The New English Mass Translation Must Be Getting Closer!

[japhy]

My answer is split into two parts. This is part one.

… we certainly cannot be forceful of imposing our belief onto others, then we would be insensitive.

I don’t know why you’re bringing that up. Who’s suggesting we do that? What does that have to do with the new translation? Anyway, the Church does have the right (and duty) to “impose” her beliefs on those who profess to belong to her – by which I mean, the Church has every right to expect that those who belong to her believe what she teaches – and the obligation to preach those beliefs and that truth to those outside of her.

As Christians, using Christ as our example, he never excluded anyone, and so it would be fitting to practice this if we, like you, are to quote word for word the letters from the Gospels.

Christ did exclude, not always explicitly, but by his demands: read the end of John 6 where most of his followers left him; read what happened to the rich young man who came to him. St. Paul, in his letters, twice provides lists of types of people who are excluded from the kingdom. But Christ didn’t speak in neutered language. And he excluded women from his group of 12 apostles.

…would he be bothered at Cana if he had no feelings for his mother? Would he cure the lame, sick, the crippled or the blind? Would he resurrect Lazarus if Martha were not to ask him?

These situations were about more than just feelings. Physical healing was not about “feeling good”, it was about displaying the power of God and giving people a reason to believe that he was the Christ. Yes, they were healed, but there was more at work than just that. And Lazarus was more than a pity-miracle. Jesus raised him to prove a point.

We accept the teachings of Rome due to the words spoken by Jesus to St. Peter. Unfortunately many “Holy” men has not acted upon the Holy Spirit appropriately– a church divided within; hence it is retrogressing in the hope to rekindle the days of post Vatican II. You probably one of them who wish this never came to be.

You have judged me incorrectly if you think I don’t like Vatican II. I have spent the last two years of my life studying Vatican II and the liturgy and its history. I am currently preparing catechetical materials for the new translation. I am glad Vatican II happened… but I am sad at what happened after it, and was claimed to be done in its “spirit”. I’ve read the documents, and a lot of what happened after the Council is nowhere to be found in the documents! Not all of the priests and bishops in the Church are holy men. That’s clear. But the Church itself is holy, and her teachings are true. Separate the man from the office.

If you read the laity`s post in context, then “anger” would be over-bearing. RS states the faithful needs to engage, whether good or bad, the responsibility is on all to protect the Blessed Sacrament.

Is the Blessed Sacrament being offended by the new translations? No. It is being offended by the daily mangling of the words of the Mass by priests who think the liturgy is theirs to tinker with.

If the Pontiff were to instruct that all men masturbating be excommunicated - would you come forward and repent or admit? or all homosexuals, priest alike, to stop Celebrating Mass? would you be first in line? Ponder on that…

To be quite frank, it’s nearly 10 months since I last masturbated. Could’ve destroyed my marriage. I had confessed it many times, and then last July, after a particularly honest confession, it really sunk in, something really changed, and I stopped. All by the grace of God, of course.

But I don’t see the point here… why would the Church declare masturbation an excommunicable sin? Why would the Church demand all homosexual priests to stop celebrating Mass? (Homosexually inclined, or homosexually active? There’s a difference.) Why are you bringing up these hypothetical examples? Are you testing my allegiance to the Church?

Regarding “AND”, it is poor sentence structure. If you didn’t know that, perhaps a crash course in English would do you good.

I learned that growing up too. But apparently, English teachers aren’t infallible.

In any case, let’s question what the paedophilia did for the American church? Did it lead more Catholics home or astray? Astray, I’m sure. Hence most of your churches are lacking in parishioners. This I know.

What does this have to do with the issue at hand?! The molesting-priests issue has been terrible for the Church, of course. Many people lost faith because of it. Satan must be thrilled.

So concerning themselves about grammatical issues does not do the trick, does it?

Listen: there are various departments in the Church that deal with different things. One arm of the Vatican deals with the liturgy and the sacraments. It’s not like the Church is exerting ALL her energy into correcting the English translation, meanwhile orphans go unfed and widows die penniless.

The Church is trying to restore a sacredness to the Mass which never should have slipped away. This is important because the liturgy is the true and proper worship of God. In doing this, bringing back a sense of the sacred, the people – if they actually care what’s going on – will begin to experience a change as well.

