Bishop Peter J. Elliot of Australia has published an article in the Adoremus Bulletin on the insufficiency of the current ICEL translations. “Liturgical Translation: A Question of Truth” is a surprising article, not only because a bishop says publicly that ICEL's bad translations offer something that “is no longer the Roman Liturgy,” but also because the bishop equates these translations with “lying” and questions their morality. Bishop Elliot gives examples of ICEL's elimination of Catholic theology. He also traces the historical circumstances that led to the “dynamic equivalence” theory of translation and suggests that the attachment to this theory reflects a stubborn entrenchment in a defunct theological outlook. Finally, Elliot attacks the notion that liturgy is “pastoral.” In an earlier entry of this blog, I discussed Donald Trautman's notion that liturgy is “pastoral” and showed how such a notion destroys the distinction between teaching and translation. In Elliot's view, the pedagogical approach to liturgy “argues that public prayers addressed to God are in fact messages addressed to us,” and Elliot shows how this is a Calvinist view, incompatible with Catholic theology.

With specific examples, Elliot explains the pervasive destruction of Catholic theology in the translations. He shows how gratia becomes “love” instead of “grace” and how Marian theology is eliminated. Integritate virginitatis permanente, for instance, becomes simply “She became the virgin mother of your son,” effacing the dogma of Mary's perpetual virginity. (This bad translation also refuses to render the physical aspect of perpetual virginity that integritate carries, thereby opening the door to the equivocal theology that recently has tried to define Mary's perpetual virginity as metaphorical, rather than physical. In fact, the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity has always maintained that “her integrity remained,” which is a literal affirmation that in her miraculous childbirth, the hymen remained intact.)

Elliot ends the article with “ethical considerations.” He gives an assessment of ICEL's work, and his words are especially remarkable because they come from a Catholic bishop:

Lying is a sin. Then, we may well ask, has our worship in the English language involved telling lies for nearly forty years? I regret to say that to a certain extent it has.

In assessing Elliot's statements, a few questions occurred to me. If the last forty years of English liturgy have been “no longer the Roman Liturgy,” then what have they been? Further, if this worship has “involved telling lies” for forty years, by whom have these lies been told, and more significantly, to whom, ultimately, have they been told?