Brilliant! Three Cheers for Fr Healy’s e-Missal

Someone had to do this. It is just common sense. Can’t understand why it wasn’t a part of the original package. Each edition of the new corrected translation of the Roman Missal should have come with an electronic edition on CD. The Church is just soooo first millenium.

Well, with or without permission, Fr Richard Healy of Wollongong Diocese in NSW has done it (HT to Mr Mullins, in fact, for the link on the last blogwatch column – for the sake of this one link, I count all forgiven). Fr Healy has published, on his blog (which has the snappy title “The Ministry of Fr Richard Healy in sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ” or www.frrick.blogspot.com), an e-edition of the Roman Missal in three forms: Kindle, epub and html. Last night I downloaded the epub version on my iphone, and it works a treat in ibooks.

There are a few glitches though with the links Fr Healy’s site. I tried ringing him about it today. Last night I noticed that the link to the html (hypertext) version isn’t working. Today, I tried to download the epub version for my Sony e-reader, and found that that link now is downloading the zip file for the html version! I had to access the epub version off my iphone. I haven’t tried the Kindle version, as I don’t have a Kindle…

Okay, I’ve probably lost you all by now, but the point is that this is a good thing. The only draw backs are

1) I don’t know how reliable the text is. This is a lot of work, and as amazing as Fr Healy’s achievement is, I have trouble believing that any single human being has spent all the time necessary to check that there are no errors in the e-text version

2) I doubt very, very much whether it has copyright clearance. There is probably good reason for having copyright on a thing like the Missal (to protect the text from those who would muck about with it), but we do need to have unhindered access to the text of the Missal, and these days that means electronic access too.

Kudos to Fr Healy!

About Schütz

I am a PhD candidate & sessional academic at Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, Australia. After almost 10 years in ministry as a Lutheran pastor, I was received into the Catholic Church in 2003. I worked for the Archdiocese of Melbourne for 18 years in Ecumenism and Interfaith Relations. I have been editor of Gesher for the Council of Christians & Jews and am guest editor of the historical journal “Footprints”. I have a passion for pilgrimage and pioneered the MacKillop Woods Way.
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4 Responses to Brilliant! Three Cheers for Fr Healy’s e-Missal

  1. John Nolan says:

    The Easter Vigil, 21st-century style. The deacon places the e-Exsultet on the lectern, having previously switched on the Paschal Candle …

    Kindle in Latin is of course ‘accendere’ – a verb, just as it is in English.

  2. Kevin Mark says:

    Thanks for the heads up on this David. I’ve downloaded the Kindle and am looking at it using the Kindle for PC program. It seems to work fine, with good navigation from the table of contents. And very good use of colour (which, unfortunately, isn’t available on most Kindle devices).

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