Parishes across the country have been getting ready, in one form or another, for the release of the new English translation of the Roman Missal, which happens officially this coming Sunday. Like many Catholics, I’ve been dreading this for awhile, but unable to really figure out why. After all, change is inevitable and it isn’t like Holy Mother Church has said we have to go back to actually celebrating the Mass in Latin (although some fear this may be the next step), simply that the wording needs to more accurately reflect the original Latin translation. My writer’s ear and publication background are offended by the violation of a cardinal rule of writing – don’t use a fancy word when simple will do -  since this translation moves us from clear, certain, understandable language to more obtuse, complicated, awkward language. But, overall, will those wording changes seem so convoluted a year from now? I’m not so sure.

Still, there was an upset in my heart and not simply because of the homilies I’ve heard in different parishes over the past month or the reports from friends of the homilies they’ve heard — homilies where not one positive word was said about the gift of Vatican II, the simple joy of being able to come to a Church and actually understand what the heck was going on. The fact that many priests (and/of bishops) are using this time of change in translation to issue, in one priest’s unfortunate choice of words, “a corrective” in liturgical habits of particular parishes, has also been more than a little irritating. (One very active, faithful mid-20-something Catholic said hearing her pastor’s sermon condemning her parish’s habit of holding hands during The Lord’s Prayer felt hurtful and she couldn’t understand why he felt the need to – in a time of translation shock – take away something most in her community find unifying in prayer. “It isn’t ‘My father,’ it’s ‘Our Father,‘” she said, explaining why it make sense to the laity to hold hands.)

That said, I didn’t think it was the homilies per se that were upsetting me until I read the thoughts of Fr. James Martin, S.J. today. One of my favorite Jesuits (and definitely Colbert’s favorite), Martin said he was sad about losing the Sacramentary, or the book of Mass prayers the priest uses to celebrate Mass. Those prayers are being part of the new translation and he said there’s been no real mention of the “appreciation for the riches it brought to the church for the last few decades.”

Ah, there it is. I’m sad because what we’re losing with this translation is just as important as what some people say we are gaining and I’ve not heard that from any priest. Our grief over the loss of the words that brought us to God (or kept us there) has not been acknowledged. Instead we’ve heard that this change is necessary because what we had before was wrong. We went too far astray. We got too familiar with God, too familiar with the Mass, too familiar with each other (all that holding of hands!). The message many Catholics have been getting from the “instruction” on the new translation is that Rome needs to rein us in with more high-minded language so we’ll remember what we’re doing and how important the Liturgy is – intimating that we haven’t recognized the importance of the Liturgy all these years.

These messages  have had the effect of a kick in the stomach to most of the people in the pews. Martin’s piece is the antidote to that. A snip:

It would be odd, therefore, not to acknowledge some sadness over the passing of something so central to Catholic life as what will soon be called the “old” Sacramentary.  Even if you are eagerly anticipating the new translations, something significant is moving into the past, and is being lost.

And loss requires some acknowledgement. It seems most of the clergy are intent on ignoring the sadness many of their parishioners feel in this moment, so busy are they kow-towing to the group that thinks these changes are long overdue or using it as a moment to make “correctives.” (Or maybe, as some Catholics have suggested, they’re just clueless.) Surely there is a balance between who-hooing the changes and recognizing the gift that they were to the Church. It is not that the old translation of the Mass prayers was horrible; it wasn’t. Indeed, as Martin so honestly writes, those prayers were full of language that was “simple, clean, clear, direct, unadorned, beautiful.”

It is language that resulted in thousands of conversions to Catholicism in the past four decades in the U.S., conversions were not wrought in a Latin-speaking Mass setting. There should be some acknowledgement of that fact, and so I say, “Amen, brother,” to Fr. Martin for giving voice to what many of my Catholic friends and I are feeling. And, I’m glad you’re keeping your Sacramentary. May you be able to pray the old as you get used to the new.

There’s no lack of opinion about the sex abuse scandal surrounding the football program at Penn State. The best have focused on the fact that college sports, particularly football, are abusive in their very nature, taking advantage of young people while paying 7-figure salaries to coaches. On the other hand, we have this post, where a 31-year-old graduate student argues (poorly) that the Penn State scandal is evidence of the failings of his parents’ generation. (Note to readers: Go read the link above before reading further in this post. I’ll wait.)

