Bp TrautPerson--One of the Losers

Below we posted some speculation that the LitWonkLefties, knowing that they are losing the battle for "New/Different/MyWay" celebration, are beginning to sound more and more desperate.

While they haven't arrived there yet, the next step is name-calling (commonly found on 'net disputations and the sign of hopelessness.)

Well, up steps Bp. Trautperson, the Chairman of the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy, to engage in a screech:

"Liturgical language must not just be faithful and accurate, but intelligible, proclaimable, dignified, and reflective of the contemporary mainstream of the English language as spoken in the United States," Trautman said.

The heart of Trautman's argument was that too often, in its search for a "sacred vocabulary," the new translations veer into vocabulary and constructions foreign to the "living language of the worshipping assembly," thus failing to promote the "full, conscious and active participation" that was the vision of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).

"Full, conscious, and active,"--defined by less and less attendance at Mass, Excellency?

In the Nicene Creed, for example, the new Sacramentary replaces the now-familiar phrase "one in being with the Father" with the more technical term "consubstantial with the Father." Rather than "born of the Virgin Mary," the proposed translation says "incarnate of the Virgin Mary."

Often, Trautman said, these new translations are closer to the Latin original, but he argued that they needlessly dislodge "accurate, orthodox formulations of the faith we have prayed for the last 35 years."

Like the translation of 'Credo' as first-person plural, Excellency? or the translation of 'spiritu tuo' as "you?" Give me a break.

Defenders of the new translation, Trautman said, often concede that catechesis will be necessary to explain unfamiliar terms, but he voiced skepticism that such catechesis will work.
"We can't motivate priests to go out and explain these texts unless they're convinced the changes are really necessary," he said.

O my God, these priests may actually have to WORK on their catechesis. My heart!!

Trautman appealed to the example of a translation of the Book of Rites carried out under authorization from the U.S. bishops in the early 1950s by Holy Cross Fr. Michael Mathis, who wrote that a good translation "adapts to the genius of the language," resulting in an approach that is neither "slavishly exact or loosely free, neither archaic nor foreign, but American."

"Will the wisdom of 1953 inform present-day bishops in their handling of present-day translations?" Trautman asked rhetorically. "We pray, and we plea."

Well, Excellency--the ICEL's acronym begins with "I" for international. Not "American," but for ALL English-speakers, even the ones across the pond both West and East (and some in-between.)

What Trautman seems to endorse is Babel redux. Unfortunately, that "marks of the Church" stuff ('universal') keeps getting in his way. And perhaps "getting in his way" describes the situation to a "T." Trautperson wants his way.