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Maurice Timothy ReidyJanuary 03, 2011

Beginning in Advent of 2011, the U.S. church will be using a new English translation of the Roman Missal. The current translation was promulgated in 1973, and for the past past several years the International Commission on English has been working on a new text. The controversy surrounding this translation, including the decision not to use a text proposed by an earlier iteration of ICEL, has been well documented in America. Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli, the chair of the USCCB Committee on Divine Worship, offers the bishops' case for the new translation in March.

Though the full translation will not be available until late 2011, the Order of Mass is online and can be downloaded here as a pdf. The U.S. bishops' conference has also posted a special Web page on the new Roman Missal, including this helpful FAQ page.

Examples of the coming changes are also available from the USCCB.

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Leonard Villa
14 years 4 months ago
You actually can get the full translation online from wikileaks. It's out there. Unfortunately I could not get it as one pdf file.  It's a series of pdf files.  For example files 8 and 9 have the prefaces in the new translation.  Check out this link:

http://www.chantcafe.com/2010/11/received-text-on-wikileaks.html
David Smith
14 years 4 months ago
Thanks.  The questions in the FAQ are good, but the answers seem out of sync with the questions - perfunctorily bureaucratic, for the most part.

In the examples I read of the new Order of the Mass and the first few examples on chantcafe.com seem clear improvements.  No doubt there are changes that aren't improvements.  On the whole, it all seems rather academic, and I wish the bishops had provided a more cogent answer to their first question:  "Why was there a need for a new translation?"

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