By Prof. Nana Essilfie-Conduah
Historically, it is said the Vatican had never been short of two categories of able Officers, Finance and State. Francis Cardinal Spellman was one of the very splendid at Finance. His fatal error was to flaunt his expertise when he knocked the gate in Heaven for admission after he had died in an encounter with St. Peter, said the joke.
The underlying problem with him was his apparent rejection of “moral simplicity” a contradiction Popes feel besieged by defending the opulence of the Church and “Peter’s pence (poverty) as a rock solid principle. Some years back, Cardinal Heenan shocked the World Synod of Bishops in Rome to uphold St. Peter – that the Vatican should sell some of its art treasures. His idea was to use the proceeds to help the poor and needy. The condemnation was led by Cardinal Jose Slipyi (Ukraine). The Pope then I believe was John XXIII. He was taken for a bad mistake.
Another Cardinal Sarah has supposedly made remarks in a commentary on a Papal directive which for all intents and purposes could be interpreted as further liberalisation with regard to the hold of Rome on the Universal Church – not “international.”
The Sarah Commentary
Thus the Sarah commentary has engaged Pope Francis in a fresh argument. This one concerns liturgical translation. Central in it is conflict between flexibility and rigidity. It dates back to when compulsory Latin was firstly eased out of the Mass superseded by lingua franca specific to each jurisdiction, secondly made optional and to date optionally mixed appropriately during the celebration of the Holy Eucharist and at other liturgical rites within Roman Catholicism.
But the laissez faire has always had one underlining translation difficulty which derives from language precision and the lack of exact equivalences in the local renditions everywhere. Fundamentally, that in most cases the problem of imprecision had been overlooked and let go with the closest nuanced vocabulary to fit the translated version.
For example, I have often wondered about a sentence in Ga (Accra) in a post-communion prayer recitation [in this instance either “say” or “repeat” after me which goes:” me yesu dzro, me inshi bie ma ya; mi nhio yio ake me nine baahye onno eko hu…” –*I am leaving here for the moment but I believe I am going to get you again.* Clearly, it is threatening and such as straightforwardly understood verbatim.
But that is not correct. It is rather a self-re-assurance that the suppliant would receive the nourishment of the “body of Christ” again at the next Mass attendance. Conflict here is not approximation only. It involves conceptualizing. That misleads into the mistranslation between the myriad of languages.
The illustration misses out on the acceptance to equate meanings of “get” and “receive” because both connote acceptability in one language and more; yet it does not require the precision of a philologist to say there is an error.
Interestingly and quite un-thought deeply about inadvertently is that the entire statement is speaking of the confident hope of receiving the same blessing at the next attendance. The import strengthens this: We receive the Holy Communion. We do not “get” the Holy Eucharist. Something such as “me hio yeo ake m’na odzomo nakai nonn ye mli ke mba eko hu”. (I believe I shall receive the same blessing with you in me when next I come.
After all, it is not regular for most us part time God). Like it is explained for the Pope as saying ‘the worth and coherence of one or another term in translation from the original” – Latin, I suppose, is what matters; and that the approving authority is ceded to the Bishops’ Conferences. [Liturgiam Authenticam 2001 to Magnum Principium 2017].
Co-operation and Dialogue
The rational for the shift should promote co-operation and dialogue. I understand the Pope’s flexible approach as a solution to that fundamental translation quandary in two parts: [i] uphold the universality of the Church. The relevant reference is the word “coherent”; [ii] shoot dead “erroneous” impression, more than likely as the Ga example quoted earlier; and [iii] keep in exile any “impositions” from the Papacy [Vatican].
The [iii] has highly sensitive history which the Pope has glossed over on apparent assumption that the inference is not necessary. I think it is an important reminder to undertake. The Church in Germany was thrown into self-torture during the first quarter of the 17th century in a rebellion to secede by Martin Luther. (Luther got by halfedly. Thus, arrived Lutheranism splintering over time into the conglomerate called Protestantism today. Outstanding being Henry VIII’s divorce from Rome because Pope Clement VII refused him another dispensation to marry a third).
The objection of Pope Francis’ against the Cardinal Sarah commentary allegedly, was a German kind of nationalism as the title of his reason eloquently explained saying: cuius regio eius religio – ‘whose region must be whose religion’ (word for word). That is summed interpretively in the word “Imposition.” He is apparently saying whose language, shall be appropriate in the translation of the fundamental text which again is probably why he chooses to defer that job to the collective wisdom of the Bishops Conferences.
