By Cindy Wooden

While the Catholic Church wants English-speaking Christians to have common texts for prayers they share, priority must be given to completing a new Catholic translation of the Mass, says Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney.

Ecumenical texts in English exist for some of the prayers used at Mass, including the Nicene Creed and the Gloria, but there is no common text for the Mass as a whole, and that is what English-speaking Catholics need, he said.
Cardinal Pell is chairman of the Vox Clara (Clear Voice) Committee, a group of bishops appointed in 2001 to advise the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments on the English translation of liturgical texts for the Latin rite.

At the end of its Vatican meeting last week, the committee issued a statement that it had “discussed the implications for its work of pursuing the development of common liturgical and devotional texts with Christians of other churches and ecclesial communities.”

In this regard, it “stressed the pressing pastoral need for the translation” of the 2002 edition of the Roman Missal in Latin “as a first priority”.

Cardinal Pell told the Catholic News Service that “while we would be keen to have common texts” with other Christians, English-speaking Catholics need the new missal and must focus their energies on completing the translation.

As a universal church “steeped in tradition”, the Catholic Church must be faithful to the prayers it has used for centuries and to the Latin texts that ensure every Catholic in every place is praying the same prayer, he said.

“ Some might regard this as a constraint, but I find it enriching,” Cardinal Pell added.

As well, he said, “we do not celebrate the Mass with other Christians” and “we cannot move in every direction at once”.

The new translation is expected to bring changes in prayer texts that English-speaking Catholics share with most other Christians.

For example, the Vatican has called for a change in the English translation of the Creed from the ecumenically common “We believe” to “I believe,” in fidelity to the Latin text of the profession of faith.

Cardinal Pell said: “It would be wonderful to have a common Creed, but it is important that we are faithful to our tradition and to the Latin.”

The Vox Clara Committee also examined the latest revision of the proposed translation of the Ordo Missae, or Order of the Mass.

The book includes prayers used at every Mass, such as the Gloria, the Nicene Creed and the eucharistic prayers. It does not include the prayers that change each week during the liturgical year.

The revision, which will not be finalised until January, was prepared in July by the episcopal board of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy it examined reaction to its first draft, which was criticised by many bishops and observers as using too much archaic language.

It was the first English translation of Mass prayers resulting from the 2002 publication of the third edition of the Roman Missal in Latin and from new translation rules contained in the 2001 Vatican instruction, Liturgiam Authenticam (The Authentic Liturgy).

Cardinal Pell said: “I do not think the comments were a rejection of Liturgiam Authenticam. “Some people may want to reject it, but the great majority of bishops would not be in that camp at all.”

The comments, he said, reflect the huge interest bishops have in developing a new translation that is prayerful and faithful to the original Latin texts.

In light of the comments, the text “has been significantly improved and is pastorally more sensitive,” Cardinal Pell said.

“ We are not far from having an Order of the Mass,” he said.

As for the complete translation of the 2002 Missal with all of the Mass prayers, Cardinal Pell said with a smile that when Vox Clara was established three years ago, “I said we are two years off -- and I’m sticking to that now”.

CNS