 

[japhy]

My answer is split into two parts. This is part two.

Assuring people of Gods saving grace, his love and your commitment towards him and your neighbors would certainly gather more Catholics than concerning yourselves with words (of similar meaning) that Catholics give two hoots about.

Why can’t we do both?! Why can’t the liturgy’s language be improved and fixed, and pastors preach decent homilies about the grace and mercy and love of God, and the necessity to love Jesus Christ and love one another as he loves us?!

So how “seen and unseen” can lead Catholics away - I am yet to see, or would you write me a thesis on the subject that can only be proven in theory? Think about it.

Let me name to you some things that are unseen by almost every human being: the dark side of the Moon, the rings of some planet in another galaxy, the molecular structure of our spit. Those things are unseen… but they’re visible. “Seen and unseen” is inaccurate, because it could simply be referring to physical creation, rather than spiritual creation.

“Visible and invisible” refers to the physical and spiritual orders of creation. The same ONE God created both. Why is that in the Creed? Because nearly 2000 years ago, some Christians thought that one (good) God made the spirit-world, and then one (evil) God made the physical world which trapped spirits. The Church denies that as heresy and put “visible and invisible” in the Creed to guard against it.

There are people today who call themselves Catholic and yet are really gnostic at heart, and believe that the physical world is evil and inconsequential. They deny a physical, bodily resurrection. The teach a bunch of garbage and call it Catholic. I wonder why!

Maybe you need a crash course in catechesis!

I think what you are trying to do by quoting certain sections in my response, regarding the Eucharist, is really tacky. When speaking in a Catholic context, I would certainly not mean Protestants, but you dont see this, do you? Oh I forgot, everything becomes an attack on Rome.

I was not attempting to be tacky. I quoted almost your ENTIRE post and responded part-by-part. I didn’t take your Eucharist comment out of context. You said:

I think the church leaders are way too concerned with grammatical issues than it is to lead people closer to God. The role of the church is not to condemn, question and isolate people, but to unite them by their virtue as Christians.

We are united by the Eucharist, not by words and its complex meaning, though this aids our faith and gives it deeper meaning.
My response mentioned Protestant denominations because you said the Church’s role is to “unite [people] by their virtue as Christians” rather than “as Catholics”. I wanted to make it clear that not all Christians believe the same thing, especially not about the Most Holy Eucharist!

And Catholics should know what the Church teaches about the Eucharist so that we know what (and WHO) we are united by.

So we should be like the Chinese, governed by our leaders, where we are not to think or do things without consulting Rome.

Why is it that accepting the Church’s teachings with religious submission of intellect and will is viewed as some evil master plan to turn people into robots? No, the Church is not like China.

You are free to think and do things without consulting Rome. You are free to think and do things without consulting God. Is it always wise? I’d say no. God ordained the Church to have a living teaching office, the Magisterium, our bishops led by the Pope. It’s our duties as Catholics to obey the teachings of the Church. Rebelling against Rome isn’t a smart plan, though.

Unfortunately we don’t live in your world, or in the Dark Ages. I would like to believe that we belong to a church that understands modern life, a shift very similar to that of the renaissanse. So RS grants us that opportunity to engage and reason with Rome.

Why the personal attacks? (Aren’t you concerned about my feelings?) Just what is “my world”? And when are you referring to with the “Dark Ages”? What centuries? I want to make sure we’re on the same page.

We do belong to a Church that understands modern life. She understands its GOOD quality and its BAD qualities. Pope John XXIII said as much shortly before Vatican II (and in the opening speech as well, I think).

What, exactly, do you read R.S. as giving the laity to do, and what does this entail? I see that it gives us permission (and charges us with the duty) to do what we can to help stop liturgical abuses. It declares we have the RIGHT to the Mass celebrated properly according to the liturgical books and rules of the Church.

I think the church leaders are way too concerned with grammatical issues than it is to lead people closer to God. The role of the church is not to condemn, question, impose prejudice and isolate people, but to unite them by their virtue as Christians.

It seems to me that you think the Church can only do one thing at a time, which simply is not true. And the role of the Church is to save souls and worship God. If saving a soul involves questioning that person to see if they believe the truth, so be it.

