Liturgy has always aroused strong passions. In the 19th century, some London churches served by Anglican priests who wore lace were stoned. So it is not surprising that the introduction of a new translation of the Catholic Mass should be turbulent. It raises many interrelated questions about the process by which the translation has come to exist, about the quality of the new texts, and about how best to respond to it. It is helpful to treat these questions separately.
The central question concerns what matters. For most Catholics what matters most about texts is to transcend self-consciousness in praying aloud with others. They want to be on the same page and to sing from the same hymn book. So it will be important for people happily to pray the same responses. Uncertainty about how to respond simply breeds a mumbling hesitation that proclaims neither faith nor freedom.
The process can be described briefly.The Roman Missal, revised after the Second Vatican Council, was quickly translated into English under a committee representing the Bishops of the English-speaking world, the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL). It was always recognised that the translation, which tried to render the prayers of the Missal into contemporary spoken English, would need substantial revision.
A new translation that took account of the many criticisms received of the first text was prepared for discussion by ICEL in consultation with the Bishops of the English-speaking world, and in 1998 was subsequently approved by each of their Bishops' Conferences. But the translation did not receive approval by the Vatican which was preparing a new Latin text of the Roman Missal.
This was published in 2002. In the previous year the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship, with little consultation even of members of the Congregation, had issued the document Liturgiam Authenticam. It contained guidelines for translation which emphasised integral and exact translation.
In 2002 the Congregation established the Vox Clara committee to give advice to the Holy See on English-language texts. In 2003 ICEL was restructured to have a formal relationship with the Vatican Congregation. It prepared new translations under the new guidelines, which were discussed by Bishops' Conferences, approved in 2006 and confirmed by the Vatican in 2009.
In 2010 the Vatican authorised the final text. It contained some 10,000 further changes from the text previously approved by the Bishops. This intensified controversy about the translation, led to widespread anger among the translators,