Sauce For The Goose...

Several bloggers have already commented on the letter by the chairman of Brentwood’s Diocesan Commission for Liturgy which called for the corrected translation of the Missal to be rejected. Fr. Butler sent his letter to The Bitter Pill, which (unsurprisingly) published it, and he also sent it to priests in Brentwood, encouraging them to acts of disobedience in refusing to use the revised Missal.

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!)