For most Protestants in America, “Church shopping” has become a staple of religious life, and this is no less true for Catholics, on the parish level at least. Once the shopping is done, we settle into our regular communities, and have very little experience of the different ways our co-religionists practice the faith. We go in peace to love and serve the Lord, each in our own worlds.
Often our decisions of parish are driven by aesthetics, such as taste in music. For my own part, I will admit that the sight of a drum kit in a church stops me cold and that any music written by a certain “Marty” presents me with a near occasion of sin. As my brother says, whatever St. Boniface suffered from the Frankish church, it wasn’t amplified. But I also know that people with far more profound spiritual lives than mine find contemporary music almost necessary to their faith. To that degree this is merely a matter of taste.
However, there is often much more to our decision than aesthetics. I was reminded of this on a recent visit to Seattle where I attended a downtown parish with my family. The first thing I must say about the parish is that it was the most welcoming one I have ever visited. I have never met so many people eager to help find parking, find a seat, distribute the order of service, and so many people that, in general, understand their role in the outreach of the parish. The second thing I must say is that it was the most disorienting service I have attended in years.
Where do I start? There was the mandatory meet and greet, the aggressively gender-inclusive language, the bizarre procession of all to offer money into (or ambiguously hover open hands over) the offertory basket. The angry looks and frustration on the part of the ushers—their reaction to our confusion—was not in keeping with the earlier cheerful welcome. In this context, diversity, even if caused by confusion, was not welcome.
The changes wrought upon the order and language of the service were not merely aesthetic. These were ideological changes. Everyone knows this, and it is part of the modus vivendi of modern Catholic parishes that developed since Vatican II. You have liberal parishes and conservative ones. I made the mistake of finding myself in a liberal parish.
Normally I would think no more about our experience, but the new translation of the Order of the Mass will be introduced and used in parishes on November 27th, the First Sunday of Advent. What will this Seattle parish, and many others like it, do on that date? It has taken them years to develop a service with which they are comfortable.
There will certainly be challenges with the new translation for everyone. For instance, “And with your spirit” is not idiomatic, nor is the word “consubstantial” familiar to most parishioners. But we all know what the real disagreements will be. There is an online petition asking the Bishops not to demand the use of the new translation, and in the comments you can see the points of contention.
There is, of course, the procedural argument: The change is being imposed from above and does not reflect the views of the laity because it was not produced by a democratic process. This is the constant tension over the hierarchy. But there is also a theological argument, a dispute over what the language is for. According to one South African Bishop, the very reason for the new translation was based, among other things, upon “a purely arbitrary decision to demand that the English text had to faithfully represent the Latin . . .” Well, quite.
Both of these concerns, and there are others, highlight the deep fissure in contemporary Catholic life between the right and the left. It is familiar to anyone who has church shopped and it is the same one that caught me in that Seattle parish. What is the Church and what is the Mass? The question of hierarchy and obedience is familiar to most people. But this question about the Mass is going to arise with the new translation.
The “left” is willing to embrace external, cultural features because of the need to bring new people into the churches and keep others from leaving. Why throw up barriers, they ask, when there are so many hungry souls needing to be fed? If dropping all of the references to God as “He” can bring people in or keeps them here, who really cares? To paraphrase Henry IV of France, the Mass is well worth a pronoun.
The “right” is concerned that willy-nilly changes in the language could, in the most extreme cases, invalidate the Mass. Wherever we might be on the spectrum, most Catholics will agree that some ceremonies are valid Masses and some are not. Where is the dividing line? Faithful representation of the Latin is not arbitrary in such an important rite, and in such cases it would seem prudent to defer to exactitude. Moreover, how can we claim to be catholic (universal) when the service differs so much from parish to parish?
Stuck in the middle are the American bishops. Will they penalize pastors and parishes for non-compliance or will they tacitly accept that any local changes to the Order of the Mass are acceptable? And what sorts of sanctions can they use? Forced laicization was not used in cases of child abuse. Would they dare do this now, for this? It would only play into the hands of their critics.
But to do nothing, to allow parishes to use whichever translation they wish and even to change them at will, is to capitulate and to abandon the very idea of hierarchy. What role does the Magisterium have if a directive of the Pope in Rome, fulfilled by a Vatican commission and implemented under the bishops is allowed to be ignored? Who is in charge? Has the Catholic Church become a church of bishops (episcopal) or priests (presbyteral) and not popes?
Because the reaction of the bishops will be key, the familiar disputes on the hierarchy will play themselves out. But a dispute about the Mass is about much more; it is about the very heart of worship and what it means to be a Catholic, as defined by oneself, by others, and by the Church.
