Big changes to Catholic Mass spur confusion in the pews
The Roman Catholic Mass is undergoing a major overhaul. In an effort to unify how the global church prays, the English translation of the church’s worship service is being modified in order to more accurately reflect the Latin from which the Roman Missal is translated.
The Catholic Church is known by some as a bastion of permanence that has not often yielded to the forces of change in the modern era. In many ways the changes harken back to the Mass spoken in Latin, as it was in the United States prior to the 1960s.
“There is an Italian proverb,” said the Rev. Msgr. Kevin W. Irwin, a professor of liturgical studies at the Catholic University of America, “that ‘every translator is a traitor.’ “
“Every translation is less than the original,” he said.
The liturgical changes are “all within the responses and the language of the Mass. In the grand scheme of things, they’re fairly minor,” said Mary DeTurris Poust, whose book on the subject came out in March.
“It will be a great chance to think about what the prayers mean again,” said Theresa Leyva, a choir member at St. John Neumann Parish in Gaithersburg, Maryland, as she browsed new translation of the missal at a book store.
“I’m sure the first few weeks, it’ll be a little rough, but we’ll slip into it,” said Sara Hulse, a student at Catholic University from Milford, New Jersey, on her way to Mass on Thursday.