New Liturgy.

Vatican City -- At the end of July 2006, Cardinal George Pell of Sydney was in Rome for a series of meetings for the committee he heads, Vox Clara, which advises the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments on English translations.

The group of cardinals and bishops from the English-speaking world met at the Vatican's congregation to discuss how the translation of the Roman Missal into English is proceeding and to give their advice to the translation group, the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL).

In June, the American bishops and all the major English-speaking countries overwhelmingly approved the new Order of the Mass. "That was a very significant step," the Cardinal said.

Although the president of Vox Clara knows that the translation work will not please everyone completely, he is convinced they will appreciate its quality. "The new Roman Missal is theologically richer than the old and this is reflected in the quality of the translations that we're getting," he said. "The translations are immeasurably superior. They will be in clear, strong and powerful English and they will very accurately transmit the richness and the challenge of the Latin originals."

Speaking of Latin, some are criticizing the work of the Vox Clara committee as being an imposition by Rome. To this Cardinal Pell responds: "We belong to a single Church, we belong to the Latin rite and there is one missal, the Roman Missal."

Although there has been some degree of protest over the new translation, Cardinal Pell insists that it helps in promoting unity in faith. This is the higher good, especially for the good of evangelization.

"I think it is a very noble ideal to be working for one English translation right throughout the English-speaking world," he said. "Today there's a secondary level of importance because in many parts of Africa and Asia they no longer know Latin well, so English will become the base I translation which they will use for their translations into their vernacular. So it's really important that we have accurately translated what is in the Latin."