New Translation of the Sacrament of Confession
You might notice something new when the next time you go to Confession. As of Ash Wednesday the Church officially promulgated the new translation of the Sacrament of Confession. The changes are almost imperceptible, and they only affect the words said by the priest. The new translation may be used by priests as of Ash Wednesday, but it must be used by priests as of the Sunday after Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday. (Also, FYI, the change does not affect the validity of the Sacrament, so if a priest forgets or doesn’t use it, the Confession is still valid.) This change offers us an opportunity to say a word about liturgical translations.
Younger Catholics may not be aware, but prior to the 1960s every Mass throughout the world was celebrated completely in Latin. By the mid-fifties there had been an increasing number of permissions granted to offer parts of the liturgical rites in English, but for the most part it was all in the Church’s mother tongue. At the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) the Church saw fit to make the liturgy more accessible to the modern world and offer the various rites in the vernacular. The Church drew up new rites for the Mass and all the Sacraments and they were hastily translated into the various languages of the world. Those translations were fairly loose translations from the Latin, more of a paraphrase than a proper translation. So since then it has been the project of each episcopal conference (i.e. the conference of bishops more or less organized by country, ours being the USCCB—the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) to update the translations of the various liturgical texts.
Back in 2011 the updated translation of the Mass was promulgated. Remember when we went from “And also with you” to “And with your spirit”? The reason for the change was to get closer to the official Latin text. Next was the new translation of the Order of Celebrating Matrimony, promulgated in 2016. After that was the new translation of the Order of Baptism of Children, promulgated in 2020. We now have the new Order of Penance (2023), but we’re still waiting for the Order of Christian Funerals, the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults, the Order for the Blessing of the Sick, and a few other liturgical texts to be retranslated.
Next week I’ll offer some thoughts on the challenges facing liturgical texts in translation, and the use of Latin today.
— Fr. Michael Garry
