On the Square Today

In today’s On the Square feature, Geoffrey M. Vaughan considers how American Catholics will respond to the new translation of the Order of the Mass :

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.