the roman menace, revisited

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Jun 16, 2006

The pure sweet springs of the English language -- the tongue of Shakespeare, Dryden, and Sr. Joan Chittister -- are being contaminated by Vatican pollutants, and the Woodstock Center is protesting.

"This is another example of Rome taking authority away from bishops and bishops' conferences. Basically, it's saying that people in Rome -- including people for whom Spanish and German is their first language -- know how to translate the Mass into English better than the American bishops and the other English-speaking bishops do," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington, D.C.

Dear Father Reese,

This Congregation thanks you for your valuable comments regarding the peril of submitting English translations of Latin liturgical texts to the judgment of non-English speakers. Your cautions are duly noted. Perhaps it is opportune to point out that, in the quotation above, the word "taking" should not be understood as a participle modifying "Rome"; it is, rather, the gerund. Therefore, conformity to the rules of English grammar requires the correction to "This is another example of Rome's taking authority away ..."

Wishing you, and your spirit, every blessing, I am,

faithfully dynamically equivalently yours,

Akpan Udo Okon
Under-Sec'y
Dept of Anglophone Patronisation
Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments
Rome