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June 16, 2011

Comments

Martin

With respect Father, I think it is a bit rich for you of all people to be talking about heresy. Glass houses and all that.

Tiggy

You still believe in the Holy Trinity Father? I am impressed.

Spirit of Vatican II

Tiggy and Martin, you have surpassed yourself in your sarcastic hubris this time. Your ideas of "heresy" have to do with modern quaestiones disputatae, but the original battlefield of orthodoxy was precisely the Trinitarian doctrine. Once again we see how reactionaries, such as the perpetrators of the new translations, show a blithe ignorance of and indifference to real orthodoxy, that is, to the core and substance of Christian faith.

Tiggy

Many thanks for the Homily Father, but I think I was aware of Orthodoxy and Tinitarian doctrine, just.
I am happy to "react" whenever I see something or read something to "react" to. So seventies....reactionary! lol

Spirit of Vatican II

I think it would help to remember the "hierarchy of truths" -- the central truths of the Creed (including the doctrine of the Trinity, memorably reduced to nine simple propositions by Cardinal Newman, and clearly expressed in the current translation of the Preface for Trinity Sunday) are not on the same level as such issues as gay marriage or women priests. People who get up on a high horse denouncing others as heretics left and right often lose a sense of perspective.

Tiggy

Again, I think I am aware that in most things there is a Hierarchy, including truth, and faith, and indeed morals. Not that I have had any formal training in these areas, but would seem to me natural.
I have never called anyone a "Heretic". It is healthy to question ones s own beliefs and indeed the beliefs of others, but all in the context of Church practice, faith and history. So that chaos does not prevail, as would happen if everyone just did and believed what suited their particular circumstances.
If, though it seems unlikely, The Holy Father announced tomorrow that Women Priests were to be allowed,I would have great difficulty "getting my head" around that, but in the end would have to accept it, or head for the exit. The latter would not be an option for me.

MCCCI

If Vox Clara had shared their translation with Anglicans and other Christians (as has been done in the past) before gaining final approval for it, they might have avoided "Trinitarian heresy." Anglicans are sharp on doctrine as well as on language--parallel structure for example, woefully absent in the new translation. The phrases added in apposition to the clause "'what is proper to each person," viz., "their unity in substance and equality in majesty," yield a clunky structure in addition to a doctrinally misleading set of words. Why did the Vatican insist on excluding groups with which Catholics have long been in ecumenical dialogue? I would expect its goal to be to work toward unity of liturgy and doctrine, rather than to assert a unique understanding of doctrine that sets it apart from other Christian churches. If Roman Catholic doctrine is both unique and TRUE, then Catholics should be sharing it as widely as possible with the rest of Christianity. In the case of this part of the liturgy, however, the Anglicans still have the doctrine right and Rome has drifted into error. Like "sheep gone astray, every one to his own way," the Vatican translators seem in sore need of the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

Tiggy

MCCCI,
I doubt what you say about Rome in error and Canterbury, being pure, is anything close to the Truth.

evagrius

In actuality, what is so "seventies" is precisely ignoring the implications of bad translation and bad doctrine. Reactionaries forget that far too often.

Spirit of Vatican II

Tiggy, if you do not know the meaning of the phrase "hierarchy of truths" you should refrain from remarks bearing on ecumenism, and snide comments on the Church of England.

Tiggy

Cetainly Father. Please also admonish MCCCI for his snide comments on Rome.
I have a feeling not to hold my breath on this one.

Spirit of Vatican II

Yes, MCCCI exaggerates in saying that "Rome" has drifted into error. He means the cabal of incompetents who altered the 2008 translations. The 2010 translation is not the one passed by the bishops and given the papal recognition. But it is nonetheless being imposed by Vatican fiat, at the risk of the papacy being associated with apparent heresy -- is this a repetition of the Liberius and Honorius scandals that caused such difficulty for defenders of papal infallibility?

Spirit of Vatican II

I think that liturgical texts of iffy orthodoxy should be submitted to the Pontifical Theological Commission or the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It is ironical that despite decades of muttering from conservatives that our current translations are full of heresy (Pelagianism, playing down the sacrficial character of the Mass, etc.) no substantive case has been made against them. Meanwhile the wretched new translations that the same people are trying to sell us are rousing extreme disquiet, across the ideological spectrum, not only because of their ugliness but because of their poor theology.

Tiggy

We were given a sheet at Mass on Sunday with the new versions og the people s parts to take home and study. The introduction begins here in Scotland in September.

Tiggy

Some of it , on the face of it, seems a bit clumsy, but it sure is nearer the Latin. Anyhow, most liberals do not like it, so thats good enough for me!

Spirit of Vatican II

No, Tiggy, the 2010 text is NOT nearer the Latin than the 2008 text.

It is closer to the Latin than the current translation, which has, however, the advantage of expressing the orthodox doctrine clearly: "three Persons equal in majesty,undivided in splendor, yet one Lord, one God"

The 2008 text approved by the bishops and given the recognition by Rome read: "so that, in confessing the true and eternal Godhead, we adore the uniqueness of each Person, their oneness in being, and their equality in majesty."

