Archbishop Arthur Roche told an audience at Ealing Abbey, west London, last Saturday that he rejected claims that the language of the new translation was more elevated and literal than its predecessor.
Instead, "it brings more obviously to light scripture and patristic heritage".
He warned that Catholics had focused on the Mass as "horizontal" - as uniting them in the present time with every other Catholic in the world and with the Pope.
"But we are also united with those who ever lived and believed and those in the future," he said, describing this as "vertical".