ARTICLES
November 2005 ARTICLES
Contents © 2005
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
No Street Talk
Non-Catholics Show the Importance of Latin in the Liturgy
BY CHARLES A. COULOMBE
Understanding the similarity between the sociological (as opposed to doctrinal) currents within the world's major religions can help one in understanding his own religion. This was brought out by a September 7-8 conference held at the Hebrew Union College and the University Religious Center at the University of Southern California. Titled, "Prayer After The Tower of Babel, Liturgical Languages and Translations in Jewish and Christian Traditions," the gathering dealt with the issues surrounding translations of sacred texts from "dead" languages, such as Hebrew and Latin, into modern vernaculars.
The conference was the joint brainchild of Dr. Hans-Jürgen Feulner, professor of liturgy at the University of Vienna, and Rabbi Richard Levy, director of the School of Rabbinic Studies at Hebrew Union College, near USC. Joining these scholars were the Rev. Cecil "Chip" Murray, former pastor the First African Methodist Episcoal Church in Los Angeles and now on the faculty at USC; Mrs. Sandra Dooley, head of the Los Angeles archdiocesan liturgical office; Canon Mark Kowalewski of the Episcopal diocese of Los Angeles; and Rabbi Yosef Kanewski of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California.
The conference commenced at USC's United University Church, a joint United Presbyterian-United Methodist Congregation. There Episcopalian Canon Kowalewski offered the service of Evensong from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. According to a leaflet the canon distributed, the service gave us "a flavor of a classic service used by Anglicans since the Reformation in the 16th Century." The sonorous words reminded us that, whatever Archbishop Cranmer's heresies, he was a master stylist.
After Evensong, which lasted about 45 minutes, we returned to Hebrew Union for the event's opening ceremony. After Father Alexei Smith, ecumenical and interreligious officer for the Los Angeles archdiocese, pointed out that we are in the 40th anniversary year of Nostra Aetate, the Vatican II document that ushered in the current dialogue between Catholics and Jews, Rabbi Lewis Barth, dean of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion/Los Angeles and professor of Midrash and related literature, spoke of the deep impact of liturgical languages on the believer, as well as the difficulties inherent in translation. "Reformed Jews are struggling with issues of translation that are serious and significant. Liturgy is one of the primary influences shaping how we see the world," Barth said
Dr. Feulner then took the podium, first reading congratulatory letters from two important Roman prelates: Cardinal Francis Arinze, prefect of the Holy See's Congregation for Divine Worship, and Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Both cardinals emphasized the importance of the issues the conference was addressing.
Feulner's topic was, "Vernacular in Christian Liturgy: Problems and Prospects." Although only 40 years old, Dr. Feulner has studied the liturgical languages of the Christian East (Armenian, Coptic, Syriac, Georgian, and Ge'ez,) at various European and Near Eastern universities and schools and is a master Latinist and Hebraist. Additionally, He has written much about Anglican liturgical issues. "Which language is used is connected to the unity of the Church," Feulner said. "Change in liturgical language is always followed by change in liturgical feeling."
Feulner spoke of the historical linguistic issues in the Latin Rite. The original Greek liturgy of Rome, he said, had gradually been translated into Latin, which led to the creation of new Latin liturgical texts in the fourth century. Although the early Church had used native language liturgical texts, this soon passed out of fashion. Feulner then described how the translation of the Byzantine Liturgy into Slavonic by Ss. Cyril and Methodius in ninth century Moravia had aroused opposition on the part of the German missionary clergy, but that the popes of the times ultimately sided with the brothers. He showed that Greek did retain a certain place in the Latin Rite, not just in the Kyrie and the Good Friday Agios 'O Theos, but in the Greek and Latin readings of the solemn pontifical liturgies in Rome.
Moving on to more recent times, Feulner described the opening to the vernacular envisaged at Vatican II, and then spoke of Paul VI's 1965 address to the translators of liturgical texts. There, said Feulner, the pontiff had said that "the work of translation aims principally to promote active participation in the liturgy; official translations have themselves become part of the liturgy, but they do not and must not produce new rites; and the type of language to be used in the liturgy should always be worthy of the noble realities it signifies, set apart from the everyday speech of the street."
