Missed in Translation

Fr. Michael Wurtz, CSC

Doctoral Candidate

Pontifical Athenaeum Sant’ Anselmo

Contact Author

Some if not much of the discussion (and sometimes confusion) surrounding the forthcoming English translation of the Missale Romanum, editio typica tertia, pertains not so much to legitimately debatable questions surrounding the “art of translation”, but rather to the measures taken to correct mistranslations.  It would seem advantageous to recognize that while legitimate, informed, and differing positions can be held about translations and the schools or principles of translation (most commonly referred to as “dynamic” and “formal”) there is also a third category transcending the other two, that of mistranslation.

Beloved or hated, praised or loathed, Annibale Bugnini remains immutably the author of the oft-cited work, The Reform of the Liturgy: 1948-1975.[1]  First published in Italian in 1983 the work reads, “Alcune Congregazioni, come quella di Santa Croce, sono composte di sacerdoti e fratelli in pari numero.  In alcune case i fratelli sono in numero superiore.  Chiedono perciò di poter dire in volgare le parti dell’ufficio che recitano in comune” (my emphasis).[2]

Seven years later Liturgical Press published an English translation.  And there we read, “Some Congregations, for example, that of the Holy Cross, have equal numbers of priests and lay brothers; in some cases, there are even more brothers than priests.  They ask, therefore, that they may use Latin for the parts of the Office which they recite together.” (my emphasis).[3]

The original work uses “volgare” but the translation uses “Latin”.  Here we have a defining example of not so much a “good translation” or a “bad translation” but rather a “mistranslation”.  By understanding both the languages involved as well as the context one can discern the mistranslation.

“Volgare” is commonly employed in the Italian language to mean “vernacular” and would never be used to mean “Latin”.  For that, one would use the Italian word “Latino”.  English speakers will readily see the word “vulgar” in “volgare” and this then distinguishes from sacral language.

The context further proves that this is a case of mistranslation.  I’m not sure whether “Santa Croce / Holy Cross” references my own congregation or another.  It is, after all, a popular name for Christian communities.  But it is true that at the time the Congregation of Holy Cross had a near-equal number of priests and brothers if not more brothers in some settings.  Permission would not have been needed in order to pray in Latin, which was the normative liturgical language for the priest society.  And so it would make sense that a request would be made to use the vernacular during those communal liturgies when both priests and brothers were in attendance.

Having taken note of both the languages involved as well as the context it can be confidently assumed that the author, translator, and publisher did not intend “volgare” to mean “Latin”.  Rather it was a mistake, a mistranslation.  And so there is nothing really to debate.  This is not a matter of art or taste or style.  Rather it is simply a matter of fact.

Both the informed knowledge of the two languages coupled with a right understanding of the context demonstrates that in Bugnini’s paragraph we have a mistranslation.  There isn’t much to debate.  What could be debated is whether religious communities should have requested the use of the vernacular.  Whether Pope Paul VI should have given such permission.  Whether the communities were positively or negatively influenced by the vernacular.  The list goes on and on.  But such debates are secondary and do not actually touch upon the foundational fact that “volgare” does not mean “Latin”.

Often in print or on blogs what is being discussed, debated and argued isn’t so much the translation itself as it is the underpinning theologies as well as the perceived implications of words; because, as we all know, words matter, especially words in a liturgical setting.  In ritual, words convey religious sentiment.  An example of all of this is the Confiteor.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeg_GmpjKZA

A May 2011 airing by the Public Broadcasting Company (PBS) showed Lorie Crepeau of St. Edna Parish outside of Chicago leading a study session on the new translation.  She says, “In the current translation we say that ‘I have sinned through my own fault’.  Now I am going to say that ‘I have greatly sinned’.  But then they want to reinforce this obviously because now they’ve added ‘Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault’ and you say ‘I get it!  It’s my fault.  I get it!’”[4]

What Crepeau implies is that something was “added” to the English translation of the Confiteor.  And this something is actually two things: words and their implications for conveying religious sentiments.  But in fact nothing is being added, just recognized.  The three-fold confession in Latin (mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa) has been the prayer of the Church through the ages, including the nearly 50 years since the Second Vatican Council.[5]  And like the Latin norm, the three-fold confession formula exists in other vernaculars.

The Spanish missal says, “por mi culpa, por mi culpa, por mi gran culpa”.

The German reads, “durch meine Schuld, durch meine Schuld, durch meine große Schuld”.  The Polish says, “moja wina, moja wina, moja bardzo wielka wina”.

Kiswahili, the official language of Tanzania and Kenya, says, “Nimekosa mimi, Nimekosa mimi, Nimekosa sana”.

The Igbo language in Nigeria says, “Site na mmehie m, site na mmehie m, site na mmehie m nke kasi ukwuu”.

And the Italian reads, “per mia colpa, mia colpa, mia grandissima colpa”.

The Portuguese missal exhibits a two-fold confession with, “por minha culpa, minha tão grande culpa” and in the French we see traces of the original Latin when we read, “Oui, j’ai vraiment péché”.

The English translation of the Confiteor, however, removed completely the three-fold confession found in the normative Latin text.  Is this not better characterized as a mistranslation?

Rather than speaking inaccurately of words being “added” we can speak of words being “subtracted” by the translating body of the reformed missal – a body who, as Fr. Robert Tuzik reminds us, “did the best that it could with a very limited amount of time to produce a vernacular translation with guidelines that were far less precise than those found in Liturgiam authenticam.”[6]  And rather than speaking inaccurately of religious sentiments being added, we can speak of religious sentiments having been present in the Church’s prayer tradition all along even if the English speaking Church did not recognize them.

The underpinning theology of the Penitential Rite in general and the Confiteor in particular has not changed.  What may be startling to English ears has in fact been continuously the religious sentiment before and after the Second Vatican Council.  Our German, Polish, Spanish, etc, confreres know this.  Those who are startled by the three-fold confession and who think the Church now has an undue emphasis on sin and guilt are in fact only experiencing their own Copernican Revolution.  Just as the sun was always at the center of the galaxy, so too the words and sentiments of the three-fold confession were always there.  Anyone who prays the Mass in Latin, Italian, or any of the other languages listed above already knows this.  It is just news (startling or otherwise) to the English speaking Church.

Another example lies in the Gloria.  There the Latin says, “Laudámus te, benedícimus te, adorámus te, glorificámus te, gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam”.  The forthcoming English will state, “We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you, we give you thanks for your great glory”.  The 1975 English translation left out significant vocabulary, which could be categorized more as a mistranslation than a “dynamic” or a “formal” translation.

It could be argued that the aforementioned example of the Bugnini book is more of a typographical error than a mistranslation.  Was using “Latin” for “volgare” deliberate or just an oversight or typo?  It is a fair question.  I don’t know the translator Matthew J. O’Connell’s mind and, to be clear, I am not making a moral judgment.  Certainly the category of mistranslation differs from mere printing errors.[7]

But the Bugnini example does assist in recognizing that the third category of mistranslation does exist which transcends the common debates between the various legitimate ways one can approach the art of translation (“dynamic” or “formal” for example).  And similarly, the Confiteor example reminds us that the liturgy we inherit is to shape us so that the individual’s self-understanding might be transformed by the sentiments of the broader Christian worshipping tradition, not vice-versa.

And herein lies a great benefit the forthcoming translation will give to the English speaking Church – awareness!  What was hidden by mistranslation is now seen.  What was once unheard is heard.  Both the specific words and the religious sentiments they convey are now laid out to be experienced.

Nothing is being added.  The words and the sentiments were there all along.

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