I found a stunningly lucid analysis of the liturgy debacle from Claire at Commonweal blog:
"The new translation of the liturgy is like a scientific experiment to test the hierarchy’s misuse of power. We believe that the power structure to is be blamed in the child abuse scandal, but what about other potential factors: anti-Catholicism in the media, uncomfortable relationship with law enforcement agencies in various countries, relativism, lack of familiarity of clergy with psychological questions, and the role of secular society in general? Ideally, a scientist would like to factor out those external possible causes so as to be able to focus exclusively on the internal structure of the church. For that, we need a pure problem, devoid of messy external factors. Well, the new translation of the liturgy provides a unique such opportunity!
"Designing a new, improved translation of the Missal into the vernacular: that’s a subject in which the secular media have exactly zero interest. It is of no concern to them what words we use to pray (as long as they’re not antisemitic). But it is a vital concern to us Catholics: how we pray shapes what we believe, and the Eucharist is central to our faith. Moreover, lukewarm Catholics might no care very much, but, the more one goes to Mass, the more closely one pays attention to the prayer of the Mass, the more one cares about that. For priests, who are the ones actually voicing most of the prayers, it is most important. Moreover, it is something for which clergy are trained, and there is an abundance of competent translators from Latin to English among priests. So, designing a new translation is a problem where anti-Catholicism, law enforcement agencies, technical lack of skills, and secular relativism play no role. Now, look at how that new translation came about, what the result is, and what the result could have been, and you will appreciate the full magnitude of internal dysfunction in the church.
"One could write a book about the saga of the new translation. You can see rules being changed on the fly or after the fact, arbitrary edicts at random times, people grabbing the power to change wording while blatently ignoring the rules, people yielding instead of pointing out that their rights are being trampled, sham committees, secrecy, power corruption, swift punishment of people of integrity who voice concerns, and even leaks of documents on wikileaks-like web sites.
"You can see various versions of translations — 1965, 1973, 1998, 2008, 2010a, 2010b, compare the texts and realize that, regardless of your own subjective tastes in translation, all can agree that better translations have been designed along the way, so that, were it not for power struggles, the English-speaking world could have had a final text vastly superior to what is now at the publishers. Note that an enormous quantity of work has been wasted over all those years — the life project of some translators. Where, for me personally, the result becomes absurdly bad, is when the text currently under print contains grammatical mistakes that lead the readers to misunderstand the meaning (because relative clauses refer to the wrong word, for example) — the resulting meaning can be the opposite of what was intended! It is fascinating.
"The defenders of the new translation argue from the following positions: first, ignore all intermediate texts, only showing the text we use in church currently and the text that is under print, and argue that (often) the text under print can be argued to be better in some ways. Secondly, they argue that the various misleading terms will be an occasion for catechesis, leading people to appreciate the Mass better. Indeed, some of the terms can be misleading theologically, and clarifying them will require explaining concepts that usually go without comment. (For example, that Christ died for all people: the new translation will say that Christ died “for many”, so priests will have to explain that that does not mean that Christ did not die for all…). Thirdly, they argue that no one is interested in the internal struggles that led to the new missal: people only care about the result, so we can ignore the stories of various people’s rights being trampled: by now that is water under the bridge. Fourthly, they argue that most people in the pews don’t really care what the words say anyway, so those who predict a rebellion when the new translation comes out will be disappointed. Fifth and final argument: Rome has spoken, therefore it is decided. People should stop complaining and just get on with it… All those arguments are extremely weak.
"Reading some of the episodes on a liturgy blog, I found that whole story mind-boggling. Paradoxically, it makes me a bit more sympathetic to the role of the clergy in the sexual abuse scandal: it has shown me that, even on a matter on which the church hierarchy is uniquely qualified and uniquely interested in getting things right, the whole process and result have been botched because of deep dysfunction in the power structure. To explain the sexual abuse scandal, you do not need very many evil players: as an organization, the church is hopelessly dysfunctional. In that sense, the members of the clergy and even, to some extent, the bishops (brainwashed into equating disagreement with the Vatican curia with dissent) are largely victims of the system. That dysfunction is a systemic evil that magnifies the rare individual evil and multiplies its impact, with painful consequences for all. The Church must be reformed and we lay people, who are not quite in the eye of the storm, should be the ones to force it out of its rut."
