Bishop Trautman has been consistent in his fight against a new translation of the Mass that closely renders the typical Latin edition into English. From its promulgation, he has opposed Liturgiam Authenticam, the CDF's document that sets down the principle by which translation "is not so much a work of creative innovation as it is of rendering the original texts faithfully and accurately." By selectively quoting from the draft translations, he has also taken many opportunities to object to the new texts that ICEL is proposing. Now, in an article for the May 21, 2007 edition of America, Trautman imagines himself the leader of a popular resistance movement. He urges the people to "Speak up, speak up!" Behind this apparent (and patronizing) populism, which Trautman claims reflects his "pastoral" concern for "John and Mary Catholic," lie motives of a less egalitarian sort.

In the CDF's recent letter "On the Translation of 'Pro Multis'," Cardinal Arinze points out the difference between translation and catechesis. He correctly maintains that they differ fundamentally. One cannot take the place of the other. The translation of the liturgy isn't the place for interpretation or teaching: the text of the liturgy is the subject of catechesis, not its equivalent. In refusing to confuse the text with its interpretation, Arinze provides the model for good translation. A translation is the re-presentation of the text. It's not an interpretation of the text. The translator has a fundamentally different task before him than a pastor has. The translator represents the word of the text to the people, while the pastor interprets the meaning of the text for the people. The maintenance of this elemental difference is the reason Canon Law 846 §1 dictates that no priest may change the text of the Mass on his own initiative.

When Trautman argues that the translation of the liturgy must "catechize," he therefore assigns to the translator a role that doesn't belong to him. The translated text is the subject of the local priest's catechesis, not its equivalent or substitute. Trautman's statement that "all liturgy is pastoral" is therefore misleading. If he had meant that the liturgy is handed down by the Church to the people for the propagation of the faith, then he would've been expressing the obvious. Instead, he means that the translation of the liturgy is itself properly an act of catechesis. As Arinze explains, however, the documentary nature of the liturgical text separates the liturgical word from the local teaching upon the liturgical word. The translator and the chatechist are distinct, not equivalent. The translator's role is to represent the text accurately. The catechist's role is to ensure that the people are prepared to receive this re-presentation.

In wanting to absorb these two distinct roles into the translator's role, Trautman, far from wishing to expand the bounds of catechesis, hopes to constrain it. By claiming that the task of translation is the proper place for catechesis, Trautman limits the possibilities of catechesis and delegates the teaching duties of the local pastor to the "professionals with degrees and experience" who, according to Trautman, should intervene between difficult texts and the parish priest. (This is the principle of the "dynamic equivalence" that Trautman advocates in translations.) In this role, the translator is the priest's catechist, delegating to himself the task of teaching the text. Translation then loses its nature and ceases really to exist because the translator hands down an interpretation, not a re-presentation of the original.

Trautman's authoritarian motive becomes clear when he questions whether even the priest will be able "to understand the words" of the new translation. For Trautman, the translation should not necessarily represent the words of the original. It should impose an interpretation of those original words, even upon the priests who will pronounce them. Trautman says the local priests are incompetent to assess and pass on a Latinate translation. If ICEL provides a too-literal translation, Trautman fears the priests cannot be trusted to "understand the words" that they themselves must say.

This is the most insubstantial and offensive part of Trautman's criticism: his insistence that "John and Mary Catholic" and their parish priest are incapable of understanding the vocabulary and style of a translation unless the translation is in "the contemporary language of their culture." In his disdain for the aptitude of "John and Mary Catholic"--this is a couple who can't understand the phrase "unvanquished champion"--, Trautman perhaps forgets that the Catholic schools still teach and even perform the plays of Shakespeare, which also remain popular in the society at large. Does Trautman believe the audiences for these performances don't understand the Elizabethan language that they nevertheless retain an appetite for? In reality, not even Shakespeare's contemporary audiences spoke like his characters, and it's worth wondering if anyone apart from "professionals with degrees" has ever comprehended a line of Shakespearean dialog. In Trautman's world, apparently no one has.

Different venues demand different sorts of language. An audience no more expects Shakespearean language not to be Elizabethan than a congregation should expect liturgical language not to be solemn and, well, liturgical. "The people in the pews" are well capable of perceiving the distinction.