Tea at Trianon: Translation Wars

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Translation Wars

There appears to be some resistance to the new and more accurate English translation of the Roman missal. Fr. Peter Stravinskas responds to critics, saying:

        Let me say a word about what I’ve learned from the whole process and how I view things at this point. The first thing that surprised me – pleasantly – from the exchange in America was how the preponderance of bloggers there actually supported the new translation. Given the fact that America and its subscribers have never been accused of right-wing extremism, this was most interesting. That says to me that thinking people know that something had to be done to make our worship more transcendental, more beautiful, more faithful to the Tradition and, as the response-blog put it, “we’ve waited long enough.”
            Secondly, it seems to me that the Holy See should have been much more decisive much sooner in handling the “translation wars” and should not have been sending mixed signals for a long period of time. Of course, we cannot ignore how the divided-house phenomenon of the American bishops allowed confusion to persist as well. Thankfully, both sides of “The Pond” seem to be on the same page now.
            Finally, I believe some “product-testing” of the new translation would have been worthwhile. In all likelihood, that got ruled out when it became clear that an attitude of obstructionism would delay the process of promulgation and implementation until the Second Coming of Christ. (Read Entire Article.)