International Commission On English in The Liturgy - Roman Missal

Roman Missal

Of all the books that ICEL translated, the Roman Missal is the one that Catholics in general are most familiar with. The first translation that ICEL produced appeared in 1973, less than four years after the Latin original had appeared. It sought less a literal correspondence with the original as a dynamic equivalence and avoided technical terms. The result was criticized as unfaithful to the original and as banal.

By 1998, ICEL completed a new version in English of the Roman Missal, departing even further from the Latin not only in text (some parts were original compositions by ICEL) but also in rubrics. The bishops conferences that were members of ICEL approved it and sent it to the Congregation of Divine Worship for review, as required by canon law. The Congregation, whose work on a new edition of the Roman Missal in Latin was already well advanced – part of it was published in 2000 and the entire volume in 2002 – refused its consent for adoption of the proposed new English version based on the earlier edition.

On 28 March 2001, the Holy See issued the Instruction Liturgiam authenticam, which included the requirement that, in translations of the liturgical texts from the official Latin originals, "the original text, insofar as possible, must be translated integrally and in the most exact manner, without omissions or additions in terms of their content, and without paraphrases or glosses. Any adaptation to the characteristics or the nature of the various vernacular languages is to be sober and discreet." In the following year, the third typical edition of the revised Roman Missal in Latin was released. These two texts made clear the need for a new official English translation of the Roman Missal, particularly because even the 1973 ICEL version was at some points an adaptation rather than a translation. An example was the rendering of the response "Et cum spiritu tuo" ("And with your spirit") as "And also with you". Accordingly, ICEL prepared a new English translation of the Roman Missal, remedying those defects. The completed translation received the approval of the Holy See in April 2010 and was put into effect in most countries at the end of November 2011.