Liturgy News

Amidst much talk of great achievement and the long and complex process of preparing the new translation of the Missal, it was announced on 30 April 2010 that the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments had approved the definitive English text. Vox Clara held a celebratory dinner and presented the pope with a copy bound in white, and Cardinal Pell came away with a handsome volume bound in red with gold edges which he displayed at the Australian bishops meeting and clutched for a photo in The Australian. I think it is reasonable however to ask what has been approved. The ‘final approved’ text is not available to bishops, educators or publishers because there is still a huge task to edit out the mistakes and inconsistencies. Once this is done, the bishops conferences might get to see what they themselves are supposed to have prepared and approved.

And once the self-congratulatory hubris has abated, we are left with the sobering thought that this is the first liturgical book in English whose approval has been confirmed by the Holy See for twenty-three years. The last was the Order of Christian Funerals in 1987. That approval broke new ground because, for the first time, the Congregation granted a confirmatio subject to a long list of amendments. In other words, the Holy See claimed the final say over a translation approved by the bishops conferences of the English-speaking world. Still, like its predecessors (the 1982 Pastoral Care of the Sick and the 1986 Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults), it had incorporated new texts written in English and some pastoral adaptation. At this time, work was already underway for the revised Sacramentary: consultations on the revision were held throughout the English-speaking world in 1982 and 1986.

A lot has happened in this last quarter of a century. A second edition of the Latin Marriage Rite was prepared in 1990. It greatly enriches the introduction, adds new texts, provides new blessing rites, a communion rite and a rite of marriage before a lay minister, and revises existing texts and rubrics. We do not have it in English. ICEL draft translations and local modifications were never approved. A second edition of the Latin Ordination Rite was promulgated in 1989. We do not have it in English. ICEL revised the existing translation incorporating all the changes and offered it to bishops conferences in 1993. After several years, it was rejected by the Holy See with comments critical of the existing texts as well as the new sections. The Congregation issued ultimatums and deadlines, stressing the absolute urgency of this project. An entirely new translation was prepared taking into account all the comments, but was again rejected by the Holy See. In the meantime we have also had new Latin editions of the Rite of Exorcism (1999) and the Roman Martyrology (2001-2005) neither of which has been translated into English. A final ‘white book’ translation of the Dedication of a Church and an Altar was prepared on the eve of Liturgiam Authenticam.

The chain of events after 1998, when the revised Sacramentary was completed and approved by all the English-speaking bishops conferences, is well known. The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments imposed a new constitution on ICEL in 2000, issued the new charter for translation Liturgiam Authenticam in 2001, published the new edition of the Missale Romanum in 2002 and, within a few months, rejected the translations of the revised Sacramentary and the Rite of Ordination, also establishing Vox Clara to oversee the new translation of the Missal which has now been confirmed.

By the time the old ICEL was decommissioned in 2000, the next phase of the comprehensive revisions program was already complete in its first draft, only to be buried in ICEL archives. This was a new book entitled Order of Christian Initiation of Children, the result of a consultation throughout the Englishspeaking world in 1993. Designed as a companion to the RCIA, it incorporated a new translation of the Rite of Baptism for Children, the Rite of Confirmation, and the chapter from the RCIA on children of catechetical age. By placing these rites together, the book was able to articulate the Roman model of confirmation before or with first communion, while making allowance for those places which celebrate confirmation at a later age. Following the model of the RCIA, additional rites and pastoral notes were prepared for the periods before infant baptism, between baptism and confirmation / first communion, and for the continued growth in faith through the years of childhood.

Where to next? An ICEL report presented by Archbishop Denis Hart to the members of the Bishops Commission on the Liturgy and the National Liturgical Council in February 2010 indicated that two ‘grey book’ translations were ready to go to the bishops conferences for their vote – the Dedication of Churches and Altars and the Rite of Marriage – though bishops conferences have not yet been consulted on drafts of these books. Several ‘green book’ translations for consultation were also said to be ready: the Book of Exorcisms, the Rite of Confirmation, the Rite of Consecration of a Virgin, Blessing of an Abbott and an Abbess, and the Institution of Readers and Acolytes. At the time of going to press, none of these has materialised in Australia. Perhaps these days ICEL needs to await Rome’s permission. ICEL has also been discussing future translation projects. Suggestions include the Liturgy of the Hours and the Rite of Baptism. The report from September 2009 mentioned the Liturgy of the Hours and the Rite of Ordination.

 Forty years ago, a group called the Carpenters sang We’ve Only Just Begun. It is not liturgical music, but it might be a suitable theme song for ICEL. After the sorry saga of the last twenty years, there is a big backlog to clear.