DIRECTOR of the Liturgical Commission in Brisbane archdiocese Fr Tom Elich has hit out at Rome’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments over its bid to take back control of liturgical translations from bishops’ conferences.
His editorial in the latest issue of Liturgy News concludes that the congregation under the leadership of its prefect, Cardinal Medina Estevez, is not really interested in collaborating with bishops’ conferences in the translation of liturgical texts into vernacular English.
He said bishops’ conferences in English-speaking countries had received two rejection letters from the congregation in the weeks after Easter.
One concerned the revised Sacramentary and the other the Rites of Ordination.
Both documents had been approved earlier by the 11 bishops’ conferences which work together through the International Commission for English Liturgy (ICEL).
Fr Elich, who was a member of ICEL committees during the translations, said the congregation’s rejection of the two documents was based on ‘misrepresentations or at least misinformation’.
He questioned the Congregation’s willingness to ‘spare no efforts’ to resolve difficulties over translations.