What examples did you have in mind, concerning condemning, imposing prejudices, and isolating people? Is this about women and ordination? About homosexuals and marriage? About abortion and contraception?

The Church has a moral duty to preach the truth about these things, to identify errors, and to help correct people.

 

[Apophatic]

I would like to weigh in on inclusiveness.

First of all, this is an ENGLISH language issue only. There are very few gender inclusive terms in the language, and one gender is designated for both depending on context. This is not always male, as with goose and gander where goose(f) includes gander(m).

Inclusive language use almost always changes the phrase it is used in. In many cases, the immediate and definite is changed to the passive and indefinite. “Happy the man who…” becomes “Happy is the person who…” or “Happy the one who…”, etc. We simply do not have words to make it work and many times end up with BAD English.

In Bible and Mass translation, it is even worse. “I saw one coming down from the heavens like the son of a human being” instead of “son of man.” We lose so much here that it is downright criminal. First of off, this refers to the Incarnation. Jesus was the new Adam(Man) and as Adam’s son God becomes one of us. This is important because you cannot redeem what you are not. If Jesus was not fully man then we are not fully redeemed. Secondly, this is a messianic title, one that Jesus used in reference to himself a number of times. The saying, “When the Son of Man comes again…”, would have brought this passage from the OT to mind for every Jew hearing it. There is an immediate connection and they would have known that He was claiming this prophecy for Himself. By extension, He was claiming many other similar prophecies for Himself. It is not any wonder that they asked, “Who is this man Jesus?” It is a question we still need to ask ourselves today.

I said earlier that this is an English only debate. Take French for example with its le and la. EVERY word in that language has gender. Spanish, Latin, Greek, and Ukrainian are others. Every Romantic and Slavic language has this. Pretty nearly every language descended from the so-called Indo-European heritage has gender in its words. Yes many kitchen and cooking words are feminine, but you would be surprised at how many words are masculine in that category. (So much for men not doing the dishes after supper)

Would it be reasonable to expect the hundreds of millions of speakers of these languages to stop talking while we re-write their entire speech to something more “inclusive”?

This whole debate is one that arose in the 60’s and 70’s from militant Feminist radicals as just one more stick to beat the sexist male establishment with. They have been trying hard to educate our young girls to be offended by this.

I would respectfully suggest that anyone offended by non-inclusive language has, either fallen for the propaganda, or has a deep-seated gender self-worth issue that language use changes would not deal with anyway.

As a final point, if you went to the zoo and saw “Man-eating Tiger” on a sign, would this mean the women are excluded (would not be eaten)? If it said “Woman-eating Tiger”, would anyone be confused?

 

[japhy]

I’m curious if the controversy has subsided…

 

[FrDavid96]

I’m curious if the controversy has subsided…

That would be a negative. This is the calm before the storm.

When the new translation is made completely official and published and parishes are finally required to implement it, that’s when the storm will begin.

It’s not hard to imagine certain priests simply refusing to use it, or creating their own hybrid versions where they continue to use parts of the “old new Mass” as well as their own personal “improvements.” If you think we have liturgical chaos now (in many places at least), just wait… It aint gonna be pretty.

 

[peregrinus_sg]

Maybe that’s why we are given a whole year to pray for priests first… that they may be examples of holy obedience, rather than lead the people of God astray with silly resistance.

 

[Joannm]

That would be a negative. This is the calm before the storm.

When the new translation is made completely official and published and parishes are finally required to implement it, that’s when the storm will begin.

It’s not hard to imagine certain priests simply refusing to use it, or creating their own hybrid versions where they continue to use parts of the “old new Mass” as well as their own personal “improvements.” If you think we have liturgical chaos now (in many places at least), just wait… It aint gonna be pretty.

In my opinion, and in the opinion of our diocesan liturgical commission (of which I am a member), if the implementations are done correctly and everyone is well prepared way ahead of time, the kind of thing you describe can be avoided. We are actually planning an entire clergy conference either this fall or winter to begin to acclamate the priests to the changes coming. Also, we are using this as an opportunity to reinforce compliance to the GIRM. We figure since they have to start using new words they might as well learn to use the rubrics. We are stressing “do the red, say the black.” We will be doing similar workshops for those in parish ministry and for the assembly as well. We are hoping to make this a two year process. If the bishop is totally on board with proper implementation and insistence on complying with the new translations and following the GIRM we should not have the problems we had in the late 60’s.

