U.S. Bishop Mounts a Rare Public Campaign Against the Vatican

c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) In a rare show of defiance, a Roman Catholic bishop is using increasingly fiery language to spark a grassroots revolt against a new Vatican-ordered translation of the Mass. Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, Pa., chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy, has used several critical essays and […]

c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) In a rare show of defiance, a Roman Catholic bishop is using increasingly fiery language to spark a grassroots revolt against a new Vatican-ordered translation of the Mass.

Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, Pa., chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy, has used several critical essays and speeches to denounce the proposed translations, which he frankly calls “not acceptable.”


Before the new Mass is rolled out in U.S. parishes _ still several years away, officials say _ Trautman is urging U.S. Catholics to lobby their local churches, bishops and even the Vatican to get the translations changed.

“Church of God, judge for yourselves. Speak Up! Speak Up!” Trautman exhorts in the May 21 edition of America, a Jesuit weekly magazine.

“People’s voices need to be raised to help influence the final outcome,” Trautman said in an interview. “I’m hoping to influence the translators and make the text proclaimable and intelligible to the people in the pews.”

At issue are the familiar words and phrases used in Catholic churches across the country. In 2001, Pope John Paul II said the English-language Mass must be brought more in line with the original Latin. Ever since, an international, Vatican-appointed team of translators has been hammering out a new translation.

Last June, U.S. bishops approved the first phase of that team’s work _ a newly translated Order of Mass, which contains the main parts of the Mass used in day-to-day Catholic worship.

While the bishops approved the new translation, some grumbled about what they called its clunky and archaic language. According to a 2005 poll of bishops, 47 percent rated it “fair or poor.” The bishops made more than 60 amendments before sending it off to the Vatican for approval.

Monsignor Anthony Sherman, associate director of the bishops’ liturgy office, said the new Mass may not reach U.S. churches until 2009, when the entire Roman Missal is translated and approved. There are five or six more sections of the Missal _ the written text that guides the Mass _ still to be approved by the U.S. bishops, Sherman said.


Meanwhile, as phases of the new translations reach U.S. shores, Trautman is wasting no time in criticizing them. For example, some of the proposed new prayers are “a jumble of subordinate clauses and commas,” he said.

“Will the words `prefiguring sacrifices of the Fathers’ and `born ineffably of the inviolate Virgin,’ for example, resonate with John and Mary Catholic?” Trautman wrote in America.

The Rev. Tom Reese, America’s former editor, said Trautman has spent years warning Catholics of the coming changes and criticizing the Vatican for micromanaging the process. But while his earlier speeches and articles were aimed at the hierarchy, Trautman has recently been targeting people in the pews.

“That’s an escalation,” Reese said. “That’s unusual.”

Trautman said translating the prayers can’t just be a matter of fidelity to a centuries-old Latin text. Rather, the bishop argues, lay participation in the liturgy is essential to reclaiming “submarine Catholics” _ those who only surface at Christmas and Easter.

In a January speech to the Catholic Academy of Liturgy, Trautman called the new translations confusing and predicted they will “contribute to a greater number of departures from the Catholic Church,” according to the Rev. Keith F. Pecklers, the academy’s executive director.

Pecklers, a professor of liturgy at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, said Trautman challenged the liturgists to “be courageous in questioning those developments that would render the liturgy incomprehensible.” He received a standing ovation after his speech.


Sherman, from the bishops’ liturgy office, said Trautman’s efforts may have some effect in Rome. “Maybe people engaged in the final approval will say, let’s look at this again.”

Others, like Reese, say the new Mass translations are a “slow moving train wreck” that’s bound to occur. Still, Reese said, Trautman’s advocacy is admirable.

“He’s really being a true churchman,” Reese said. “He’s putting the good of of the church over his own advance or standing in the Vatican or with other bishops.”

KRE/LF END BURKE

A photo of Bishop Trautman is available via https://religionnews.com

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