Will ICEL (International Commission on English in the Liturgy) surive? On the recent USA-Vatican clash over the translation of Catholic liturgy.

Very recently "Peter" has "confirmed" his USA "brethren in the faith" regarding some important liturgy texts. He told them to withdraw their imprimatur (approval to publish) from a feminist psalter, and to make four hundred corrections (I kid you not) in the translation of the introduction to a new edition of the Lectionary.

How did this discreet Vatican correction to the USA bishops get public? Somebody leaked it to the National Catholic Reporter (NCR), an energetic, clever, and mostly revolution-favouring USA weekly. They blared the facts with indignation against the Vatican, hoping that their friends ("progressive" bishops) would fight this "regressive" discipline. Then The Wanderer weekly picked up the story on June 28, warmly approving the Vatican call to correct, and citing various comments from the bishops. After that, the traditional monthly Catholic World Report of July ran another good account of the clash.

Did the USA bishops actually write that feminist psalter and that badly translated introduction? No, these were written by ICEL translators, but reviewed and approved by a committee of the USA bishops, and, before that, by the eleven international bishops who sit on ICEL, which is the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, a key body with offices located in Washington.

Why did the Vatican send the corrections to the bishops and not directly to ICEL? To underscore the responsibility of the bishops for the faith, and probably also to diminish the prestige and profile of ICEL, who have proved over the years that they want to revolutionize the Church by modifying the wording and gestures, etc., of her liturgy. (And they have succeeded all too well.)

What information did NCR obtain? "A set of confidential documents, including back-and-forth correspondence between ICEL and the US bishops, staff documents . . . and minutes of a meeting of a . . . Bishops' committee," all relating to the Vatican demands. So writes NCR staffer Jo Allen.

Will ICEL be dissolved or disciplined because of its failure to translate the liturgy faithfully? It certainly should be. A Catholic prelate, indeed a Cardinal, who is reputed to be a faithful, traditional believer, has recently been named to ICEL. He is the new Cardinal George of Chicago. The NCR informs us that he clashed with his fellow ICEL bishops when conveying Rome's demands for a more faithful translation.

What are the errors usually manifested by ICEL translators? Feminism is one error, shown in so-called "inclusive" language. Another is the use of "dynamic equivalents" (a deliberately vague term) instead of "formal equivalents" (the precisely correct word in the receptor language).

Do the recent six Vatican Norms on Bible translation have any bearing on this liturgy conflict? Most definitely. Norm One includes both the liturgy and the Fathers in texts that must be "conveyed accurately" to the faithful (see Catholic Insight, Jan/Feb '98, p. 29). Cardinal George told the ICEL bishops that the Vatican is preparing a document on translation of the liturgy, demanding "formal", that is, strict or literal, and not loose, culturally conditioned, words in the receptor language.

The Vatican -- ICEL clash also concerns Canada.