oh, man. You stepped in it there. I’m a 2001 graduate of the University of San Francisco, an alleged Catholic and factually dissident Jesuit university. What I can tell you (as we are now using personal experience in place of reasonable argument) is that if what you say is true, I can all but guarantee you that these university students will abandon their faith at some point in the future. Also, ‘most university students’ are empty vessels who will believe anything a professor tells them. The very merry Jesuits who are said to run the school could not often be spotted in their natural habitat, the classroom. The professors who took their place almost categorically took positions contrary to the magisterium and would generally look at traditional Catholicism (you know, the kind that built these universities in the first place?) as backwards and hopelessly unhip. * I haven’t even touched on the stupendously ridiculous bungle that was the dismantling of the Saint Ignatius Institute on part of the Jesuits, one of a handful of loyal Catholic great books programs in the world and one that habitually produced among it’s graduates faithful and educated Catholics who continue to be recognized worldwide for their contributions to our understanding of our faith.

Also, if you’re the authority you seem to see yourself as, how could you keep a straight face while typing about ‘keeping women in subservient roles’ in the Church? Who’s being naive now? Is there no merit in joining the convent? No honor in motherhood? On the other hand, is the priesthood in its truest essence a conveyance of power, or a life of servitude and poverty? I reject the idea that the problem is in subservience; rather it’s a case (again) of people not understanding or ever being taught about the basics of their faith or the discrete and particular wonders of male and female natures, and how they are complementary and not set up in opposition. That there are, as in your example of Aristotle, those aspects of maleness that do not find full blossom in womenhood and vice versa. To the extent women are held in subservience, the road out of that doesn’t lie in aping men, but exploring the wonder and power and contributions that women, and only women, can make qua women.

Continued in next post.

*As an aside, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on last weekend’s Walk For Life. There were about 25-30,000 pro-life walkers winding through the city (although I don’t remember seeing among the contingents from all over the state any banner from USF. Hmm…) . In the Chronicle article, two USF students are quoted, and both of them were negatively disposed to the aims and participants of the walkers. I read this with sadness, but truly this is the sort of student that this school vigorously and regularly produces. It’s unreal.

 

[Dietrich]

pg. 3 (continued from last post)

(3) I interact with hundreds of theologians – clergy and laity – both in the US and around the world, and I have yet to encounter one who defends a conservative male-only concept of God, or who adamantly defends male-only liturgical language. This is as true of the CTSA (Catholic Theological Society of America) as it is of the Catholic Biblical Association, or the American Academy of Religion, or the Australian Theological Forum, or the ISSR (International Society for Science and Religion).

Well, I don’t know what to tell you. I guess you’re talking to different people than I am or the others in this thread. As impressed as you are with these various groups, none of them have the authority to change the wording of the Mass. The CTSA has always been very Jesuit-heavy, and as such carries very little weight in the realm of serious thought as far as I’m concerned. Plus, how can you take any organization seriously that awards Fathers McBrien and Curran? Aligning with the dissident Jesuits is a dangerous game, and if you need me to back that up, realize that they are closer than most orders of being suppressed, again (see: lifesite.net/ldn/2008/jan/08010708.html and lifesite.net/ldn/2008/jan/080107b.html)).There’s nothing wrong with speculating per se, but these are not governing bodies.

When Christian doctrine was laid down in the Patristic era, a common biological notion at the time (following Aristotle), was that that women were imperfectly formed men, and this lay at the root of exclusion of women from power, authority, political administration, and theology.

From Aristotle’s The Generation of Animals (765b9-16)
“The male and the female differ from each other in the possession of an ability and in the lack of an ability. The male is able to concoct, formulate and to ejaculate the sperm which contains the origin of the form [of the being to be born]-I do not mean here the material element out of which it is born resembling its parent but the initiating formative principle whether it acts within itself or within another. The female, on the other hand, is that which receives the seed but is unable to formulate or to ejaculate it.”

I don’t see anything in your example from Aristotle that women are imperfectly formed men, and besides that it doesn’t follow necessarily that this is the basis of our understanding of the respective roles of men and women in the life of the Church.

There is no longer a biological basis for exalting masculinity in society, theology, the Church, or anywhere else. We could invent such a basis, of course, but it doesn’t exist in nature.

‘Exalting’ is your word, and poorly chosen if your understanding of the roles of men and women follow that of the Church. I would also agree that the exaltation of men doesn’t appear in nature, but I don’t see how that’s germane to what’s being discussed.

Thanks for finally trying to substantiate your claims.

 

[Cathy]

I have a question about the consecration. On this web site, there’s an article about the difference in the words of consecration between the Traditional Latin Mass and the Novus Ordo (ordinary Mass said today). It states:

The Novus Ordo phrases it this way: “This is my body, which will be given up for you. . . . This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all men [Latin, “for many”] so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.”

However, the missal we use (Oregon Catholic Press) omits the word, “men,” and so do all the priests of our diocese, as far as I can tell. Is this technically an abuse?