Ben Trovato, the Countercultural Father, has published the full letter (it was shortened for publication - too strong even for The Bitter Pill?) and he also fisked it most thoroughly. The charming and erudite Fr. Hunwicke* has written three posts about the deeper meaning behind this attack, and I strongly encourage you all to read Liturgists 1: Open Warfare, Liturgists 2: Burying Ratzinger, and Liturgists 3: Nice Old Gentlemen.
The next stage in the attack has been reported by Deacon Nick Donnelly of Protect the Pope - apparently A Call to Action (ACTA) has escalated its campaign to get the bishops of England and Wales to drop the revised translation of the Roman Missal.
According to Fr. Butler, several priests have had serious difficulties with the revised translation. He maintains that they have even gone so far as to change or avoid words and phrases that they find difficult to say with meaning.
Readers of this blog will realise that I have a personal preference for the TLM. But I have never refused to attend the Novus Ordo or questioned its validity. And while I cannot compete with the inimitable Fr. Z in identifying what the prayers actually say (see this week's translation for a taster), even I could recognise that "Et cum Spiritu tuo" doesn't actually translate as "And also with you!" So I'm a strong proponent of the revised (corrected) translation.
But I do think Fr. Butler's letter raises an interesting point.
Before a priest can say Mass in the Extraordinary Form, he is required to be idoneus - that means that he must be able to pronounce the words correctly and understand their meaning.
It seems, from Fr. Butler's letter, that this standard has not been adhered to in priests who say the Novus Ordo.
Does this mean that these priests should be prevented from saying the Novus Ordo Mass until they too are judged to be idoneus?
After all, what's sauce for the goose...
(*Fr. Hunwicke claims to have been training as an Extremely Unpleasant Old Bloke for many years - but, having met him, I can attest to his complete failure to achieve this status!)
3 comments:
I've been waiting for this, and now it's happened officially, so to speak.
Bring it on, boys. Your local ordinary may in fact be very happy to remove your faculties for as long as it takes for you to get your Mass in order.
But the new version has such BIG in it!
I would happily agree with anyone who thought the retranslation wanting in a number of respects -why, for instance, are we still informing the Lamb of God that he takes away the sins of the world, rather than correctly rendering'qui tollis peccata mundi' as a subordinate clause descriptive of the Lamb ('who takes away...)?
My favourite comment was from a spirit of Vat.II fellow parishioner who accused Pope Benedict, among many other crimes, of 'rewriting the Mass to suit himself'.
Meanwhile I'm still searching for the textual justification for that familiar entry antiphon'Good morning everyone/ Good morning Father' and our local bishop's favourite dismissal 'And thanks be to you for coming'.
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