Bishop Roche on the new Mass translation

For my Catholics readers -- all one or two of you ;-) -- I would like to point out the following address to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops by Bishop Arthur Roche of Leeds (in Great Britain):

Address to the US Bishops' Conference by Bishop Arthur Roche

Bishop Roche is the head of the recently reconstituted International Committee on English Translations (ICEL), which is overseeing revisions in the English translation of the Mass, which is used by Latin-rite Catholic parishes in all of the world's English-speaking countries. For those who have not followed this Mass translation issue over the past few years, the basic background is that the translation which we currently use was put together rather hastily, and in many places it gives a very loose translation of the standard Latin text of the Mass. Moreover, the current translation makes it harder to see the links between the Bible and the Mass, by failing to translate references to Biblical passages in the same way that the Biblical passages themselves are commonly translated. And furthermore, many people (myself included) think that the current translation is "tone-deaf" in that it sounds rather mundane and banal, rather than sounding poetic and dignified. To remedy these problems, a new (and evidently much improved) translation has been in the works for several years now, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops should be voting very soon on whether to accept it or reject it.

The address by Bishop Roche contains some great insights into the many issues involved, and his address should be of interest to Catholics who want to know what types of changes we might expect in the wording of the Mass in the not-too-distant future, and what the reasoning is for these changes. (However, for my non-Catholic readers, you probably won't find much of interest here.)

Here's the link one more time:
Address to the US Bishops' Conference by Bishop Arthur Roche

(I'd like to credit the Ignatius Insight Scoop blog for making me aware of this story.)

UPDATE: Apparently the U.S. bishops have already voted to accept the revised translation. This is great news for English-speaking Catholics, in my opinion. It easily could be several more years before the new translation actually gets implemented, but this is a key step in that direction.

SECOND UPDATE: More information on the new translation and on the U.S. bishops' vote can be found here, here, and here. Apparently, the U.S. bishops have added a list of requested changes or "adaptations" to the translation, subject to approval by the Vatican. There doesn't seem to be much solid information yet on exactly what these changes are, but it at least appears that they are minor, and that the proposed translation is largely unchanged.

MORE UPDATES: Here is a good article from OpinionJournal.com that gives a brief overview of the current situation regarding the English translation of the Mass. Also, Fr. Stephanos has a couple of excellent examples on his blog (here and here) of just how inaccurate and inadequate the current translation is.