{"id":3541,"date":"2007-01-10T08:39:34","date_gmt":"2007-01-10T08:39:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/01\/pro-multis.html"},"modified":"2007-01-10T08:39:34","modified_gmt":"2007-01-10T08:39:34","slug":"pro-multis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/01\/pro-multis.html","title":{"rendered":"Pro Multis"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Allen reports on an address given by Bishop Trautman of Erie, chair of the USCCB Committee on liturgy.<\/a> The address was to the Catholic Academy of Liturgy. <\/a><\/p>\n

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According to a press release issued by a member of the academy\u2019s Executive Committee, Jesuit Fr. Keith Pecklers of Rome\u2019s Gregorian University, Trautman \u201ccontended that the new translations do not adequately meet the liturgical needs of the average Catholic,\u201d and he \u201cexpressed fears that the significant changes in the texts no longer reflect understandable English usage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTrautman argued that the proposed changes of the people\u2019s parts during the Mass will confuse the faithful, and predicted that the new texts will contribute to a greater number of departures from the Catholic Church,\u201d the release stated.<\/p>\n

Trautman also challenged a recent ruling from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments that the Latin phrase pro multis<\/em> in the formula for the consecration of the Precious Blood should be rendered as \u201cfor many\u201d rather than the current English phrase \u201cfor all.\u201d<\/p>\n

The translation of pro multis<\/em> has long been a key concern of liturgical conservatives, who see it as emblematic of how post-Vatican II translations sometimes left the actual meaning of the original texts behind in their quest for relevance.<\/p>\n

Trautman, however, said that altering the translation of pro multis<\/em> now could give a misleading impression of what the church teaches about the significance of Christ shedding his blood on the Cross.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat change easily could be misinterpreted as denying the faith of the Roman Catholic Church that Christ died for all people,\u201d the press release quoted Trautman as saying.<\/p>\n

Trautman encouraged members of the academy to speak out in opposition to such changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cBishop Trautman challenged Catholic liturgical scholars of North America to assist the bishops in promoting a liturgy that is accessible and pastorally aware,\u201d the release said. \u201cHe urged them, in a spirit of respect and love for the Church, to be courageous in questioning those developments that would render the liturgy incomprehensible and betray the intention of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Just one point. It is probably not a good idea for opponents of implementing liturgical directives from Rome to wring their hands about "confusing the faithful," since this concern hasn’t been in play, evidently for decades, particularly where the more creative liturgists among us are concerned. It’s not as if we’ve had the impression that they’ve cared one whit about confusing us up to this point. <\/p>\n

And, as Tim points out in the comments, playing the "Second Vatican II" card is can come back to you as well. <\/p>\n

Personally, I find the dogma of the Trinity confusing. Can we be more pastorally sensitive about that, too? <\/p>\n

After we attended the Byzantine liturgy at Christmas down in Knoxville, Michael observed that one of the fruits of a liturgy like that (and remember, it was in English), with its chant, movement, constant back-and-forth between congregation and priest\/deacon, incense, iconostasis, etc., was that it rouses curiosity. It prompts you to ask questions, it inspires you to think and to seek because it is not all laid out like a pancake on your plate. Face it. God is Mystery. Who is God? How can God be, what is the power of this Love and Mercy? Is it possible that in this mess of world, redemption awaits me, you, all of us, invites us, entices us? It is not about willful obtuseness. It is about, at some level, imaging the reality of God’s Presence, even as we acknoweldge the reality of that Presence. That is what sign and symbol is all about. By flattening the symbols, by making all very ordinary, we communicate that God is ordinary, that there’s nothing much to this religious business, nothing much at all. <\/p>\n

Christian faith is this amazing, heady mix of paradoxes and contradictions. The gospel is grasped by the simple, by children. God is here, right here among us. But that God is …well…God, One mysterious and immanent all at the same time. Pastorally concerned liturgy seems to end up in this odd place in which, because the symbols and rituals are stripped, made ordinary and endlessly explained, we understand far less than we did before.<\/p>\n

A series of articles on "pro multis" in case you’re just catching up.<\/a><\/p>\n

Here is Cardinal Arinze’s letter. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Keith Pecklers of Rome\u2019s Gregorian University, Trautman \u201ccontended that the new…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nPro Multis - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/01\/pro-multis.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pro Multis - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"John Allen reports on an address given by Bishop Trautman of Erie, chair of the USCCB Committee on liturgy. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3541\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}