 

[Evan]

As a final point, if you went to the zoo and saw “Man-eating Tiger” on a sign, would this mean the women are excluded (would not be eaten)? If it said “Woman-eating Tiger”, would anyone be confused?

Gender neutral can be quit difficult. But at least we could make it feminist friendly.

We cannot use the “Woman-eating Tiger” sign, better would be

“Woperson-eating Tiger”, but

We cannot use… “woperson-eating Tiger” sign, better would be

“Woperdaughter-eating Tiger”. I think that finally eliminates the male-hierarchical language emphasis imposing itself on the downtrodden feminist sensibilities.

(thanks to Steven Colbert)

So gender neutral would change "“Happy the man who…” to “Happy the man/woperdaughter who…”

And now someone has to fix the he/she pronoun

 

[japhy]

And now someone has to fix the he/she pronoun

Heh, I don’t know why I’ve never thought of that one.

I wonder if such feminists sing hyrns instead of hymns…?

 

[benedictgal]

Heh, I don’t know why I’ve never thought of that one.

I wonder if such feminists sing hyrns instead of hymns…?

They probably sing “hers”.

 

[Sarabande]

And now someone has to fix the he/she pronoun

haha!

In my mother’s native language, they do not have gender specific pronouns. It’s hard to explain, but how it would have to be translated is “He/She has his/her own car.” or “One has one’s own car.” So whenever she is speaking and thinking quickly, she always messes up the pronouns and she is very fluent in English - now dreams in English and can probably speak it better than some native-born speakers, except for her pronouns. My family and I are used to hearing her and other people that speak the same language refer to males as ‘her’, ‘hers’, ‘she’, etc. and females as ‘him’, ‘his’, ‘he’. We actually never knew why she mixed up her pronouns until recently when a friend of our who is a linguist was asking her about her language and nailed it right on the spot.

This whole “all-inclusive” language is ridiculous, in my opinion. As a female (who has often been referred to as a him/his/he by my mom. hahaha!) have no problem with non-all-inclusive language. It doesn’t make me feel more “included”. Actually, I remember when I was in grade school and they really went hogwild over all that all-inclusive language. We all understood that “For us men and for our salvation…” meant both men and women AND children. I remember a teacher getting all uptight and upset that we were still using “men” and lectured the girls on how we needed to stop perpetuating the “chauvinistic” language. We didn’t even know what “chauvinistic” meant at that point. We were only like 9 or 10. I personally liked the language. It was more poetic and less political-sounding.

I’m very happy that they are making a more accurate English mass translation and I don’t care if they don’t use all-inclusive language. Call me someone against my own sex (which I’m not), if you will, but if a person can’t get past that and identify oneself to be a strong soul just as a human and a child of God, I don’t know what to say.

 

[Phemie]

I remember taking a course on Justice in the Church and the language was one of the injustices of which they spoke – and the course was taught by a man. I made a point of saying right out what I thought of inclusive language, as did another woman taking the same course. We were practically patted on the head with a 'there, there, dear, you just don’t know any better." At the end of the course he invited us both for coffee, she declined, I went and said what he wanted to hear – with my fingers crossed. OK, I lied through my teeth.

During that same week, at another session, another of the teachers, a Sister, got up and told how she was a Notre Dame the first time she became aware of this whole ‘inclusive language issue.’ It had been discussed in one of her classes and at the end of her class she had gone up to the prof and asked “Is this a US problem, a Notre Dame problem or simply your problem?” She had never heard of inclusive language, she had never had a problem with the language as it was but now she was a rabid inclusive language fan. I don’t know about anyone else but if I have to be taught to be outraged by the lack of inclusive language just how much of a problem can it be???

I grew up with French grammar rules. If the noun is feminine, the adjective is feminine; if there are two nouns, one feminine, one masculine, the adjective is masculine. (eg.: ‘une robe bleue’ but ‘une chemise et un pantalon bleus’) Never was it a problem. But over the past twenty years or so even French has been infected with the inclusive language bug such that “La Sociéte des Acadiens du Nouveau-Brunswick”, which included all Acadians when I was going to school, now is “La Sociéte des Acadiens et Acadiennes du Nouveau-Brunswick”.