Although some parishes have been talking about the new translation, most will be receiving instructional materials only this month. Few but the most active seem to know that anything is coming. As a result, a lot of Catholics are in for a big surprise. And the Catholic community of the English speaking world is in for a very rough ride. The modus vivendi that has allowed left and right to live apart in peace may be over.
Geoffrey M. Vaughan is an Associate Professor of Political Science and the Director of the Fortin and Gonthier Foundations of Western Civilization Program at Assumption College.
RESOURCES
Now is the Time to Prepare for the Roman Missal, Third Edition
Bishop Kevin Dowling, “Why The Liturgical Anger is Fair”
Liturgiam authenticam - On The Use Of Vernacular Languages in The Publication Of The Books of The Roman Liturgy
ICEL – A Joint Commission of Catholic Bishops Conferences
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Comments:
Guess we all know the answer to your first question, as traditional catholicism would have it under the magisterium, the Pope is supposed to be recognized as the chief shepherd. Your second question presents the root of the problem of confusion. Today bishops will direct their flock in a "politically correct" way and manage through "loopholes". Being a former member of the charismatic renewal for more than 15 years, I have seen these "accomodations"in the past, today I call them deviations. There have been quite a few times when communities and their capacity to constitute themselves with norms that intrinsically exceed traditional practice. Simple things, like the author's comment on 'Marty', where the wrong choice of hymns or songs are not in line with the liturgy or the readings for that day. The songs are selected based on a list of congregational "favorites". Of course there are a few exceptions where contemporary christian songs, if sung well and at the right part of the mass, contribute to the solemnity.
It has been a struggle for some parishes to "keep up" with the open worship styles of the other christian churches which tend to draw away members by the concert style singing. I know a number of catholics who stay catholic but attend victory churches because they have pop-rock singers that lead the worship. The Bishops know this struggle, and some try to be more flexible. Of course I tell my other catholic friends that they should go to a real live concert or watch a movie for entertatinment. In my view worship has a deeper responsibility and if there is a commonality of understanding that worship is primarily for God's pleasure and not ours, then you will see less and less parishes, priests and bishops breaking the rules.
In life we should expect the unexpected, else we are bored and kept from growing.
Adapt to something new, (or find a group of Christians with whom you can best relate.) None-the-less, realize it's unlikely that your attending that service was 'accidental'.
Mike
Liturgical uniformity has never been a characteristic of the Catholic Church; obedience to bishop or other prelate in liturgical matters has. Perhaps, it is worth drawing attention to the Guidelines for Admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East promulgated by the Holy See on 20 July 2001. These recognize the validity of mass celebrated using the Anaphora of Addai and Mari in its original form, which does not include the Institution Narrative, at all.
Now, I suppose a plausible argument could be made in defence of that decision, along the lines that “do this for my memorial,” means “in commemoration of my redemptive act,” such that, Christ’s redemptive act was his death and resurrection. The Institution Narrative shows how that act was and can be sacramentally realized. It is scarcely evident that a sacramental memorial of the redemptive act should memorialize the institution of that memorial – But this is merely my attempt to explain a decision I already accept on the authority of the church, a decision that many, ignorant of liturgical history, would not have anticipated.
One would have expected the Guidelines to have been warmly welcomed by soi-disant Traditionalists, vindicating, as they do, the immemorial usage of a church of apostolic foundation. That this was not so, leads one to suspect that their real principle is not veneration for antiquity, but virulent and factious opposition to the See of Rome.
Yes....subsidiarity has gone so far to the extreme that a Pope who did virtually nothing to stop crimes against largely boys....is Blessed. Therefore Popes can be engaged locally or vanish. It's up to them. If they are missing in action, it's called subsidiarity.
But there are oases. Next time there, try Blessed Sacrament parish, 8th Ave NE between 50th and 55th Sts--the north edge of the U-district. Run by Dominican fathers and brothers, it is orthodox without being distractingly reactionary, has a beautiful liturgy, and the excellent preaching one associates with the Order of Preachers.
I believe the restoration of the English translation is a necessary step. I refuse to use the word "change", since what's really happening is the English meanings are being adjusted to reflect the true liturgy of the Church. My favorite example is restoring "I believe in one God..." for "Credo in unum Deum..." It's important and true that "we believe" certain things. But it's more to the point for each of us to assert that, with the Church, I believe these truths.
The loose (and in many ways clumsy and ugly) translation we've had has, in my opinion, invited liturgical abuse. It's tempting to think that one loose translation deserves another, especially when the one is so klunky. Often, as the author pointed out, our very doctrines have been mangled. One priest of our diocese (God rest his soul) would say "May Almighty God have mercy on us, deliver us from all evil, and bring us to an awareness of everlasting life." Adding "an awareness of" changes the whole meaning, from prayer for redemption to the assumption of universal salvation--which this priest apparently believed in.
