Comments on: So Colbert’s a Real (Funny) Catholic

By: mrsschiavolin

mrsschiavolin — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 03:15:16 +0000

A good reason just to keep the whole N.O. in Latin.

By: Tom H

Tom H — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 19:44:25 +0000

Maybe just for fun, I dug up a text from an exchange between Augustine and Jerome on liturgical translations that shows the perils of introducing new translations: it detaches the worshiper from the liturgy itself. Maybe even more than with law, in liturgy innovation breeds contempt. So with that being said, I think the new translation is clearly better as a translation. But a more interesting question might be whether the improved translation is worth the disorientation of the faithful (a question the translators in the 60′s, of course, never thought fit to ask; or, better, the disorientation was precisely their point).

Anyway, here’s the bit from Augustine’s Letter 71: “A certain bishop, one of our brethren, having introduced in the church over which he presides the reading of your version, came upon a word in the book of the prophet Jonah, of which you have given a very different rendering from that which had been of old familiar to the senses and memory of all the worshippers, and had been chanted for so many generations in the church. Thereupon arose such a tumult in the congregation, especially among the Greeks, correcting what had been read, and denouncing the translation as false, that the bishop was compelled to ask the testimony of the Jewish residents (it was in the town of Oea). These, whether from ignorance or from spite, answered that the words in the Hebrew manuscripts were correctly rendered in the Greek version, and in the Latin one taken from it. What further need I say? The man was compelled to correct your version in that passage as if it had been falsely translated, as he desired not to be left without a congregation — a calamity which he narrowly escaped. From this case we also are led to think that you may be occasionally mistaken. You will also observe how great must have been the difficulty if this had occurred in those writings which cannot be explained by comparing the testimony of languages now in use.”

I also agree with Paul: liturgical texts shouldn’t always be super easy to understand, since God’s not himself super easy to understand.

By: Fabius

Fabius — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 19:35:46 +0000

We Anglicans have always very much enjoyed, “being of one substance with the Father.”

By: peter lawler

peter lawler — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:45:04 +0000

Exactly one word clunks in the recital of the new translation, and consubstantial is it. That’s because it’s the one word not often used in ordinary speech.

By: Peter Lawler

Peter Lawler — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 15:54:16 +0000

geez: I didn’t know it was THAT serious a point. Send your comments to Colbert, not me.

By: paul seaton

paul seaton — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 15:50:59 +0000

Ah, the liturgical wars erupt on the pages of PMC! I will say that Colbert’s (admittedly funny) retort missed the deeper and bigger and catholic and Catholic point concerning the nature and purpose of the text: it is the Creed — and the early councils’ and creeds’ main point was to define the being and nature and person of Christ over against all sorts of naturalistic heresies; in order to do so, however, they employed pagan philosophical terms, but they necessarily enlarged and transformed them. Ernie Fortin has a nice treatment of how this worked with the formula of the Council of Chalcedon in the collection of essays included in Philosophical Christianity. You’ll want to read Fr. Sokolowski’s The God of Faith and Reason for the deeper theological (and philosophical) issues. And, of course, the philosophical-Pope has written tons on the providential meeting of the two cultures of the Logos/logos, which entailed a mutual critique and enlargement. Peter, if you want your Christian personalism, you’ll probably have to be more sympathetic to the latinate consubstantial (which tried to transliterate the Greek). One more Tocquevillian point: Colbert’s (admittedly funny) quip misconstrued the nature and purpose of the Creed, and did so in a typically democratic (i.e., dumbing down) way. In the spirit of Tocqueville, one might argue that late-modern democrats need not only the literary precision of the Greek and Roman classics to elevate their minds, but also the technical precision of the Creeds. Just saying … .

By: CJ Wolfe

CJ Wolfe — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 15:36:38 +0000

“Consubstantial” was actually a good change in the new mass, I thought. Most of the other changes I would have favored a more readable translation which approximated the sense, but the fact is that some words and concepts used in the Mass are -intentionally- untranslatable. “One in being” doesn’t make sense in the natural sense of English grammar and neither does “consubstantial”, but that’s because we’re talking about the Supernatural here. Some words are untranslatable; I think Wittgenstein would agree with me on that. Benedict does, anyway.

In Pope Benedict’s JESUS OF NAZARETH (2007), on the last page of the book he wrote that:
“the First Council of Nicea adopted the word CONSUBSTANTIAL (in Greek, HOMOOUSIOS). This term did not Hellenize the faith or burden it with an alien philosophy. On the contrary, it captured in a stable formula exactly what had emerged as incomparably NEW and DIFFERENT in Jesus way of speaking with the Father.”

By: Jy

Jy — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 14:00:31 +0000

“One in being” is too fuzzy and does not teach and does not adequately teach…liturgy should be formative

By: Mike Walsh, MM

Mike Walsh, MM — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:12:13 +0000

I cannot see how the complex circumlocution (talk about ‘stilted’) “of one in being with” offers any improvements over “consubstantial with”. The same people who complained that the parishioners would be muddled by such a big word are the ones who –in other circumstances– argue that we have the most sophisticated laity in history.

By: sara

sara — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 01:12:37 +0000

I also think that “of one Being” is acceptable. In either case, the context makes it clear that it’s the God/Christ relationship under discussion at this point in the creed, not the Christ/man or God/man relationship.