Turning Back The Ecclesiastical Clock

Once upon a time, Catholics prayed in Latin, a long-dead language that they did not understand.

During the sixty minutes of the Mass, prayers were more like chants, a series of noises rather than spoken words.

We'll soon be heading back to that time, as the Vatican attempts to reset the ecclesiastical clock, making for the days before the Second Vatican Council.

At the end of November of this year, churchgoers will find a new and improved missal in the pews. The same prayers that we all know and love will still be there, only in a slightly modified form.

The International Commission on English in the Liturgy has done a new translation of all that Latin.

The missal will be new and improved, they say. The Association of Catholic Priests begs to differ.

Literally translating Latin into English has resulted in stilted, non-rhythmic phrasing that doesn't sound like English, and the priests are meeting in Portlaise soon to put together a request that the new missal not be dumped on the faithful at the start of Advent.

Languages have their own flow in the way they are spoken, and that nuance can't be translated word for word. If people are already staying away from Sunday Mass, you wouldn't want to have them praying as if English were their second language.

That's not the worst of it, however.

By doing a literal translation, everything becomes him, man, he, etc. Literally, there's no room for the ladies.

For a hierarchy so deeply entrenched in patriarchy, it's not the best face to put on when you're trying to keep the donations flowing.

The Irish priests would like their bishops to take a page from the Germans, who are strenuously objecting to current German translations being replaced by new interpretations that don't seem quite so new after all.

Let the Irish branch of the Church figure out how best to reach the faithful, they'd like to tell the Vatican. Changing texts into near gibberish, something closer to the old-style Latin than standard English, won't restore the Church to its former glory.

The 1950's are over and done. Catholics feel as if their Church is out of touch with them. The Irish priests don't much want a new missal to reinforce that belief.