Feulner then turned to the 1969 instruction, Comme le Prevoit, a document which had shaped the work of the translators, even though, since it was not published in the Actæ Apostolicæ Sedis, it lacks legal standing. According to the instruction, "a good translation produces on the receptors the same effect as on the original audience." This, said Feulner, is a difficult task. One lady asked if translation into the vernacular did not jeopardize unity; the professor replied that it did. He added that, "too much of a dichotomy has been placed between literal translations and beauty. But that is better than a liturgy with no continuity. What is the intention of the translators? What is going on -- translation or rethinking?" Issues of this sort had arisen in many places in the decades since the first set of translations had been issued. For instance, all mention of the soul had been removed from the German rendering of the funeral service. To address these kinds of problems, the Vatican issued an authoritative instruction on translation in 2001, Liturgiam Authenticam.
Superseding all previously issued instructions on the matter, Liturgiam Authenticam calls for new principles of translation. It requires that "all liturgical books must be re-examined." As Feulner said, the document requires that "the Roman Rite has its own manner that must be preserved. The liturgy must give gratitude in the face of God's glory, and not be merely an expression of the disposition of the people."
Rabbi Richard N. Levy presented "Benshen in Bevel: Jewish Prayer as Translation of the Word of God." Rabbi Levy, who participated in civil rights marches in the South during the '60s and visited Refuseniks in the former Soviet Union, is president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the national umbrella group for Reformed Rabbis.
Rabbi Levy began by explaining the Yiddish title ("Devotion in Babel") of his talk. The image of the Tower of Babel shows the need for liturgical translation, he said. "Bavel -- Babel -- is the root of our word 'baffle,'" he continued. "At Babel, God breaks linguistic unity to men from scheming to do whatever they want. The purpose of language [is] not make men gods but to enable them to praise God. [Rabbi] Akiba says God gave the Torah to man in His own language, which many Jews identified with Hebrew. But Rabbi Ishmael said He translated it into man's tongue. Another rabbi maintained that the Torah was given to man in all 70 human languages or root-languages. These 70 hide and control fragments of the Torah, but translation can be used to show the holiness of all 70."
At an early date, the rabbi told us, Aramaic entered the Jewish prayer book, as did Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, and Farsi. But in Jewish worship, translation is not merely a matter of linguistics. "Jewish worship translates scripture into prayer, past into present, and present into future. Since the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., Jews have been unable to offer the mitzvot -- the sacrifices and devotions -- prescribed in the Torah. The rabbis advised believers to read the descriptions of them -- 'please, O God, accept these descriptions and our speaking them, as we were offering them now.' Cannot God accept our reading of the story of Mt. Moriah as our offering ourselves to Him? An individual's intentions are necessary to turn dry texts into offering."
Translation of prayers "can lead to transformation," said Levy. "Take, for example the Haggadah, the account of the first Passover read at the Seder supper. Unless one adds oneself to the reading, you might as well proclaim the 'phone book." But translation is not always helpful. "Music is necessary," Levy continued, "and sometimes the absence of translation can transport. For example, the Kol Nidre's haunting tune and disturbing text of renunciation of vows can be turned into a declaration of personal weakness and inability to keep vows. Here, a translation of the text into English detracts from the meaning."
Rabbi Levy then pointed out that the first major English translation of the Jewish liturgy, the Union Prayer Book, contained sonorous English reminiscent of the Book of Common Prayer. Subsequent modernizing translations had been found lacking; as a result, more and more Reformed people are learning Hebrew. To improve the devotional quality of Reformed worship, a number of scholars were preparing texts that included more Hebrew and more traditional English. It was a sample of this work, he told us, that we would be hearing later in the evening.
Later in the evening, several cantors offered Jewish evening prayer, consisting primarily of psalms and collects -- reminiscent of our "Liturgy of the Word," which is derived from Jewish worship. Prior to this event, Evan Kent, the lead cantor, offered his views of the topic. Explaining that while studying at City University of New York he had served as choirmaster at several Christian churches (including a Catholic one), he had acquired a deep understanding of devotional music. "For a lot of money, I could even give you a Latin Mass!" he told us. It was that experience with sacred language that had led him to a career as a cantor. "The English Reformed liturgy I had grown up with was very uninspiring. But the Hebrew music and prayers lifted my soul up to God."