This is a good translation, but it joins the ranks of many ghost texts that we are now forbidden to hear, even though the entire hierarchy and the Pope approved them!

The Latin reads: "ut in confessione verae sempiternaeque Deitatis, et in personis proprietas, et in essentia unitas,
et in maiestate adoretur aequalitas"; "that in the confession of the true and eternal Deity, the property in the persons, and the unity in the essence, and the equality in the majesty may be adored."

Tiggy

I just wish we had the option of The Old Rite, even somewhere in the Diocese, but the Bishop is having none of it. Then all the debate about language and translation would be less than relevant, as we would have the original. In its poetry, psalmody and fullness. Not to mention silence. How I long for silence. Something there is little of in the O.F.

Spirit of Vatican II

Beauty of language is not confined to Latin -- or even to 16th century English -- if we cannot find beautiful language to praise God in today there is something wrong with us. I agree totally with you about SILENCE. (I edited an article on that very topic by an Egyptian poet, Yahia Lahabidi, in our Japan Mission Journal in March).

Tiggy

No indeed beauty is not confined to Latin or old English. But there is precious little beauty of either language or form in most OR Liturgies. I write from the liturgical desert that is Scotland.

shane

My first encounter with a Low Mass was at an SSPX chapel near Dublin. I was 17 at the time and went entirely on my own initiative, mainly out of curiosity. For the duration of the liturgy I alternated between praying a decade of the Rosary and solemnly contemplating the words of the Missal, with its elevated Elizabethan prose --- all in pious awe at the latitude of freedom which I enjoyed. While the Sacrifice of Calvary was being enacted before my very eyes, I could participate supernaturally by whatever means I found most congenial. The anonymity, the meditative solitude, the austere silence, periodically interrupted by faint whispers of 'Dominus Vobiscum', furnished an experience to which I've been addicted ever since. It was a bit like stepping into a warm bath on a cold Winter's morning.

Novus Ordo services are now positively painful by comparison, and require formidable endurance.

Tiggy

Shane. I hope you now attend Harrington St, and not Monkstown!
I used to live near there and attended Mass soon after the Chapel opened. But I was so afraid I was doing something wrong, I immediately attended the next Mass in The Parish at 12.30.

Gene O'Grady

Elizabethan prose is neither elevated nor beautiful -- it is sometimes effective in satire or comedy (i.e. mostly in plays), but if you're looking for beautiful prose stick to the 19th century, where a whole range of people from Dickens to George Eliot or Mill to Cardinal Newman write remarkably flexible, moving, and beautiful prose.

I doubt you could find a paragraph of Elizabethan expository or argumentative prose that matches a paragraph of Chesterton chosen at random.

Spirit of Vatican II

Shakespeare's prose -- "flexible, moving, and beautiful" -- and the KJV set the very tone of great English prose. There is also Donne.

Would Hooker not be superior for expository prose to Mill? As a true master of prose, I would accept Newman only among those you cite. George Eliot has moments as a great prose writer, but she is usually cumbersome -- which is not to say her novelistic genius lapses. For unquestionable prose quality I would go for Jane Austen and Henry James.

Joyce showed what a magnificent organ English prose had become, but he did not show that modern English is ideally suited to liturgical use. To find a convincing English religious prose today is no easy task.

evagrius

Interesting that some people don't quite understand the meaning of "liturgy".

Martial Artist

@Tiggy,

You write: "I just wish we had the option of The Old Rite, even somewhere in the Diocese, but the Bishop is having none of it."

I have been clearly led to believe that any priest has the right to say the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Mass (the Tridentine Mass) subject only to the conditions set forth in Summorum Pontificum, clarified by Universiae Ecclesiae. Based on the information I have seen published online, I should think that, if a stable group of the faithful have requested the EF Mass and have ensured that everything needful for the celebration is provided, and there is a priest available and able to say the Mass, that the Bishop does not have the authority to forbid the Mass from being celebrated. If the Bishop is adamant, and I were in your situation I would consider writing a letter to the appropriate office in the Vatican (I think it may be Ecclesia Dei, but am not certain) and explaining the difficulty. I do know that any priest familiar with the EF Mass is authorized to respond to such a request without consulting the Bishop, if all of the foregoing conditions have been met. The information I have was obtained from the following blog of an American Catholic priest: http://wdtprs.com/blog. The priest whose blog that is responds to questions sent him via email, and there is a CONTACT link on the page header of the blog. He answered an almost identical question a few months ago, but I have been unable to find the relevant blog article thus far.

Pax et bonum,
Keith Tpfer

Spirit of Vatican II

The NO in Latin as celebrated at Farm St for example is every bit as spiritual as the EF is claimed to be. As for the NO in English, I am plugging the following as a viable alternative to the ridiculous new translations: http://www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2011/11/liturgical-resource-for-celebrants/

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