It seems to me that the answer is the same folks who had been pushing a new translation for the better part of a decade, a translation that was severely criticized and ultimately scrapped and replaced by the one implemented just recently.

This abandoned translation featured, among other things, a new version of the Our Father, and other very disruptive changes that were ultimately canned. So I find it interesting that stumbling over new phrasing seems to be the main thrust of the lingering opposition to the new implementation.

I am having trouble understanding the specifics of Deb’s criticism. While I see that everything she said applies to the old translation, I haven’t encountered any of these problems in the new yet, or at least they are no worse. As for the second part, surely she understands that it is the Roman Missal that is being translated here, and not the Greek New Testament?

*Eyebrows raised in amusement* To quote Billy Crystal from the movie “The Princess Bride”, “Look who knows so much!”

Sarah, Jesus had some harsh words for hypocrites, too, though the irony your statement provides gave me a morning laugh!

If she really feels that her church fathers are “dolts”, then I think her problem is much deeper than a mere translation. It is a problem of faith in crisis – either she needs to get right with her Church, or she needs to leave it for a congregation that is more in line with her beliefs about authority and leadership.

Juvenal wrote:

“Magnaque numinibus vota exaudita malignis”

Literally translated, in the same order

And great/by spiritual powers/vows/having been heard (agreeing with “vows”)/malign (agreeing with “by spiritual powers”

This is plainly gibberish.

“And great prayers that have been heard by malignant powers” reproduces the meaning, but is flat and pedestrian; it conveys next to nothing of the experience produced by reading the original.

Dr Johnson translated it as “Enormous prayers, which Heav’n in vengeance grants,” expressing, not only the sense, but something of the rhythm and cadences of the original – hence, his elision of the last syllable of “Heaven.” Above all, it preserves the terse, epigrammatic style of Juvenal.

Has any modern translation of the Missal approached Johnson’s standard? In my opinion, no. Cranmer, at his best, approached it, in some of the Collects, but that can now only be appreciated by someone thoroughly at home in with Elizabethan English.

Genius, alas, is not to be had for the asking.

Well, yes. And all this because some people apparently didn’t like to say (and/or didn’t like us to say) “and also with you” and “one in Being.”

It seems a tad disingenuous to pretend that the issue is trivial, to suggest that an interest in the matter of language is childish or frivolous. Clearly, some in the Church take the matter very seriously indeed: seriously enough to have spent years on the production of a new missal. And rightly so for anyone to take this issue seriously. The language *does* matter, obviously, or else why bother with a new translation?

I’m not outraged by the changes, but I’m not thrilled by them either. But since I have so far attended only one Mass with the new translation, and since I don’t eagerly embrace change, don’t much like to be taken out of my comfort zone, I’m willing to admit that my initial response to the new wording (I don’t really like it) may be mere crankiness and grumpitude.

Judy K: yes, “unseen” can mean not seen or perceived at the moment (though potentially seeable by us if we opened the door or looked behind the couch or whatever), but it can also mean not seen or perceived by us at all because invisible (and therefore not seeable by us in the ordinary manner of perception). I’m pretty sure that nobody was ever in any danger of misinterpreting “unseen” as ‘just hiding behind the couch,’ say, and I agree with Peter S. that “Of all that is seen and unseen” is much more poetic in English.

I will readily concede that some of the language of the English-language Mass on which I was raised (post-Vatican II, so I never knew the Latin) was too flat and pedestrian. But I worry that the new translation is neither fish nor fowl: a latinized English that is not Latin, but not good English either.

And yes, “consubstantial” does seem like a poor word choice to me: while “one in Being” is difficult to grasp, it at least offers access to vulgar laypersons such as myself to the contemplation of a mystery. Whereas “consubstantial” sounds not only inelegant in English, but also overly technical, academic, and obscure, if not obscurantist.

Wow. I must be missing something.

People need to take a deep breath and relax.