Vatican norms on "inclusive language".

Background:

Since about 1991, the Vatican has been conducting secret discussions with scholars and bishops, especially English-speaking ones from the USA and Canada, on the proper way to handle the secular cultural challenge of so-called "inclusive language" when translating the Bible and other sacred religious texts.

"Inclusive" language arose in the 1970s from feminist demands that masculine words no longer be allowed to mean everyone; that is, be inclusive of women. For example, mankind had to change to humanity or humankind; fisherman to fisherperson (or fisher); and he to they; and so on. This new language is sometimes called gender-neutral. The Vatican norms never mention "inclusive language" or "feminism" by name.

These norms for the "translation of biblical texts for use in the liturgy" were leaked to the public in July 1997. The Vatican is probably not ready yet to make its definitive statement on a sensitive, controversial, and threatening topic. Yet the six norms revealed do have a certain firmness about them (see Catholic Insight, Sept. 97, p. 6, for the full text). The present issue begins a commentary on the norms, one at a time.

Norm No. One - Text versus Meaning in Sacred Documents

Norm No. 1 says:

"The Church must always seek to convey accurately in translation the texts she has inherited from the biblical, liturgical, and patristic tradition and instruct the faithful in their proper meaning."

Notice here two distinct and separate tasks: first, to convey the text, and second, to instruct in its meaning. The translator is the one who conveys the text, and he must not attempt the second task at the same time; that is, he must not change the text with the intention of conveying more clearly its meaning. What the original sacred text says is a given, not to be changed. What it means is to be received naturally by the hearer/reader, with a gradually increasing degree of depth, clarity, faith and so forth. This meaning must not be obscured by an arbitrary alteration of the text that, while possibly enhancing one aspect of truth, would conceal others. Translators need to grow in grasp of the meaning, even after they have properly conveyed the text in writing.

A sample text is Jesus' first beatitude: "Blessed are the poor in spirit" (Mt 5:3). The New English Bible (of 1961-70) wrote: "How blest are those who know their need of God." That is not conveying the text, but imposing an arbitrary meaning. It violates our first norm.

Other versions exist with equally radical rewrites of the simple "poor in spirit."

Another sample text is "the flesh" in St. Paul's letters, especially Romans 7-8 and Galatians 5, meaning fallen human nature as opposed to the "spirit." One Bible calls the flesh "your lower nature." Another calls it "self-indulgence." A third calls it "human nature," and a fourth, "corrupt nature." All of this is instructing in the meaning and does not belong in conveying the text. It belongs in preaching, not in translating. Both are tasks of the Church. They must remain separate.

The twentieth century is littered with stale Bible versions that tried ever more presumptuously to write what the Bible means, and not what the Bible said. These repeated paraphrases created a Bible Babel, where true understanding is obscured, not enhanced, where memorising the Bible becomes impossible, and where the old Bible culture of the Christian West is weakened almost to a vanishing point.

"Fathers" are included

Norm One includes a further powerful principle or law. Not only the Bible but also the Liturgy and the Patristic texts (Church "Fathers" of early centuries; e.g., St. Augustine) must be translated with the same accuracy; that is, without letting various subjective meanings impose a change in the text. The Fathers are precious witnesses in the early centuries to the Catholic faith. Their works must be preserved jealously. The same is true for the liturgy, or worship text, such as collect prayers and prefaces. The older and longer-used such a text is, the more it must be respected as a standing guide to the true faith. "Lex orandi lex credendi." The law of praying sets the law of believing. This is a maxim of good theology.

The succeeding Vatican norms will apply this first norm under various aspects.