Liturgy Office Clamp Down on Blogosphere

Fr Tim Finigan received this letter from Washington demanding he remove the copy of the new translations of the Mass he published on "The Hermeneutic of Continuity".

I would have thought that anyone in the Church in the USA would realise the great dangers of doing things behind closed doors and excluding the vast majority of clergy and the laity, especially after the sex abuse scandals and cover-ups that have torn the Church there apart. Mr Finn says that these translations should only be introduced with "sufficient catechetical material". Frankly, the texts themselves seem to be sufficient to teach people the superiority of the new translations of the theolgically barren, inelegant translations we use now.

The present translation of the Latin says, "he took the cup" the new translation says, "he took this precious chaliceinto his holy and venerable hands" which is exactly what the Latin says, every other linguistic group gets an accurate translation.

Anyhow Fr Tim has taken his "mirroring", as he calls it, down but someone else seems to have been blogging around those who might be interested and has put the text up, judge for yourself at http://newmasstexts.blogspot.com/ , I think I was visitor number "7".

You could email Mr Finn who supplies his email address on his letter to Fr Tim.

Subject: ICEL2006 text of the Order of Mass
From: "Peter Finn"
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007
16:27:05 -0400
To:
CC: "Bruce Harbert" , "Bishop Arthur Roche"

Dear Father Finigan:
It has come to our attention that the proposed translation (Gray Book) of the Order of Mass circulated in January 2006 by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy has been included on your blogspot (the-hermeneutic-of continuity.blogspot.com). This translation has been produced without the Commission's permission and in violation of the ICEL copyright. We ask therefore that the text be removed immediately from the site.

This proposed translation has been sent to the Conferences for their canonical vote and prepared after consideration of comments from Conferences of Bishops, the Vox clara Committee, and the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments on the ICEL February 2005 draft translation (Green Book).

The Bishops of the Commission are concerned that these texts not be released to the general public until the requisite votes have been taken and after the preparation of any additional revisions that may follow upon their vote and the recognitio issued by the Congregation to the Conferences. The Bishops of the Commission are especially concerned that these texts be introduced with sufficient catechetical materials intended to aid the reception of the new translation.

In light of these and other concerns, we ask for your kind cooperation in this matter and look forward to your reply.

Yours sincerely,


Peter Finn
Associate Executive Director International Commission on English in the Liturgy
1522 K Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005-1202
Phone: 202-347-0800
FAX: 202-347-1839
PFinn@eliturgy.org