FEATURES 17The Catholic Times Sunday May 8 2011

I MAGINE the plight of thispoor journalist: writing a col-umn about saints and feast

days, when a Pope has beatified hispredecessor and created a newBlessed as we are going to press!

It all goes to show that the calen-dar of the Catholic Church is alwaysa work in progress.

Pope Benedict has announcedthat the feast day of the newly-Blessed John Paul will be October22.

That is the anniversary of the dayon which the then Karol Wojtylawas elected Pope, back in 1978. It isan extremely suitable day to choosefor his feast day.

While the great John Paul is just“Blessed” the feast day will beobserved only in Rome and Poland,the two places with which he ismost directly associated and wherehe lived and worked, and, in thecase of Rome, died.

Once he is canonised, the feast

day will be celebrated everywhere,in the universal Church.

The reason why the day inOctober was chosen is that the day on which John Paul II died was in April, and will always getmixed up with Lent and Holy Week and Easter. So it is not practi-cal to celebrate his feast day at thattime.

It is interesting that October nowhas three of these special feast days.

The last Emperor of Austria-Hungary, Blessed Karl Habsburg,was beatified by John Paul II andhas his feast-day on October 21, theanniversary of his marriage toPrincess Zita.

They had a happy family life andeight children, and together theyworked for peace in Europe – to noavail, as they reigned during thetragic years of World War I – andfor social justice at home.

Blessed Karl died in exile and

poverty on April 1 1922 on theisland of Madeira.

John Paul II deliberately choseKarl and Zita’s wedding-day as thefeast day, to honour marriage andfamily life and to hold them up as an example to the Europe oftoday.

Blessed John Henry Newman hashis feast day on October 9.

This is the day on which he was

received into the Catholic Church. The date was announced by the

present Holy Father Benedict XVIlast year when he beatified JohnHenry Newman in that gloriousopen-air Mass at Cofton Park.

The Church places emphasis onfeast-days because it is a way ofsanctifying time. Jesus Christ isLord of history.

Every year, we honour the greatevents of our salvation.

Advent begins the Church’s yearwith its four weeks of preparationfor marking the birth of Christ atChristmas.

Each springtime, the season ofLent prepares us for the drama ofHoly Week and Easter.

Forty days later we mark theAscension, and then comesPentecost, with its name, takenfrom the Greek, reminding us that itcomes 50 days after Easter.

A saint’s feast day is normally theday on which he or she died, and

thus went to Heaven. But, as mentioned above, another

day can be chosen for the feast. And often, with a really notable

saint, there may be more than oneday on which people celebrate anyway – in the case of the greatJohn Paul, there will always be spe-cial memories of him on DivineMercy Sunday, the feast that heinaugurated and which is alwaysfixed for the first Sunday afterEaster.

It is exciting to be living at a timewhen the Church sees new addi-tions to the calendar of feast days.

As we thank God for the life andwitness of Blessed John Paul, wecan seize the opportunity to explainto younger Catholics how the calen-dar works, and how time itself canbe used to give glory to God.

Year on year, he works throughthe Church.

In every generation, he raises upsaints.

Giving an example to the world today

C ONTRARY to recent commentin The Catholic Times (TalkingPoint, April 24), the new trans-lation of the missal is being

imposed by Rome by people who really donot know what they are doing.

This is neither “scaremongering” nor“misrepresentation”. It is through theabuse of power that the current translationof the Roman Missal is being forced onthe faithful – nothing less.

Despite what many want us to believe,this translation is contrary to: ■ The spirit and fact of Vatican II’sSacrosanctum Concilium; ■ Norms of justice, in how theInternational Commission on English inthe Liturgy (ICEL) was subverted; ■ Ecumenism; ■ Catholic social teaching on subsidiarity;■ Sound academic principles, and; ■ Canon law.

At Vatican II the debate on the liturgyunderlined that the bishops attendingunderstood the necessity of an inculturat-ed liturgy, of which the vernacular was anecessary part. They also understood thatunity does not, by definition, mean unifor-mity. The almost unanimous vote ofacceptance of the Constitution leaves nodoubt about the Fathers’ conclusions onliturgy. A special papal commission wasset up by Paul VI to oversee its properimplementation. It drew up an excellentdocument, Comme le prevoit, on thetranslation of liturgical documents inJanuary, 1969, the principles of which areas valid today as they were 42 years ago –a testament to the skill and knowledge ofits authors.

ICEL was a legitimately constitutedbody set up in 1963 by the main episcopalconferences in the English-speakingworld, including Ireland. A significantnumber of other conferences who decided

the English translation would be benefi-cial for their pastoral purposes becameassociate members.