The following morning, Father Norbert Wood, a Norbertine from St. Michael's Abbey in Silverado, offered a Mass with English readings and Latin prayers at Our Savior University Catholic Center at USC. Father Lawrence Seyer, USC's new Catholic chaplain, concelebrated, while Sandra Dooley read the psalms and epistle. As it was the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we heard the propers of that day. It was a beautiful Mass, with the simple Gregorian chants Vatican II required the faithful of each parish to know.
At 10 a.m. that Sunday, the archdiocese's Sandra Dooley gave her talk, "Liturgical Issues in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States." Dooley holds a bachelor's degree in music education and a Master of Pastoral Studies degree from Loyola University in New Orleans. She began by pointing out that Latin had been the sole language of the liturgy until 1960. Vatican II's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy was very radical, and sparked a number of changes -- most notably the dropping of Latin, she said. But the new English texts came under much criticism as regarded such things as "proclaimability, and the confusing use of pronouns." The bishops approved a revised sacramentary in 1997, "but in 1998, Rome called it into question. Under the new principles of Liturgiam Authenticam, the Vatican denied the 1997 book," said Dooley. The International Commission on English in the Liturgy, which produced the translations, "was restructured, removed from the control of the bishops' conferences, and put under the authority of a new organization, Vox Clara."
Dooley enlarged upon the difficul ties that translators were now being put under and said that exact transla tions were not always appropriate pastorally. Many of the changes in the proposed new translation she felt would be difficult for people who had been used to the current English version for decades. As an example, she cited the alteration of the response "and also with you" to "and with your spirit."
Dooley pointed out that "liturgy is an event, not just recalling the present to us today." After outlining several other concerns and pointing out that the whole matter of translation is, in the Catholic Church, "a tense issue," she mentioned that exact translations have many problems, not least of all ecumenical ones. "We try to soften the accusatory passages in John's Gospel," she said. Moreover, she mentioned that one reason Rome is concerned that the English liturgy be exact is that translations of the liturgical texts into Asian and other Third World tongues are often made from English rather than Latin, due to the lack of qualified Latinists in those countries. "There is a lot more work to do,"she concluded.
After discussion and a coffee break, Canon Kowal ewski presented "Liturgical Languages and Translations in the Anglican Community." After mentioning that Luther had originally retained Latin in his liturgy, Kowalewski described in great detail how the continental reformers, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Zwinglian alike, had changed the emphasis of worship from the visual to the audial. He explained how Cramner's Book of Common Prayer was grounded in scripture and the ancient liturgies and was intended to both unite and edify the English. Moreover, in translating and conflating the liturgy of the hours into Morning Prayer and the Evensong we had heard the day before, Cranmer hoped to bring monastic piety to the masses. In keeping with the focus on speech rather than sight, Cranmer ordered the English churches denuded of all their furnishings -- altars, rood screens, statues, and the like, replacing them with texts of the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer.
The canon then discussed how Anglican liturgy had changed, and the difficulties in recent decades in turning the Elizabethan English into more contemporary -- and sometimes non-English -- modes of worship. This was done to make worship more relevant to the whole community.
Our last speaker was Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky, of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California. As an Orthodox rabbi, he explained that his people were against revision or translation of the liturgy in any way -- although sometimes events forced them to it. For instance, the prayer for the restoration of Israel had provoked a great deal of controversy when Israel was restored; in the end, however, most Orthodox have retained the prayer unchanged. All Orthodox continue to pray for the restoration of the animal sacrifices of the temple, "although many, myself included, hope that if the temple is restored God will give us some way of honoring him that does not require the shedding of blood." Another area in which prayer has changed for the Orthodox is that of patriotic prayer, which waxes or wanes depending on the attitude of the authorities they live under toward the Jews.
I left the conference with the realization that languages tend to die when set apart for liturgical use. As the Reformed Jews have discovered, the problems arising from the use of vernaculars in public worship may be, in many cases, insoluble. Reflecting on the similarity of the positive reaction of Catholic youth when exposed to Latin at the papal funeral and World Youth Day in Cologne to that of Cantor Kent's exposure to Hebrew, it seemed to me that the drafters of Liturgiam Authenticam understood the issues surrounding translation perfectly. In the light of Jewish experience, Pope Benedict XVI's interest in restoring Latin to pride of place makes sense.