Some Thoughts, Quotations, and Links regarding the Old ICEL

Some documents related to ICEL until its reconfiguration between 1997-2002. Even a brief perusal of these letters will reveal just how we could ever get such diabolical confusion in the liturgy in the past 40 years. But things are much better now, and they are continuing to get better! Deo gratias!

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Fr. Somerville's letter renouncing his collaboration with ICEL because of the harm caused by its output: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/798073/posts

An overview of ICEL's disputes with the Congregation for Divine Worship (CDW) as well as ICEL's tactics and principles: http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=2749

CDW's 1997 letter to the then-president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, rejecting ICEL's "translation" of De ordinatione Episcopi, Presbyterorum et Diaconorum and also suggesting a complete change in translators on ICEL: http://www.adoremus.org/98-01_cdwletter.htm

Same 1997 letter in PDF format including all the specific errors of the "translation": http://www.adoremus.org/CritiqueOrdRitual1997.pdf

CDW's 1999 letter to the then-president of ICEL, pushing again for a revision of ICEL's structure and staff: http://www.adoremus.org/2-00-medinaletter.html

CDW's 2002 letter rejecting the "translation" of the Missale Romanum, editio typica altera (we currently use the editio typica tertia):http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/721266/posts

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As someone keenly interested in liturgical music, I thought the following was quite telling. As early as 1997, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments stated, "An alternative translation to 'song' should be found for the Latin 'cantus.' 'Song' being too secular and too imprecise" ("Observations on Some Details of the ICEL Translation of the Book De Ordinatione Episcopi, Presbyterorum, et Diaconorum (editio typica altera)"). In the current translation of the GIRM, under the direction of the "revamped" ICEL, "cantus" is translated as "chant." Isn't that clear enough? People cannot say, "Well, 'cantus' can mean 'song,' so we can' use music that isn't chant." The first phrase is granted, but the authority in the Vatican that oversees the proper implementation of the Church's liturgy said, "Yes, and you can't translate it as 'song' here because that is too vague and secular."

How much damage alone has been caused because a commission that included 6 Protestant "experts" threw our sacred tradition of chant out the window!

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As quoted in a January 1997 issue of the New Zealand Catholic, Dr. Ken Larsen, an ex-priest from Auckland, New Zealand, and one of the two principal translators of the revised ICEL Sacramentary, said, "We seldom refer to God as Him or Father, and in general we avoid personal pronouns." According to the New Zealand Catholic Larsen and an American Jesuit, Father James Devereaux, spent more than ten years working on the ICEL Sacramentary. Larsen added: "There are odd occasions where the word Pater occurs in Latin and sometimes you can't get around using the word Father. But in general we have been very meticulous in keeping to the principle of inclusive language."