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Online Edition - February 2006
Vol. XI, No. 10

About Letters to the Editor

READERS' FORUM

Readers' Forum -- the lively "Letters to the Editor" of the Adoremus Bulletin provides a forum for exchange of ideas, comment and information on the sacred liturgy -- but the letters column is not published online.

If you are reading the Adoremus Bulletin in the "online edition" only, you are missing one of the most popular and useful features of the journal. To become a member of Adoremus -- and receive the "hard-copy" edition, including the "Readers Forum", see Membership page.

We are grateful for your letters. While we read every letter, we get so many that it is impossible to answer or publish all of them. In selecting those to appear in "Readers Forum", preference will be given to subjects of widest interest. Letters should be 250 words or fewer, preferably typed. They may be e-mailed. Please include your name, address, city and state (which may be withheld on request). If a letter refers to a previous issue of AB, please include the date of that issue and name of article. All letters may be edited for publication. Be sure to indicate clearly if your letter is NOT intended for publication.

Readers' Forum -- February 2006 -- Mangling the Gloria “an abomination” | Translation Matters | Good Vibes on Mass Translation | Why Do We Use Incense? | Why the RSV? | Dies Irae | Hail Mary at Mass | Changing Terms | Music during Communion | Adding “Acclamations”

Mangling the Gloria “an abomination”
Your report of the discussion by American bishops on English translations of the liturgical texts (AB Dec-Jan 06) indicates a general feeling among them that the translation of the Ordinary of the Mass (Gloria, etc.) ought to remain the same, because the laity have become accustomed to it.

We are, indeed, very familiar with it: who could not be who has attended many Masses in the English language over the past few decades? But familiarity with it does not imply that we like it. We did not choose it: it was imposed on us. Our opinion has never been asked.

The mangling of the Gloria, in particular, is an abomination. Those responsible thought it their business, not merely to translate, but to revise; this ancient Christian hymn, used in the Byzantine as well as the Roman rite, ought to have been treated with respect. Instead, it has been dismembered.

When I can, I attend a Mass in which it is sung in Latin, because I find the English version so painful and therefore so distracting.

I hope the argument that ‘what we are familiar with must be kept as it is’ will not be given any more weight than it deserves, which is to say none.

Professor Sir Michael Dummett
Oxford, England

Sir Michael Dummett, Wykeham Professor of Logic (emeritus) of the University of Oxford, is a world-renowned philosopher of mathematics and linguistics. His essay criticizing ICEL translations, “Revision of the Roman Liturgy, a Review”, appeared in the Adoremus Bulletin in March 1997.
(www.adoremus.org/397-Dummett.html)

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