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En Vox Clara!

The Vox Clara committee recently expressed its hope that the new English translation of the Missale Romanum will be completed by the end of 2009.

This makes me wonder what it will be like trying to learn to celebrate Mass with so new a text. The congregation and I will be in the same boat of non-familiarity. Of course, if I already know all the silent prayers in Latin, that will help. The real danger is that out of nervousness, etc. I would revert to current-ICEL versions.

Imagine trying to break the “and also with you” habit when the greeting “the Lord be with you” is exactly the same.

This new translation is very sorely needed, however, and unlearning poor translations and learning accurate and beautiful translations will be of immense benefit.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 at 12:49 PM and is filed under latin, links, liturgy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “En Vox Clara!”

Gravatar epharkins
Posted September 13th, 2007 at 9:51 AM.

Maybe we should wean the people off the ICEL-ated translation onto Latin so they will have a clean palate by 2009. Or maybe the damage can never fully be undone.

Gravatar Mom
Posted September 16th, 2007 at 11:23 PM.

What happened that gave us the poor translation? Also, what is ICEL?

Gravatar Dylan
Posted September 21st, 2007 at 7:54 AM.

After the Roman Missal of 1970 came out, there was a big rush to translate it into the vernacular languages. This rush meant that the Vatican had hundreds of translations coming in for approval and probably could not devote enough resources to making sure that each translation was as good as it should be. This, combined with the fact that ICEL (the International Commission on English in the Liturgy) at that time had a certain agenda, which is obviously reflected in their translations, led to the current English translation of the missal.

It was not a matter of making mistakes–as is clear from the mis-translation of the simplest phrases–but of basically paraphrasing, omitting, and re-wording things.

The current ICEL is doing a much better job, and the new translation of the missal should be an invaluable improvement for English-speaking countries.

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