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Catholic World News News Feature

US bishops reject proposed translation of Roman Missal July 08, 2008

The US bishops have rejected the latest proposed English translation of the liturgical prayers from the Roman Missal.

In a mail-in ballot, support for the proposed translation fell well short of the two-thirds required for approval by the US bishops' conference. The mail ballot became necessary because of an inconclusive vote at a June meeting of the episcopal conference.

The proposed translation was for "Proper" prayers for the Mass: the prayers for particular feasts and liturgical seasons. The US bishops have already given their consent to an English translation of the unchanging prayers of the "Ordinary;" that translation now awaits final approval from Rome.

The vote marks the first outright rejection of a translation of the new Missal submitted to the US bishops for their approval. The bishops' liturgical committee will now solicit proposed changes in the text and submit a revised translation to the bishops at their November 2008 meeting.

In announcing the negative vote on the latest section of the overall translation project, the US bishops' conference said that plans remain in place to complete the full translation of the Roman Missal by November 2010.

Debates over English-language translations of liturgical texts have been common within the US bishops' conference for well over a decade. Led by Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, Pennsylvania, the former chairman of the bishops' liturgy committee, critics of the new translations have complained that they use archaic language and defended the earlier work of the International Commission for English in the Liturgy (ICEL). That group, in turn, had drawn criticism from conservative Catholics-- and from the Vatican-- for making unauthorized changes in the language and meaning of the Latin originals.

ICEL was reorganized after the battles over liturgical translations came to a head in the 1990s. The restructured ICEL began producing translations based on the norms set forth in the 2001 Vatican document Liturgiam Authenticam, calling for closer adherence to the Latin original. As a result the bishops who supported the ICEL translations produced in the early 1990s are likely to be found among the critics of the latest efforts.