The Translation of the Roman Missal into English

Jorge Arturo Augustin Cardinal Medina Estévez

Function: Prefect Emeritus of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Roman Curia

Title: Cardinal Deacon of S Saba

Birthdate: Dec 23, 1926	Country: Chile

Elevated: Feb 21, 1998	More information: www.catholic-hierarchy.org

Send a text about this cardinal »

View all articles about this cardinal »

The Translation of the Roman Missal into English
Sept 12, 2004
To traditionalists, ICEL had become the symbol of the Church’s sell-out to fallen modernity, the target of wealthy American traditionalists which had the ear of Rome.

(The Tablet, 17 January 2004) They were delighted by the arrival at the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship of Cardinal Jorge Medina Estévez, who with Joseph Ratzinger, now the cardinal who heads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had long held that the vernacular Masses were to blame for the drop in church attendance and vocations. In the late 1990s, Cardinal Medina set about dismantling both the process and the principles that had governed translations since the Council. The main casualty was the revised Missal, which was formally rejected in 2002. The fruit of 15 years of expensive work and elaborate consultation across the English-speaking world, it had been approved by at least 11 bishops’ conferences. Why, if it were that faulty, many wondered, had it not been stopped earlier?

Cardinal Medina then imposed a new approach to translation, one that reversed the key tenets of the Council’s. Liturgiam Authenticam (“Authentic Liturgy”), the CDW’s 2001 Instruction, made clear that translations should now be “as literal as possible”, rejected inclusive language, and required Vatican approval at every stage of translating and revising liturgical texts. Dr John Page, the mild-mannered and scholarly executive secretary of ICEL, was no longer welcome in the CDW’s offices; in 2002, realising his position was unsustainable, he stood down after 22 years. ICEL’s chairman, Bishop Maurice Taylor of Galloway, also resigned. In a heartfelt statement, he deplored the “pillorying” of ICEL.

15 READERS ONLINE

INDEX

back to the first page

printer-friendly

CARDINALS

in alphabetical order

ARTICLES