By contrast, lack of fidelity to the See of Rome leads to all kinds of problems. Beyond the vagaries of liturgical innovation, it can even lead to enslavements of the Church by local power-wielders as has happened with the current "Patriotic Church" of China or the "Constitutional Church" of Revolutionary France or the belief that the Byzantine Emperor is the Equal of the Apostles (Isopostolism) or the still current myth that the Head of Christ's Church on Earth (at least in England) is the Monarch of Britain.
In fact, belief that the British Monarch should rule the English Church was not even held by three of the six adult successors to Henry VIII: Mary I, Charles II and James II recognized the authority of the See of Rome but that honesty finally led to the June-November 1588 revolt of the Anglican bishops (liegemen of the Crown supposedly) and their allies who insisted that the Monarch had to head up the Church whether he/she wanted to or not. O! what tangled webs.....
(Note: I realize that "Roman Catholic" is NOT the Church's name, btw; it is simply the Catholic Church, but that sobriquet is a wonderful minder of our need to stay in Communion with Peter and Paul's Church).
Although the 318 Nicene fathers used the plural [Piseuomen] all the liturgical creeds, Eastern and Western, use the singular [Pisteuo, Credo], except the Armenian, where the lector reads the conciliar text, with the addition of the Council of Constantinople, complete with the anathemata.
"Deum de deo," by the by, is a very early (and exclusively Western) addition, when and by what authority is anyone's guess. No Greek manuscript contains it.
More generally, translation is a difficult art. Often there is no precisely corresponding word - Latin has no word for "red;" the Romans regarded red and brown as two shades of one colour; "sentire" in Latin can mean "to think" or "to feel." "Il se noya" in French means "he drowned himself," but no more implies he did so on purpose, than "he cut himself" does in English. Similar examples abound.
Being Quaker (one of the biblical ones, not the crazy ones), I'd been lamenting the downsides of my religious tradition, and its near total lack of any internal mechanisms for rejecting dumb ideas (the price of direct democracy, as it were), and reading up on Catholicism, I'd been admiring the Catholic ability to address this problem.
Which, brings me back to the blacked-out "us" in the missal, and to the truth that salvation has an irreducibly individual component, which is both recognized in the new creed and which will inevitably result in the necessity, if not the desirability, of church shopping to find one that saves its granola for the breakfast table.
“Does he think that he has Christ, who acts in opposition to Christ's priests, who separates himself from the company of His clergy and people? He bears arms against the Church, he contends against God's appointment. An enemy of the altar, a rebel against Christ's sacrifice, for the faith faithless, for religion profane, a disobedient servant, an impious son, a hostile brother, despising the bishops, and forsaking God's priests, he dares to set up another altar, to make another prayer with unauthorized words, to profane the truth of the Lord's offering by false sacrifices, and not to know that he who strives against the appointment of God, is punished on account of the daring of his temerity by divine visitation.”
What is striking to me about the above passage is how grave the offense of using “unauthorized words” appears to be to Cyprian. Is using unauthorized words itself a sure sign of schism – whether that schism is officially acknowledged or not by the clergy in union with the Successor of St. Peter?
Yep! Even when my German Catholic father was growing up the response was "and with your Spirit" (Und mit deinem Geiste).
For me, the restored texts are an oasis of refreshment after the banality of the "dynamic equivalence" we endured previously.
As for parish shopping, guilty as charged. The priest at the parish who blessed our marriage when I converted couldn't have been more congenial, but I quickly realized that the "progressive" Catholicism of that parish was not going to fit. I, too, am a Roman Catholic, not an "American" Catholic.
Best,
Richard
David
Hi, there are many things I do not know about Catholicism. I have a few questions.
Who wrote down the first record of the "original Latin mass" in history? When does this record date from? Someone mentioned above that before Latin, the official language was Greek--what is the earliest record of a mass in Greek that exists? And is this Greek mass a translation of another existing record of a Mass in still an earlier language?
In 1570, only 56 out of 120 French dioceses adopted the Tridentine missal, the remainder took advantage of the proviso in Quo Primum, allowing the retention of uses that could show 200 years continuous use. Of those, eight reverted to their traditional uses, when new editions of their service books were produced and printed. French canonists argued that continuous use up to 1570 was what was required and nothing in it prevented the revival of uses discontinued after that date.