ICEL had teams of experts in theirfields who did their job well. It neverclaimed the first translations of the early1970s were perfect. So by 1982 the revi-sion of the missal had begun. Fifteen yearsof dedicated work went into the revisedtranslations, during which time relationswith the Congregation for Divine Worship[CDW] were mostly cordial and effective.That is, until 1998 when the ChileanCardinal Jorge Medina Estévez wasbrought to Rome and put in charge of theCDW. What happened to ICEL under hisstewardship can only be described as anevisceration. A systematic takeover wasset in train, such that if it were to happenin the political sphere, it would be consid-ered akin to a coup d’état.

In a letter to the then chairman of ICELin October, 1999, Cardinal Medina accusedICEL’s executive secretary, Dr Page, oftaking “certain liberties”. These unsub-stantiated allegations were never speci-fied, and were seen as false by those whoworked with Dr Page. Fearing his contin-ued presence would damage ICEL, he felthe had no option but to resign. As peoplefinished their terms of office and retired,ICEL increasingly became an extension ofCDW. Matters were complete in 2009 whenFr Andrew Wadsworth, a well-known cele -brant of the Tridentine Rite in UK, whoreceived part of his education in May -nooth, was appointed as the executive sec-retary, the post formerly held by Dr Page.

One of the benefits of liturgical renew-al was the increased co-operation withothers. Catholic renewal had a significantimpact on Protestant worship. So muchso, an ecumenical version of the Romanlectionary was produced. The ecumenicalopportunities here were without parallel.

But Liturgiam Authenticam, the Vaticandocument responsible for the currenttranslation changed all this. A prominentProtestant ecumenist, Horace T Allensaid: “I went to the sacred Basilica of StPeter, knelt down and prayed before thebody of Pope John XXIII. And I thought . . . how strange: his body is in glory andhis Council is in ruins.”

T he Church is social before it isanything else if, of course, we baseour thinking on gospel values. The

principle of subsidiarity, a cornerstone ofthe Catholic Church’s own social teach-ing, can be validly applied to the transla-tion project and nothing of the dogmaticor catechetical value of the missal need belost. A reason the social doctrine of theCatholic Church is of such quality andmakes it a model to be followed is becauseit is the result of a consultative process,including those expert in their respectivefields. While it was not specifically artic-ulated, it is obvious from the Council doc-uments, the documents following VaticanII and the commission on translation, theprinciple of subsidiarity was implied.

If one is to undertake a critical transla-tion such as the missal, significant exper-tise in liturgy, history and patristics wouldbe, one imagines, an a priori requirement.The authors of Liturgiam Authenticam,which set the norms for the new transla-tion, seemed to be singularly lacking inthis. Its authors are not familiar with thetreatment of Greek and Semitic words inthe Latin Scriptures and liturgies. They donot understand the relationship betweenthe Nova Vulgata and the traditionalVulgate, and seem unaware of the otherLatin Bible texts used in the Roman tradi-tion. They show no sign of ever havingread any patristic exegesis, or knowledgethat other Latin rites followed their own

alternative approaches.Canons 825, nn. 1-2, 826, nn. 2-3, 838,

nn. 1-4 of the revised Code of Canon Lawmake it very clear that the diocesan bish-op and territorial conferences of bishopsmaintain significant authority with regardto liturgical translations and moderationof the liturgy. Though there is reference tothe Apostolic See in terms of being thefinal arbiter (hardly surprising), canon838 certainly suggests that this authorityof the Apostolic See is very much as over-sight and exception, and attuned more toconsistency, than an active interference inthe competence of the diocesan bishopand territorial conferences of bishops. It isinteresting to note that in the preparatoryof the text of canon 838 for the revisedcode, Rome was to “approve” (approbare)vernacular translations, and in the finalversion of the canon this role was modi-fied to “recognise, examine, inspect”(recognoscere) the translation, a more col-legial than vertical role.

Witnessing the naked abuse of powerwhich has lead to this ill-planned, ill-informed translation, it is not unreason-able to claim that there is long path tojourney in honesty for the clerical Church.

How misleading is it to say that theEnglish-speaking bishops have “accept-ed” this translation, when they were notoffered any choice in the matter?

That is not acceptance, that is imposi-tion. The bishops have abandoned theirecclesial responsibility in order to upholdan illusion of unity. Colluding with theabuse of power is always, and everywhere,wrong.

■ Angela Hanley is a theologian,writer and a co-ordinator in ThePriory Institute Distance EducationProgramme in Theology, Tallaght,Dublin

TALKING POINT Responding to an article welcoming the new English translation of the RomanMissal, Angela Hanley argues that it is being imposed on the faithful

A nun prays before the tomb of Blessed Pope John XXIII – A prominent Protestant ecumenist, Horace T Allen said: ‘I went to the sacred Basilica of St Peter,knelt down and prayed before the body of Pope John XXIII. And I thought . . . how strange: his body is in glory and his Council is in ruins.’

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Missal is contraryto Vatican II spirit

Saints & FeastsJoanna Bogle

Memories – Pope Benedict XVI kisses a relic of Pope John Paul IIas he celebrates the beatification Mass of his predecessor in StPeter’s Square at the Vatican Picture: CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE