The translators had fulfilled their task "according to their
understanding of the Latin text and their feeling for the German
language", the bishops' statement says.
Compared with the present German Missal, which was published in 1975,
the new translation could be said to be "more precise, more prosaic and
more concentrated," they said.
As numerous queries regarding the translation had come in from
German, Austrian and Swiss bishops, it had been decided not to send the
new translation to Rome for approval yet.
Any further procedure would now be up to the individual bishops'
conferences of the countries concerned.
"There is no further perspective
to date," the statement concludes.
This means that in the German-speaking Church only the approved 1975 Missal is valid.