Pius VII took advantage of the Concordat of 1801 to reorganize the French dioceses and to suppress many cathedral chapters, who had been the principle champions of the old uses. It was only then that the Tridentine Mass came into general use.
Many of the Gallican uses were particularly rich in Sequences and a revived appreciation of early French polyphony has led to their being occasionally brought back into use (with episcopal approval) with some splendid musical settings, mostly of the 14th century Ars Nova school, with its cascading, passing chords and multiple voices. I love them.
Our leaders struggle to try to bring the two together in any meaningful way, and it simply won't happen. It has occurred to me that if we still had the mass in Latin, at least at the central "summit and fount" of our parish life, we would share together.
By the way, did you know you're spelling "Nickel" wrong?
I'm not advocating for it--I love the Latin mass and I love the mass in English. Only glad that the two will now mean more precisely the same thing. But it is interesting to ponder how "two separate local churches" might have been more unified without the vernacular innovation.
I am a devout Roman Catholic, but in a whisper I will always say the Creed using the words, "born of the Virgin Mary, and became ONE OF US!" Why pray using meaningless words?
There is no uniformity outside of doctrinal issues. There is no entity marching in lockstep as you imagine. The church is only top-down on doctrine. For everything else it's bottom-up.
It's time that we lay Catholics stop blaming everybody else and realize that we are part of the church too.
It's up to us to get more involved on the local level in our own churches.
The reason many Catholics do not is because of the deeply divided tents we put ourselves in.
To Tracy: Come again? Is it meaningless to say that the Word of God became "MAN"? Last time I checked the history books Jesus Christ was male, masculine, and human, and so quite able to be meaningfully described as a "man" no matter how limited one takes the English word to be.
In Latin, although sometimes used specifically for males, the word "homo" can be better translated as "human." (Vir is male and femina is female.) The phrase "et homo factus est" can be translated both ways. However, to deliberately deviate is tendentious and demonstrates a worship directed toward a lesser god; viz., modern politics.
All of this in service to the confusion of gender (a grammatical quality) and sex (a biological quality) especially grievous among exclusive anglophones. One need only note that Japanese does not distinguish he from she in its pronouns to realize that "gender neutral" language may not be as significant as supposed. It is also useful to recall that the German word for "manliness" is "die Männlichkeit," a 'feminine' noun.
"... as I realize I may have to attend Spanish language Masses to find the real thing."
Learn the Traditional Latin Mass - it is the real thing, the standard that far too many don't know, or don't want others to know.
It will be good to return to the English that once appeared on the right side of the missals, which was very faithful (though not slavishly so) to the Latin on the left side. Nonetheless, I for one will regret the loss of the paraphrase "one in being" in the ICEL translation of the Nicene Creed. It is good stout English and theologically on the mark. (Not so with the French translation "de la meme nature" which, as Jacques Maritain observed when he was quite old and wiser for it, would have been acceptable to the Arians and therefore is heretical.) "One in being" would have sent the Arians howling! And it expresses that particular mystery in a way that, in this instance, Latin does a bit less well, since Latin had no word for 'being.' The masses in the pews from Seattle to Savannah will all get used to saying "consubstantial," but they won't like it - that may be their one legitimate gripe with restored English translation.
C.S. Lewis once said something to the effect that a ship off course is not making any progress by continuing forward; it will only make true progress by turning around and heading back to the point where it took a wrong turn, then setting off afresh in the right direction. Let us be charitable and encouraging to those members of the crew (mostly below decks) who are disheartened by the reversal of translation, but who have never dared or tried the steep climb up the ropes to behold either the vast horizon of Church history or the orienting stars of her teachings.
I know of no Catholic Masses celebrated anywhere near where I serve as a priest that could be challenged as invalid. Contrary to some people's sense of taste or in conflict with their expectations and druthers, certainly, but invalid, please. One does not have to enjoy all things or anything composed by Marty Haugen, but he is a competent composer whose contributions to Masses in English are considerable.
While I would not personally invite all members to process forward with their monetary contributions, it does challenge Catholics to more seriously consider the meaning of a sacrificial gift. Or to more right leaning Catholics, might anything to do with money be regarded as unworthy of so much attention?
I love to attend Mass when I am on vacation. The view from the pew provides a perspective I am denied in my own parish. I notice many things that don't pass muster with my personal sensitivities and tastes, but there is no doubt that I am offering the same Mass with, in, and through Christ.
Just thought I would offer a differing perspective. Judge not, lest ye be judged.
As the article states, there will be opposition, but let us pray for the abandonment of 1970s style liturgical doggerel, for resolute and loyal episcopal leadership, for movement in the direction inspired by the spirit of the corrected translation.