Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Hit or miss-al? Pope's decree a mixed blessing

Large congregations will swell the pews of churches in Ireland this Christmas.

The influx of seasonal worshippers will hear for the first time unfamiliar and alien words being recited during Mass, the central focus of worship in the Roman Catholic Church.

No doubt, these irregular attenders will be puzzled by the use of archaic and even sexist language in central prayers such as the Confiteor, the Gloria and especially the Apostles' Creed. But their bafflement will be shared by the more regularly devout who are already struggling to come to terms with this Vatican-imposed Babel.

So far, no spectacular stool-throwing protests at clerics or noisy walk-outs by lay folk have greeted the revised Roman Missal in the English-speaking world, including Ireland, since its introduction on the first Sunday of Advent, which this year fell on November 27.

The changes, which in Ireland were gradually introduced by the bishops from early September as a pre-emptive strike to contain opposition from the Association of Catholic Priests, have been decreed by Pope Benedict XVI.

They do not respond to grassroots calls for change in the missal introduced in 1975 to give expression to the definition by Pope John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council, (1962-65), of the Church as consisting of all "the People of God", and not just the officer classes of bishops and clergy.

In feedback nationwide to date from both urban and rural communities, there appears to be widespread confusion among congregations, along with a lack of enthusiasm among pastors.

Some parishioners are reportedly trying to get their tongues around unintelligible words in the new texts, others reply with the previous formulae of words, while many others remain sullenly silent and yet others again put their heads down and take out their rosary beads.

Although more than half of Christmas congregations will be made up of women -- with young mothers and sprightly grandmothers attending to Santa-hyper children -- the new missal virtually shuns acknowledgement of the female species in its prescribed salutations to the deity.

Throughout the weighty missal references are only made to "man", "men" and "he". All Adams, and no Eves in the Kingdom of Heaven! It ignores the feminist revolution of the past half century.

"If, in a thousand years' time, this new imposed missal is found in an archaeological dig the archaeologists will assume that women had disappeared off the face of the Catholic Earth as all mention of their existence in this liturgy had disappeared," says Brendan Butler, a lay activist in the 'We are Church' movement.

Another widespread objection is how the more stilted language is negating the Second Vatican Council's emphasis on Mass as a fellowship of the believing community.

The response to a priest's invitation of "the Lord be with you" has changed from the personalised every day language of "and also with you" to the arcane "and with your spirit", while the opening three sentences of the third eucharistic prayer have been replaced with a 72-word jowel-breaking sentence.

One of the biggest tongue-teasers is embedded in the Creed, where the phrase "begotten, not made, of one being with the Father", has been changed to "begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father".

In research for this article, I was asked by numerous people to explain what "consubstantial" means. The best answer was Mr Butler's advice that you need to have knowledge of Aristotle's Greek philosophy and its interpretation by medieval scholastic scholars to appreciate the concept of "substance"!

The lack of enthusiasm for the new writ can be detected, not only in the pews, but even in some high altar thrones.

"We are not required to like the new translations, but we are required to implement them", says the Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti. No such irreverence has been uttered by an Irish episcopal voice.

Indeed, the controversial new Roman missal in English-speaking countries is defended by Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, as "necessary for several reasons", mainly an updating of new accretions since 1975. He further explained that 10 years ago the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship "gave new directions for how the original Latin texts are to be translated".

This, however, was done by undermining key bishops especially Scotsman Maurice Taylor.

Archbishop Martin also argued that those familiar with translations in other languages came to realise "that often there were key phrases and rich biblical allusions missing from the (1975) English translation".

Those familiar with the Irish language text "will notice how closely the new English missal matches the accuracy of the original Irish translation", he added, predicting that fears surrounding the missal would be dispelled through use.

But the last word goes to a Mayo mother who brings her children to Mass.

"The missal really is enough to tip me over the edge," she says. "There is not much collegiality in it."