Bishop Trautman Speaks on the Translations

We received an email from our dear friend Joe, who said, in part:

Trautman is the only name that comes to mind of a bishop who has the guts to tell his fellow bishops that the Vatican has been interfering in this liturgical translation process since even before the end of the Second Vatican Council. I tip my hat to Trautman.

[snip]

I'm hoping against hope that our bishops, clergy, and laity will refuse to use the liturgical translations allegedly "approved" by the U.S. bishops in Los Angeles. This sad event was the formal culmination of a 40-year hijacking effort by Rome. As far as I'm concerned, any bishop who goes along with the new translations is abdicating his authority and kowtowing to the curia. It's been said we have a lack of leadership among the bishops. Regrettably, too many of these guys have been "sucking up" to the Vatican. A friend of mine calls these guys "careerists." For sure, bishops they're not! What a bunch of wimps!

Why is he so ecstatic? Because the good bishop, Donald Trautman (Traut"person" for the inclusive language crowd) is denigrating the Catholic faithful, perceived as bumbling morons, who have no comprehension of the English language, nor the ability to expand their vocabularies beyond the words they hear on TV...

He also expresses again his well known criticisms of Liturgiam Authenticam, preferring to keep the masses, (John and Mary Catholic) as dumbed-down as possible, removed from the richness of that special language we should use in public worship (the Holy Mass and sacraments) to communicate with the Almighty. Yet, he claims that this deprivation would be the truly pastoral approach, when in fact, it is an arrogant, elitist attitude.

We have witnessed where this "outcome based faith" has led us...and some are quite tired of banal, mundane, heterodox, and generally dull and ordinary drivel masquerading as "pastoral translations" when we know there is so much more and that our hearts can be raised in prayer when the language is there to assist us.

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How Accessible Are the New Mass Translations?
By Donald W. Trautman

The International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) proposes the following translated text:

Accept, O Lord, these gifts,
and by your power change them
into the sacrament of salvation,
in which the prefiguring sacrifices of the Fathers have an end
and the true Lamb is offered,
he who was born ineffably of the inviolate Virgin.
—Prayer over the gifts,
Season of Advent

Can We Participate?

The above citation is a proclaimed prayer. What will the person in the pew hear and comprehend? Will the words "prefiguring sacrifices of the Fathers" and "born ineffably of the inviolate Virgin," for example, resonate with John and Mary Catholic? Is this prayer intelligible, proclaimable, reflective of a vocabulary and linguistic style from the contemporary mainstream of U.S. Catholics? Is the liturgical language accessible to the average Catholic and our youth? Does this translated text lead to full, conscious and active participation? I think not.

I think the pastoral thing would be if Bishop Trautman resigned and went off in seclusion somewhere so we could be free of his dissenting voice. It's so unbecoming and obnoxious, but then, that is something at which "experts" excel.

He goes on:

Will they understand these words from the various new Collects: "sullied," "unfeigned," "ineffable," "gibbet," "wrought," "thwart"? Will the assembly understand the fourth paragraph of the Blessing of Baptismal Water, which has 56 words (in 11 lines) in one sentence? In the preface of the chrism Mass, one sentence runs on for 10 lines. How pastoral are the new collects, when they all consist of a single sentence, containing a jumble of subordinate clauses and commas?

Will the priest and people understand the words of Eucharistic Prayer 2: "Make holy these gifts, we pray, by the dew of your Spirit"? This translation was among the top 10 texts that the U.S. bishops in their consultation considered most problematic, but still ICEL did not change it.

In the new missal you will hear awkward phrases like "We pray you bid." This is not American English. Ponder these concrete examples and judge for yourself.

I judge them to be most excellent! And apparently, so does ICEL and Vox Clara.

The council fathers of Vatican II had a pastoral sense and focused on John and Mary Catholic. Why have the new translations become so problematic, so non-pastoral? What is the basic difficulty?

His excellency refuses to acknowledge that we have had to endure the worst of translations for years - poorly translated, or even made-up texts...Give us back the sacred texts of previous generations!

If the language of the liturgy is inaccessible, how can liturgy catechize and convey the reality of the living, risen Son of God in the Eucharist? If the language of the liturgy is a stumbling block to intelligibility and proclaimability, then the principle lex orandi, lex credendi is severely compromised. If the language of the liturgy does not communicate, how can people fall in love with the greatest gift of God, the Eucharist?

Church of God, judge for yourselves. Speak up, speak up!

Well, OK! Allow me to speak up! Your Excellency, please sit down and close your mouth! You're making a fool of yourself, yet again! Permit us to help you save yourself from yourself.

Thanks Joe for sharing this... I know you think Bishop Trautman is courageous, but then, some think the same about Custer. It'll be a blessing to see him, and others like him, retire.

BTW, translations of the Mass texts (The Gray Book) can be seen here.