Bishop Peter J. Elliott, the Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne, who is a highly regarded liturgist (and author of some Ignatius Press books—see below—on liturigical issues) has penned an essay for The Record about the new missal translation. It provides a pithy, helpful overview of the historical background and then addresses the need for the new translation:
But do we need a new translation of the Mass in English? Is the text we currently use not good enough?
No, it is not good enough because it is not particularly good – and “good enough” is not the way to describe the language we should use in the worship of God. The time has come to change because what we are using is not only often inaccurate as a translation, but the style of English is rather dull, banal, lacking in the dignity of language for worship, more like the language of a homily than a prayer. How did this come about? To be fair, it needs to be stated at the outset that this dismal situation was brought about by good pastoral and catechetical intentions. The Bishops in the early seventies were anxious to get the “new missal” to the people as quickly as possible. But the translation they hastily approved was distorted because it was based on a flawed principle of translation known as ‘dynamic equivalence’. The principle was endorsed in the 1969 instruction of the Consilium for Implementing the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Comme le prevoit (1).
ICEL was faithful to much of that instruction, and even went beyond it, so what we ended up with was a paraphrase rather than a translation.
Dynamic equivalence demands a lively, modern translation that is supposed to get to the meaning of the Latin without literally translating every word.
That method can be useful in on-the-spot translation from a modern language by an interpreter who knows the familiar idioms. I have used it myself while working at meetings in the Vatican.
But paraphrasing is not good enough for sacred texts composed in Latin and Greek over many centuries for use in Divine Liturgy.
A paraphrase can fail to give us, not only what the Latin original means, which is bordering on telling lies, but paraphrase often eliminates poetic beauty in the original, particularly scriptural language that runs through the prayers of the Roman Rite of Mass. I will take some Sunday collects as an example of a “not good enough” translation.
Read the entire piece on The Record website.
Bishop Peter J. Elliott is the author of the following Ignatius Press books:
• Ceremonies of the Liturgical Year (also available as an electronic book)
• Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite (2nd Edition)
• Liturgical Question Box (electronic book format)
Also see my February 13, 2011, post about Bishop Elliott, "My reception into the Church in Oxford back in 1968 makes more sense than ever."
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