New Mass Translation "in use in churches before the middle of next year" – Archbishop Coleridge

According to this report on the Canberra Goulburn Archdiocese website, Archbishop Mark Coleridge says that the new Missal “would be in use in churches before the middle of next year”. Well, he should know – but it is a bit of a surprise. I thought that the schedule was for Advent next year, starting a new liturgical year with the new translation. Although, in retrospect, the busy season of Advent would not be the best time to introduce such a change.

Maybe it hinges on what he means by “in use” and where the “churches” that would be using it are. Maybe they have in mind some sort of incremental introduction, rather than the “wham bam / now you see it now you don’t” approach that was used for the introduction of the current translation. I have no idea. I have been told that the new lectionary translation won’t be ready for introduction when the new liturgy translation is rolled out, so there will be a period of overlap between the old and the new in that regard.

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16 Responses to New Mass Translation "in use in churches before the middle of next year" – Archbishop Coleridge

  1. Joshua says:

    This news is great news indeed!

    I do fear, however, that there will be much dragging of feet and grumbling among the aging disaffected liberal dissenter set…

    I propose that we should start a recycling drive – to recycle all the obsolescent ICEL missals, sacramentaries, &c.

    In return, we the laity could thoughtfully provide Father with a brand-new 2010/11 Missal…

  2. Peregrinus says:

    Recycling into new missals will not be easy if the texts of the proper are introduced before the amendments to the lectionary. Not good planning there, I’m afraid. Who’s going to spend money on a missal with the new proper but with lectionary texts which will be superseded in a year or two? They’ll hang on to their money until all the changes are rolled out. Which means they’ll have to muddle through the changes to the proper with old missals, or no missals at all.

    I recall during the last big changeover parishes used “missalettes” which they produced each week and which set out the full text of the proper (or, at least, the bits with congregational involvement) and the full text of the readings – they were eight-page jobs, as often as not, since they set out the creed, the gloria, the preface, the eucharistic prayer – everything. And once congregations got used to that and got out of the habit of bringing their missals to mass, they didn’t see any need for a missal at all.

    I think parishes are going to have to do something similar if this changeover is to work. The market for missals, already very limited, will be undermined still further.

    If you’d set out to kill off the Catholic tradition fo the laity having their own missals, you couldn’t have devised a more effective strategy than to roll out changes provisionally, or piecemeal. And it’s a strategy, it seems, they have decided to repeat.

    • Schütz says:

      I agree that there are problems ahead in this area. One big difference between now and then is that we have better options as far as photocopying goes, and it will be easy to produce such “missallettes”. Probably all that will be needed is the ordinary of the mass without the propers, and a small mass book (rather than a full missal) might suffice for this as a reusable resource for a year or two. But a much bigger difference – already affecting the use of missals by lay folk – is the ubiquitous Powerpoint projection systems, which has also done away with the need for hymnals. I think this is what will happen for most parishes. The overhead projectors will just be used for the whole text of the mass, not just the songs. Is there a problem with this? You bet, and I could list a whole rack of them. But I think that is the way most parishes will go.

  3. adam george says:

    Well may there be comments from +Mark Bendedict on this matter. But I would rather be a fly on the wall at the May bishops meeting now taking place in Sydney.
    Pell is back and there are loads of hot rumours circulating in Europe that Pell is about to move to Rome as head of Bishops congregation.
    This surely means that +Mark Benedict is set to move to Sydney and become a cardinal.
    No one else to move there of any stature.
    And Hobart comes up soon.
    Any bets on that that distant diocese that has a major clergy-supply problem?
    So, expect to hear more from +Coleridge in coming months and years.

    • Schütz says:

      I’m not buying into this rumour scenario. Just don’t count your chickens before they hatch. What will be will be. I’ll leave the cheering or the weeping till after the announcements are made.

      • adam george says:

        Well the blog, Whispers in the Loggia has more on this today and a very interesting note, that Pell met with Cardinal Re last week in Rome (see below).

        For the record, the previously cited June timetable came some weeks back from a source in the Sydney cardinal’s orbit. Earlier today, however, a leading Italian vaticanista — Il Foglio’s Paolo Rodari — reported that the move “lacked only [its] announcement,” revealing that following his aforementioned private audience with B16 on Friday (during which, according to Rodari’s sourcing, a rollout date was set), Pell spent over an hour at the Congregation’s offices meeting with the current prefect, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who reached the retirement age of 75 in early 2009.

