Highlight of the Catholic week

By Fr Kevin Reynolds, Pretoria

The plethora of letters and articles in your newspaper since the introduction of amended English liturgical texts is understandable.

Weekly Mass is Catholics’ most meaningful faith experience, hence their vehement reaction.
Besides the insulting sexist language now prescribed, what is at issue, I believe, is stated by two correspondents (December 24–30).

Fr John Converset MCCJ wrote: “There is absolutely no reason why the syntax and structure of the Latin original should be imposed on English.”

Colin Gardner commented: “The new text seems almost to imply that there is something inherently holy about Latin and inherently unholy about proper English”.

One example of the new text’s slavish following of Latin is its concluding scripture readings with the curt wording, “The Word (Gospel) of the Lord”. This hardly evokes a whole-hearted response from the liturgical community, as it should.

As seen in heraldic mottos, Latin does not always need a verb. English does.
The local Church should have a vested interest in the Church’s departure from the former English texts. They were done after Vatican II by the International Committee on English in the Liturgy under the chairmanship of the late Archbishop Denis Hurley. He was a sensitive pastor as well as a brilliant theologian and liturgist.

Having tested the waters, our Church leadership should take seriously the reaction to their changes which have resulted in “awkward Latinate English”.