The International Commission
on English in the Liturgy

I would like to talk to you about the translation of Pope Paul's New Mass made by the ICEL-----the International Commission on English in the Liturgy. The Mass which Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci criticized so severely was the official Latin version approved by the Pope. But what you have in America and what we have in England, is not even this Mass. The papally-approved Novus Ordo has been so mutilated in translation that it is reasonable to describe the ICEL version as an entirely different rite of Mass. [Emphasis added by the Web Master.] What remained of the doctrine of sacrifice in the Latin version of the Novus Ordo has been systematically removed or diluted in the ICEL version. And the standard of its English is as poor as the standard of its theology. See what you think of this comment: the ICEL translation of the Mass is "inept, puerile, semi-literate," it has "done immeasurable harm to the entire English-speaking world," it is marked by "an almost complete lack of literary sense, a crass insensitivity to the poetry of language, and even worse, by a most unscholarly freedom in the rendering of the texts, amounting at times to actual misrepresentation." "Actual misrepresentation"-----that's a very strong accusation, and can you guess who made it? Archbishop Dwyer of Portland, Oregon. And it is this "inept, puerile, semi-literate" translation" amounting at times to actual "misrepresentation" to which almost all English-speaking Catholics are subjected each Sunday. Is it any wonder that their faith is being undermined?