Thomas Day, a graduate student in public policy at the University of Chicago, has decided that the pervert who allegedly raped multiple young boys and the athletic culture that let him get away with it (and, ahem, the district attorney who decided not to prosecute when Penn State Police reported the incidents), are one more example of his elders screwing up. His argument is weak on a number of levels, but strong emotion will do that to you. Then again, one would hope that someone in graduate school could come up with a more cogent and non-generalized argument than that Baby Boomers basically inherited the Garden of Eden and destroyed it before passing it on to their kids.

He says that his parents generation:

… inherited a country of boundless economic prosperity and the highest admiration overseas, produced by the hands of their mothers and fathers. They were safe. For most, they were endowed opportunities to succeed, to prosper, and build on their parents’ work.

Really? Baby Boomers were born between the years of 1946 and 1964. They reached their 20s between the years of 1966 and 1984 and took the reins, so to speak, of the world at about the age young Mr. Day is now, between the years of 1976 and 1994, and they lived through a Great Recession of their own in the ’80s. (Boundless economic prosperity, my fanny.) Day argues that Baby Boomers have have spent their entire lives trying to mess up their kids’ future. As opposed to, say, earn enough money so they could send their kid to Penn State. Or buy him a car. Or put food on the table. Or fight for Title IX and affirmative action and women’s rights and Civil Rights and, oh yeah, set up Pell Grants and other higher education initiatives so the younger generation (aka Mr. Day) could have a chance at a better life through higher education. (Note to Day: I didn’t say have a guarantee of a better life. I said a chance. There are no guarantees in life.)

I’m guessing that Day probably was spoiled by his parents, as were so many children of the Baby Boomers and spoiling comes with consequences. While my husband and I took a different route from many Baby Boomers and lived on one income while we raised our four children, we had many friends who were dual-income families and, Day is correct, those dual incomes led to lots of spending. But that spending was not, as he argues, all about the parents. Rather, it tended to be all about the kids, and the result is a generation that believes things should be easy: they should be able to start at the top with a job, the top with the type of house they buy, the top of the heap with everything.

Life has been easy for Day’s generation, and now that they’ve got a really bad break – an economy that’s crashing on all of us, not just them – they are whining and, in Day’s case, blaming Baby Boomers. More from his piece:

Now we are asking for jobs and are being told we aren’t good enough, to the tune of 3.3 million unemployed workers between the ages of 25 and 34.

News flash, sweetie – you don’t ask for a job. You EARN a job. You compete for a job. You work your butt off at a McDonald’s or a Staples or a vet clinic or wherever will hire you, and in your free time, you network and apply and hone your interview skills and compete for the job you want. You don’t complain. You don’t spend a bunch of money eating out multiple times a week or going to happy hours. You save and scrimp and get by and then, hopefully, get to work. Something, by the way, your parents generation did in droves. In fact your parents’ generation is still at it. Why? Because they’re good at their jobs and, sadly, there is an entire generation (that would be yours, Mr. Day) who don’t think they should have to work all that hard and thus, can’t compete with the Baby Boomers for the jobs out there.

More:

Our parents’ generation has balked at the tough decisions required to preserve our country’s sacred entitlements, leaving us to clean up the mess. They let the infrastructure built with their fathers’ hands crumble like a stale cookie. They downgraded our nation’s credit rating. They seem content to hand us a debt exceeding the size of our entire economy, rather than brave a fight against the fortunate and entrenched interests on K Street and Wall Street.

Really? First, your parents generation is still trying to help clean up the mess. Do they need help from the younger generation? Absolutely – but the younger generation has, thus far, not shown up in any record numbers. The Baby Boomers downgraded the country’s credit rating? Funny, I thought that was Standard & Poors, which, as you surely know, also gave great ratings to the banks that got us into the mess in the first place. As for the battle over entitlements and the debt, again, not your parents’ generation but, rather, Congress and – surprise! – one of the leading figures of the younger generation – President Obama. Believe me, your parents’ generation is just as pissed off about all this stuff as you are.

What is holding your generation back, Mr. Day, isn’t a lack of leadership from your parent’s generation, but rather, a lack of dedication and spine from within many in your own generation. This is, after all, the generation for whom the term “delayed adolescence” was coined. They want sushi instead of beans and rice or chicken-vegi casserole. (And that sushi your generation so craves? What about the environmental damage that over-fishing is causing? Where’s the leadership there?). You want to take over? Please – we’d love to see some of your ideas. But the ideas that you spout in your opinion piece don’t hold water. Such as the idea that we have a leaderless culture and that’s what led to Penn State students acting like criminals:

Perhaps the most vivid illustration this week of our leaderless culture came with the riots in State College that followed Paterno’s dismissal. The display resembled Lord of the Flies. Without revered figures from the older generation to lead them, thousands of students at one of the country’s best state universities acted like children home alone.