        There is more on this in the WITL blog and it will be fascinating to see what happens in the next few days/weeks about Pell’s future and indeed +Mark Benedict.
        Is the Aussie Church about to have some seismic activity at the top?

  4. Christine says:

    David, which Scripture translation will be used in the new missal? Is it the NRSV, Catholic edition?

    I will be so glad to see the New American Bible go bye bye.

    Christine

    • Schütz says:

      It will be the NRSV Catholic Edition with modifications in the few instances where necessary to preserve correct doctrine. As I understand it, the process of obtaining permission to make these modifications has put the lectionary project chronologically out of sync with the missal project. We have to wait and see what happens. The issue of the psalmody used is out there too.

  5. Peregrinus says:

    We don’t use the NAB in the lectionary in Australia. English-speaking Catholics generally use the JB; I think the NAB is used only in the US and, for some reason, the Phillipines. Canada uses the NRSV. You could move north!

    • Schütz says:

      The current lectionary is the Jerusalem Bible modified (in particular, the name “The Lord” is used to replace the JB’s constant use of “Yahweh”). It really is quite dreadful (the New Jerusalem Bible is significantly better but still uses “Yahweh”), but I understand that the reason it was chosen all those years ago is because they could get the copyright for it.

      • Peregrinus says:

        The NRSV (and, before it, the RSV) is the copyright of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, a body which embraces Protestant and some Orthodox churches, but not the Catholic Church. The NRSC-CE is approved by the Catholic Church but is produced, I am sure, under licence from the NCC. Technical copyright issues aside, I think in the 1960s and 1970s there would have been some sensitivity about using in the Lectionary a Bible translation “owned” by, and emanating from, a largely Protestant source. The JB, by contrast, came from impeccably Catholic sources. (So did the NAB, but it wasn’t completed until 1970, by which time thinking about mass in the vernacular was well-advanced, and the JB had already secured a fairly commanding position.)

        It speaks volumes for the changed climate of ecumenical relations that the Protestant roots of, and influences on, the RSV/NRSV are simply not an issue in most discussions about scripture translations.

  6. An Liaig says:

    The Knox version is out of copyrite and in the public domain. Just saying…

    • Schütz says:

      One of my students in my Anima courses brings the Knox version along for the classes. I always find it interesting to note Knox’s translation of a particular passage, but in the main it is not an accurate translation. It often paraphrases and often too does not show much of an overall sense of the use of a particular greek word or phrase throughout the Scriptures. By this I mean that the translation itself is usually tenable, but often – by choosing a rather idiosyncratic way of translation – misses or narrows the nuance in the text. It sometimes borders on paraphrase. It has literary merit, but I cannot recommend it for any other feature.

  7. adam george says:

    I don’t like to keep on with it, but there is another late blog in Whispers in the Loggia this Wed afternoon on Europe that states Pell has the job already in Rome and will be here by the summer (Europe time).
    It does all look very fait accompli, or else a lot of bloggers will have bolognese sauce on their faces.
    Then all the pundits will blog on a new Sydney archbishop, which ironically, Pell would have the prime position to advise BXVI – so will it be +Mark Benedict Coleridge?
    I think so.

  8. Christine says:

    We don’t use the NAB in the lectionary in Australia. English-speaking Catholics generally use the JB; I think the NAB is used only in the US and, for some reason, the Phillipines. Canada uses the NRSV. You could move north!

    Yes, quite right, it’s us Yankees that have had to endure the NAB for far too long. I will be soooo glad to see it go. Although, Canada isn’t really all that far — my husband keeps joking (at least I THINK he’s joking) about moving to the wilderness of Canada or Montana :) Fine by me, I don’t mind a little Moose with my morning coffee!

    I never cared much for the JB precisely because of its overrepetitive use of “Yahweh” which has now been proscribed by the American hierarchy. Even Oregon Catholic Press has to revise some of it’s stable of music on that score.

    I pretty much grew up on the RSV and still find it my favorite translation, although the NRSV-Catholic Edition will be just fine.

    Christine

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