Letter writing campaigns are in the air again, not over a more expanded use of the 1962 Missal, but because a reasonable Lectionary seems on target for use in Canada.
Honestly, don’t these Latin geeks know the difference between homo, vir, and femina?
That’s what we need – the weenies who can’t take revealed truth as it’s given to us.
Clearly not, for those who place the rendering of a living language from a dead one on the par with revealed truth. “Getting away with murder” is the comparison given on the first link. Whew! And I thought the Catholic sin of the week was facilitating embezzlement. So nice to know that shouting “men” above any utterance of “people”is being elevated to a life issue.
Catholic Sensibility 
Hey Todd,
Why is everything motumania to you? To me, it would seem that motumania would dictate a different response: “Well, we’re going to use the Latin Mass, so who cares about the lectionary?”
Agreed. This sort of thing seems like reactionary motophobia to me.
If I were afraid of it, I wouldn’t laugh at it. Any time you want to start posting on motuphobia, feel free.
“Well, no matter how many compromises the Canadian bishops had to make, this is still a big pile of garbage.”
Ah yes. Scripture isn’t to your particular liking if it misses archaic referrals to “man,” so it’s a pile of garbage? How big is the pile? Fifty words? Maybe a hundred?
“Above all, inclusive language is ugly.”
Bottom line: if one can’t get a theological reason or a linguistic one, just appeal to personal taste.
“Why is everything motumania to you?”
I call it as I see it: an overindulgence in the culture of complaint. It’s unseemly, ugly, spiteful, and reveals the worst sort of so-called cafeteria Catholicism: the Magisterium is great until I disagree with them. Then they’re supreme failures.
Todd,
“…the Magisterium is great until I disagree with them.”
This kind of decision comes under the prudential judgment department. So your comment here isn’t quite accurate.
Scripture is not a pile of garbage; this particular translation is. I should think there’s a distinction to be made there. Besides, I was referring to the whole situation in general, a gross failure of leadership on the part of men (viri) who have given in to the demands of fringe liberal groups. The women that I know don’t care about this stuff. And my social circles encompass a wider selection of society than you would assume.
“Bottom line: if one can’t get a theological reason or a linguistic one, just appeal to personal taste.”
Beauty is not a matter of personal taste. It is an objective reality. In theory, I could be wrong in my judgment of this translation as an ugly one (although I don’t think so), but the fact is that this translation, like everything else, has objective qualities that make it more or less beautiful.
Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. Finally, the question of linguistics is partially tied up in beauty, so to say that I can’t find a rationale based on linguistics isn’t quite right either. I even allude to linguistics in the comment from which you’ve quoted. I urge the readers here to go read that comment in its entirety, instead of just the snippets posted here in Todd’s comment.
“I call it as I see it: an overindulgence in the culture of complaint. It’s unseemly, ugly, spiteful…”
Yeah, it sure is ugly when people go complaining about questionable decisions (or, in cases other than this one, worse) made by bishops. Like that St. Athanasius guy. What a jerk! (….not that this Lectionary thing rises to the same level….but the inference can be drawn.)
One final point about the Magisterium: I accept the notion that was put forth recently by a well-known author, implicitly rather than explicitly, that ultra-montanism is what has been the downfall of the liturgy in the last century. So there’s two ways in which your Magisterium comment does not apply to what I said.
Thanks for commenting, Michael. I do appreciate your clarifications. I also appreciate your stated willingness to accept that in liturgy circles there are those who might disagree with Summorum Pontificum and are prudentially free to offer counterpoint, even if such thoughts aren’t particularly welcome viewpoints on your blog.
I have no doubt that your women friends described are very much like some of my women friends. Regardless, people these days are sensitive to accuracy in language in a way that is more intense than two generations ago. You linked Fr Z, who himself promotes “slavish accuracy.” So I find it curious that an attempt to render the Lectionary with a similar accuracy is so bitterly attacked at his site and at NLM. English is a generous enough language and if we can render the words accurately and with beauty (I don’t think its an either/or situation) why shouldn’t we try?
The bottom line is this: none of us have seen the newest edition of the NRSV, so are you claiming aspects of it as garbage sight unseen? I didn’t notice any linguistic fisking on WDTPRS site. My guess is that you’re taking a shot in the dark here, my friend.
And on the question of ugliness in argument, I think there’s a line–not necessarily a fine one–between being critical and diving into all-out spite. Your commentariat at NLM often doesn’t know the boundary. I’ve pointed out on a regular basis how discussions in the realm of prudence leak easily into unseemly chatter. You yourself have had to appeal for calm against the infighting generated there. I think you realize full well such talk damages how others regard your viewpoint on good liturgy. We know such talk easily damages the Body.
Maybe we should have a bilingual missal published to assist the laity who attend Mass in English. One page can have the ICEL prayer translation/creations and rev. NAB and the opposite page can have what the text really says in English. As one who studies the readings carefully each week in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin as well as consulting translations in English and other languages, I regularly am forced to correct serious errors in translation which unchecked lead to misunderstandings or heretical positions (usually Pelagian).
Why is it this way? Political agenda is not the primary reason for our poor translations. Treating the faithful as idiots is the primary reason. Everyone should be able to agree that translations should tell us what the original language tells us AND by using correct grammar. Nobility, some will say, it should not have. I disagree. The beauty of the human word of translation should reflect the Beauty of the Word. Politically correct, some will say, it should be. Whose politically correctness? Nonetheless, can not all agree that the translation should tell us what the original language tells us in proper grammar?
Some of the very people who complain about priests praying the lessons in Latin and then reading them in English at the beginning of the Sermon in the Extraordinary Use of the Mass are the ones who (by their inept translations) force me to explain what the readings are supposed to say at the beginning of the homily. Hmm.
Todd,
You may like to know that when my head hit the pillow last night, I decided that the original post that generated this whole conversation, along with some subsequent comments of mine, was not a prudent thing to do–speaking of prudential judgments. So I have taken that post out of public view. The fact is that, with that post, I contributed to the very thing that I despise. So please accept my apologies; there are manlier ways to disagree.