The riot had nothing to do with those students lacking elders as leaders. It had to do with some college students being immature and – no doubt fueled by the shots your generation so prefers to beer – stupid. If they had been mature and thoughtful, they wouldn’t have been defending Paterno, they would have been raising money for the victims and figuring out a way to reform the college football system. If they’d been thinking (as leaders do), they would have never fallen into such god-worship of a football coach and a university in the first place.

You think you can fix the world? Have at it, brilliant boy. We are waiting for someone from your generation to step up and lead. But what have you done for the country lately? The Occupy Movement, where one person speaks and the rest of you repeat and no one seems to know exactly what the goal is? Have you run for public office? Do you vote? Most of your generation hasn’t even given deep thought to the upcoming elections. This post says you’re dispirited; I would say you’re intellectually lazy because it takes time and focus to study and examine all the issues this country is facing (and all the many sides to each of those issues). Do you do that? Have you read a policy paper? Or do you, like most of your generation, get bits and pieces from Colbert, Jon Stewart and Facebook?

In your follow-up post to your screed on Baby Boomers, you said that “in time, our generation will take the wheel.” That sentence, Mr. Day, is what is wrong with your generation: You’re still waiting to dive in with both feet and solve the problems. When your parents were your age, I bet they were in the thick of things. Stop waiting. Take the wheel now. Come up with solutions now. You actually take a pass at DOING anything in your follow-up post:

There is so much to be done in Washington — immigration reform, reforming our entitlements, cleaning our environment, putting people back to work — and my parents’ generation could make their mark as the one that kept America on top for good, if they only acted.  Listen, I’m 31 and in graduate school.  Very few people in my generation are in positions where we can directly make change.

You are wrong, Mr. Day – and – dare I say it? I think you might be afraid. You can directly make change now. Run for office, for goodness sake. There is many a Baby Boomer who worked full-time while in graduate school and volunteering for the public good or serving in public office (local school boards, for instance). You can do it.

You are long on critique but short on solutions. We ALL all know we need immigration reform, etc., but HOW we get to that reform is where the hard work is. Roll up your sleeves and jump in Mr. Day, or, respectfully, stop blaming your parents’ generation for what ails us. Unless you are living off the grid, you’re part of the problem, too. Take the time, energy, concentration and focus to really examine the country’s problems and figure out possible solutions. We eagerly await your ideas and hope they come soon because, frankly, your parents’ generation is getting tired.

Folks familiar with Godblogging’s normal proclivity to have an opinion on all things Catholic have been nagging me to comment on the upcoming ta-da moment of the new translation of the Roman Missal. I’ve declined up until now for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that writing a coherent, cohesive and educational post about something that includes the words “consubstantial” and “Liturgiam” takes a good chunk of time (read: my entire Sunday afternoon and part of my evening).

Nonetheless, here we go. First, this isn’t the end of the world or a complete reversal of the Second Vatican Council’s original reforms on the missal, which called for the Latin-worded Mass to be translated into the vernacular of each country. Neither is it to be conflated with power-grabs by certain priests or bishops to turn back the clock and rein in the Holy Spirit  (although those issues are massively troublesome by themselves) nor does it portend, as this not-quite-complete article suggests, ritual whiplash is in the offing.

That said, the new translation is more of a big deal to some clergy and laity than the official church would have us believe, partially because the document that demanded the new translation (Liturgiam Authenticam, 2001) was the Vatican’s rather loud hand-slap to national and regional conferences of bishops – including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops – which had, heretofore, been allowed by the 1969 document Comme le prevoit to approve liturgical translations.

Additionally, there was no input from the laity, who are, after all, the folks most affected by the wording of the Mass and whom, Rome’s assertions aside, want a say in the Church. (For a humorous look at the translation – we all need some good humor at this point – and the lack of lay input, see this over at PrayTell.)

Finally, people are upset because many of the changes seem unnecessary and one of them – to the Confiteor – actually is a direct and firm step back to pre-Vatican II theological thought (something, by the way, I would’t have known if I was raised in a pre-Vatican II Church because I wouldn’t have been encouraged to read the Bible, much less join study sessions on the Vatican II documents.)

