Thursday, March 04, 2010

Q&A on the new translation of the Mass: part 2

As mentioned in my prior post, I'm working on some Q&A about the new translation of the Mass.

Here some of what I've come up with, please feel free to offer constructive critique.

Please continue to suggest questions to answer--I've written answers to about 12 questions I could think of, and I can think of more still to work on.

(FYI, if your question is, "please say more about the points raised here--I will; that's what comes later, stay tuned...)

1. Why is the translation of the Mass changing?

Because the translation we currently use is not as good as it can and should be. And this is not a matter of minor tinkering. There are a number of ways the current translation significantly falls short of conveying the full meaning of the Mass prayers, or, worse, unintentionally distorts what we believe.

This is not to find fault. A lot of things changed very rapidly after the Second Vatican Council, and translating the Mass from Latin to all the languages of the world was a big job. They did their best; and that was 40 years ago. It’s reasonable that sooner or later, the job would be revisited. In the judgment of the pope and bishops, that time has come.

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