Friday, December 07, 2012

Yet Another Re-presentation of the Tablet Survey



I don't think the Tablet can cope with the Church in the Modern World, one blogger suggested it might be sponsored by "Saga", it is full of nostalgic, looking backwards to the time when it cutting edge and its staff youthful.

They put up survey looking at the change in Mass texts introduced last Advent. I went to see if they had published the results yet, they haven't. But then they had to change the original survey a couple of times because, ...well, I except whoever compiled the survey doesn't actually go to Mass that often.

So if you click on the appropriate page you get this, "... this survey replaces one that was on our site briefly last weekend and which we unfortunately had to take down due to technical difficulties. That means any submission received before Wednesday won't be counted in our survey results".

Interestingly the new survey asks about attachment to the Traditional Mass presumably because that wickedly charitable Fr Zhulsdorf got his hordes to respond, just to help the Tablet out. Or maybe it just the Tablet suspects those who actually have the affrontary to prefer the new translations might also be rabid enough to go to Mass in both "Forms". Being the Tablet and riddled with nostalgia they refer to it disparagingly as the "Tridentine" Mass.

They have also caught onto the fact that some people in dim appartments in Montana might actually spend all night, clicking on the survey over and over again.

I would have loved to have seen the results of the survey before it was "re-presented", I suspect it might have made Ma and co choke on their hobnobs.
Do have yet another go, see if they prefer the revised text of the survey rather than old ICEL version cobbled together on the back of a Warwick Street Newsletter.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Took it. Check out one of the new questions: "Just as admirers of the Tridentine Rite have been allowed to continue using the pre-Conciliar liturgy, I think people who favour the old English-language translation of the Mass should be allowed to celebrate it in that version"

They also ask which translation you prefer and include the TLM as an option so they can weed you out a la the Delphi Technique.

Our Lady of Good Success-pray for us. said...

apparently you need to be of lower order of intelligence to be able to handle 'consubstantial': otherwise the improvements have been described as, "stilted, awkward, unnatural, strange, choppy, clumsy, obtuse, wooden, tortured, terrible, ridiculous, inaccessible and abominable.”

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2012/the-oh-so-thoughtful-church-is-still-steamed-about-the-translation

for the record, “stilted, awkward, unnatural, strange, choppy, clumsy, obtuse, wooden, tortured, terrible, ridiculous, inaccessible and abominable", sums me up pretty well - must be why I prefer it - and worse, am abominably drawn to ecclesiastical Latin.

Our Lady of Good Success-pray for us. said...

p.s. RE: through my fault, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa

does the new translation provide that there may be an alternative? never prayed this in my parish church...

GOR said...

The Tablet process sounds like Colonel Klink of the old TV show Hogan’s Heroes: “Ve vill keep kvestioning you until ve get the right answer…macht schnell!”

Highland Cathedral said...

It now says:
“survey, which has XX questions.” But it doesn’t have 20 questions; it has 23. But then, again, why should we expect the Tablet to understand Roman numbers.

BJC said...

The venality is there in questions like this.

"Just as admirers of the Tridentine Rite have been allowed to continue using the pre-Conciliar liturgy, I think people who favour the old English-language translation of the Mass should be allowed to celebrate it in that version"

Amfortas said...

They wised up to people answering more than once. You can't do that now.

johnf said...

"Just as admirers of the Tridentine Rite have been allowed to continue using the pre-Conciliar liturgy, I think people who favour the old English-language translation of the Mass should be allowed to celebrate it in that version"

A most stupid question.

If this were followed up, then every time there was a change to the English translation (and there will be), there would be those agitating for the old version. What a recipe for chaos.

The Rad Trad said...

The old Mass is a totally different rite and order of Mass. This is just a [somewhat] official translation of the official text of the Pauline rite... Not that the Bitter Pill cares.

Physiocrat said...

"Mass may be said in the vernacular" suggests that it was in the mind of those framing the regulations that this would be exceptional, not normative. It is a useful option for catechetical purposes.

In the light of the hoo-ha about the new translation, insisting that the public celebration of the Mass should normally be in Latin would be an appropriate response. Give the clergy 12 months to learn it so that it would come into force on the First Sunday in Advent, 2013.

Tonia Marshall said...

"Some of the florid language is obsequious and distracting"

No bias in this question!

Physiocrat said...

"Some of the florid language is obsequious and distracting"

Another good reason for using Latin. The new translation is good for study, chatechesis and VERY occasional use.

With a language as politically loaded as English, you can't win. The Tablet has inadvertently made a good case for Latin. But why is this even being discussed? The situation is set out in Sacrosanctum Concilium.

36. 1. Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites.

2. But since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended. This will apply in the first place to the readings and directives, and to some of the prayers and chants, according to the regulations on this matter to be laid down separately in subsequent chapters.

and

54. In Masses which are celebrated with the people, a suitable place may be allotted to their mother tongue. This is to apply in the first place to the readings and "the common prayer," but also, as local conditions may warrant, to those parts which pertain to the people, according to the norm laid down in Art. 36 of this Constitution.

Nevertheless steps should be taken so that the faithful may also be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them.


The extension of the use of the vernacular to the point that it has become almost universal looks like abuse and needs to be dealt with.

vetusta ecclesia said...

The question on translations is a nonsense since the Latin texts of both NO and EF are typical, not translations

Nicolas Bellord said...

The word "obsequious" as a description of the new text rather threw me.

My SOED defines "obsequious" as follows:

1. a. Compliant with the will of another, prompt to serve, please or follow directions, obedient, dutiful. now rare [particularly at The Tablet!]

b. Dutiful in manifesting regard for the death, proper to obsequies

2. Servilely compliant; fawning, cringing, sycophantic.

I suppose they meant the 2nd meaning! Which poses a bit of a problem for me.

Prior to Christmas do I say to God "I want a red tricycle" or do I say "If it is your will having a nice red tricycle would be rather jolly"? Is that obsequious?

The Lord’s descent into the underworld

At Matins/the Office of Readings on Holy Saturday the Church gives us this 'ancient homily', I find it incredibly moving, it is abou...