On the unnecessary side, one can look at a change to the Nicene Creed, where we used to say “…begotten, not made, one in being with the Father,” and now will say, “… begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father.” Does Rome really think most people will know what “consubstantial” means? (I can hear the homilies and reactions even now: Priest: “So, consubstantial means to be the same as, in other words, Jesus is God.” People in the pews: “Well, why don’t we just say ‘We believe Jesus is God’ then?” Sigh.)

On the march-back-to-pre-Vatican II side we have an important addition to the Confiteor, what many Catholics know as the “I confess” prayer. Before Vatican II, the emphasis in that prayer – and much of Catholic life – was placed on the unworthiness of a person instead of the grace and mercy of God. After Vatican II, the emphasis was changed: Yes, we were sinners, but God was loving and merciful and that mercy became the focus.

I was only 3 years old when the Vatican II Council was first called, so I do not remember the days of “Catholic guilt” that many of my older friends and relatives recall in the pre-Vatican II Church. I do remember relatives and friends telling me they left the Church because of that guilt. As one aunt – now in her late 80s – said to me a few years ago, she had enough pain in daily life, she didn’t need to go to Church “and feel horrible there, too.” So the fact that the Confiteor adds the words “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault” to the confession is a turn for the worse, IMHO.

If Holy Mother Church really wanted the Confiteor to be honest and reflective of real life, even if it didn’t match the original Latin text, it should be “I confess to Almighty God, and you by brothers and sisters, that I have sinned, sometimes with full thought and intent – and thus through my grevious fault – but many times through human weakness, confusion and, some times, just plain stupidity.”

Because that’s what we humans are much of the time: weak, stupid and confused. Luckily, God loves us anyway, even if the translators (or original writers) of the Catholic Missal don’t seem to understand that.

As you can read in this great collection of opinions in the Adoremus Bulletin, a number of clergy have taken issue with the translation (or need for one), so it isn’t just laity that have frustration or concern over what is behind these changes. While I tend to agree with my pastor at Tucson’s St. Thomas More Catholic Newman Center that the changes in liturgical wording might wake up Catholics who have long mumbled their way through memorized Mass parts, I also think the assessment of Father William J. O’Malley, S.J. makes a point:

“… the changes are palliatives to the specialist minds of theologians, liturgists, and church historians. In a conversation with several priests, I was dimwitted enough to ask, “But what about the audience?” And one said, pretty intensely, “The audience doesn’t matter. It’s the message that matters!”

The message will matter little if people aren’t there to hear it – and O’Malley argues these changes are the opposite of what is needed to reach disenfranchised Catholics. A few 20-somethings I spoke with after Mass today seemed to agree. They didn’t much care that the wording would change (“Oh well,” one said, “I guess they have to have something to keep them busy in Rome.”), but they feared that this reach from the Vatican was a harbinger of things to come.

One said the Church may state that She wants the “full and active participation” by the laity in the liturgy, but what She really wants “is the laity following around men in dresses doing exactly what they say, never having an opinion and only being involved to a certain point.” In other words, please fully participate in the prayers we, as the Church heirarchy, say that you, as laity, may say and nothing more, even if you erroneously believe the Holy Spirit is moving you to pray a certain way. Pretty pointed, and, sadly, pretty accurate. Another said, sighing with resignation, “It doesn’t matter what we think. We have no voice. This is just one more thing making me wonder why I stick around.”

There are those who argue that the way they feel close to God is by having a giant wall of separation brought about through more “spiritual” language and a highly defined boundary between clergy and laity (see: clericalism.) You can find plenty of these folks at the St. Gianna Oratory, where Mass is said in Latin, there are no female altar servers (or lectors) and the priest faces away from the congregation as he celebrates Mass – just as it was done for centuries before Vatican II.

But there are other Catholics who discovered after Vatican II that they get closer to God by actually understanding what was being said during Mass. You’ll find these people at just about every other parish in the United States. To them, the clarity the Vatican says will come with the new translation may be elusive. And for the young (and perhaps not-so-young) Catholics who already feel the Church is keeping them at arms length when it comes to active participation in liturgy, the renewal Rome hopes they feel with the change in liturgical wording may be hollow. Then again, a year from now, many (if not most) Catholics will not even remember the difference. Those will be the Catholics who stayed. We won’t know – and I fear the Church won’t care – about the ones who leave.