For a Papacy that is buffeted by in-fights between Conservatives (rigidity) and Liberals (doctrinally circumspect flexibility), the Pope’s prompt clarification of the text of his Magnum Principium simply suggests his alertness not to let Catholicism slip back to that threshold. He would like that the Vatican be seen to move the Church forward into modern time.
The Trick of Dictum
But he has used a trick of dictum to signal by-passing hold ups in the Curia on several vexed issues which have strapped responses to, for instances: the use of contraceptive, denial of communion to the divorced, dwindling Religious and global role, indeed influence today.
In a sort of similar crab-walking, three revolutions are occurring in Catholicism here: liturgical procedures with translations including the Catholic Hymnal, every Parish incantates a catalogue of rifts and a nascent homily delivery-gap between the ‘oldies’ and the youthful Priest.
To start, the I am unhappily conclusive about this speaking of rifts that: there are armies of diabolical persons with angelic faces but dangerous evil minds hidden behind fine posturing in the Church today. Some seem hosted from on high; others just egos. I am pained to make observation; but its best to draw attention to it for a dialogue to make life easy to attend Mass with a freely-minded expectation that the next chap by me in the pew harbours some feud with another in the same pew or a distance away – all responding “…and with your spirit”.
By the way this is a phenomenon not unique to Catholics. Prelates and the authorities have not given serious mind to it. It is patently becoming part of the reason which baptized Pagans use to deride Christianity. I dare say Roman Catholicism is not hypocrisy. The cancer is becoming corrosive.
The other issue in the indictment is how the format of the less than an hour-long ordinary Mass has altered in content and duration. The causes are many but briefly: long recitation of announcements which include launches of new Societies and celebrations – start to close plus an overcrowded Pastoral Councils.
The-Oldie-Youth-Differential
The effects are that you realise you are stranger attending service at other than your Parish. Cut backs and streamlining will do. I shall preface the “Oldie-Youth-differential” now with a recall from the Methodist Church at Cape Coast from later end of the 40s to a little before Independence in 1957. The Church had a young African alien Priest. The young man was neat, slick and dazzled preaching. The elders knocked the stuff about with gusto; but he was more than few bars above from the Pulpit.
The impact was that the Chapel was filled inside and outside as long as the schedule for the Sunday indicated that fine scholar of a Priest was conducting the nine o’clock service. The other Religions found this dislocating erosion in two ways – the pittance of offerings in the collection bowls and the unusual deserts. They compelled themselves to end worship before nine in the morning, if that fellow was the preacher any particular Sunday.
The luck of Catholicism now is the expectation of the Priest and or his Assistant, both in situ. Whereas it is true the oldie Catholic Priests (African and Whitee) did not match up to the Protestant contemporaries (with a few exceptions comparable) their command impressing you at the Homily point, they were generally drab which infected the follow-on generation. The zest of this batch of young Catholic Priests. With some experienced middle-aged in this business is charming. They are also growing or showing potential and or ability to knack the Gospel to enable congregation relate and find the important affinity with the word as translates to their personal lives individually relates in extenso to the happenings in country at large. Of course not all of them; though I hasten without statistical evidence to state that they the remarkable boring few.
But like St. Paul having praised then adds: “ but I have somewhat against…” these. Their fluency and exuberance discolour the typical Catholic situation into your wondering whether you are at a Pentecostal service preacher’s feet savouring the mix of local praise and request minstrels with Church Hymns. Congregations at the Mass love it and enjoy them as their instant bursts along reveal. It feels like trending as sweeping or creeping in the Church today.
A quick study should synchronize this incorporation before it adds to the weird environment the drumming, song and dance have left a semi-chaos when it comes at worse to processing at the offertory. There is one advantage from the noveau even in its uneven state. It is the self-translation into the local language by the Rev Fr. in his homily stride. That relieves the later mistranslations and injections, as imprecise as had been inflicted.
This modus operandi is not uniformed yet. Now we get down to the Catholic Hymnal – the you for thee or thine. You may or not know this: early in the 70s Theology Scholars at Oxford produced what was supposed to be introduced as the Biblical text in modern English as the Standard Text to be used by the global Anglican Congregation ostensibly.
The portions that raised a storm of debate, largely disapproving were: “Give us this day” for da nobis hodie panem cotidianum – ‘give us this day our daily bread;’ and the final thumping phrases for thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever virtually cut out or abbreviated to insignificant ‘always’ or something close, quite meaningless and even derisory. The long and short of all that presents the Church with a veritable dilemma over translations: a version that is not pompous and a review schedule.
