Who's minding the store?

[hedgehog]

Pope Benedict comes out with this statement:

Pope Benedict recalled: "Cyril and Methodius were convinced that individual peoples could not claim to have fully received the Revelation until they had heard it in their own language and read it in the letters of their own alphabet."

The brothers’ example, the Pope concluded, “is a classic example of that which today is defined enculturation: every nation must set the revelation in their own language and express the salvific truth with a language that is their own.”

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=16303


but then, there is this:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Presenting the new "Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church," Pope Benedict XVI urged Catholics around the world to memorize the most common Catholic prayers in Latin.

Learning the prayers in Latin as well as in one's own language "will help Christian faithful of different languages pray together, especially when they gather for special circumstances," the pope said June 28 as he distributed the Italian version of the compendium, which included an appendix with the Latin texts of many traditional prayers, including the Sign of the Cross, the Gloria, the Hail Mary and Come, Holy Spirit.


The text was available only in Italian. National bishops' conferences will be responsible for translating and publishing the text in their own languages.

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0503776.htm


Meanwhile, a new translation of the Mass is barreling down on us. The objective of the new translation seems to have several objectives; make the English sound like Latin even if meaning is lost, emphasize the separate (superior?) role of the priest and get rid of that modern, inclusive language.

Some examples:

Churchgoers will have to learn a different version of the Gloria when the new texts are put into use because part of the current prayer in English does not follow the structure of the Latin version.

In the Nicene Creed, where the current version refers to Christ as "one in being with the Father," the new ICEL translation says, "consubstantial with the Father." In the documentation sent to the bishops before the meeting, however, the Committee on the Liturgy has recommended keeping the "one in being" translation in the United States.


http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0603008.htm



My impression is that some US bishops have fought valiantly against the new translation on the grounds that it will interfere with worship, but that most are either bored with the subject and/or figure you can't fight City Hall.

Meanwhile, Latin is held up as helping "Christian faithful of different languages pray together, especially when they gather for special circumstances", but the responses in the new Roman Missal will separate American Catholics from other English speaking mainline Christians. I've heard Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists and members of the UCC all use the same prayers and phrases as the current English language Mass. So much for Church unity!