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After Francis’s public reprimand of Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the congregation for divine worship, there is no longer any doubt about the pope’s real intentions concerning translations of Latin-rite texts into the modern languages, completely delegated to the national churches, with Vatican approval reduced to a pure formality.
But to add insult to injury - plus sarcasm toward those presumed to be backward - right on cue comes “La Civiltà Cattolica,” which has long stood out as the “house organ” of Santa Marta.
In its latest issue, the historic magazine of the Jesuits directed by Fr. Antonio Spadaro has dedicated its lead article precisely to the “restitution” of full authority over the translation of liturgical books to the national episcopal conferences.
The thesis of the article from “La Civiltà Cattolica,” in fact, is that this faculty was already devolved to the national Churches in 1969, by an instruction - in reality the letter of a cardinal - entitled “Comme le prévoit,” but it was soon given up for dead “for ideological reasons,” with the triumph of the adversaries of liturgical reform. Until Pope Francis came to recall it to life and therefore to mark the comeback of the “peripheries” over Vatican centralism.
A centralism whose ultimate adherent is identified as Cardinal Sarah, with Francis who “saw himself constrained to intervene” in order to neutralize his claims.
Naturally, this thesis of “La Civiltà Cattolica” can be attributed to Pope Francis himself, seeing the extremely close bond between the one and the other. And it is an integral part of his comprehensive plan to make the Church evolve from monolithic to federated, with each national Church endowed with extensive autonomy, “including genuine doctrinal authority” ("Evangelii Gaudium" 32).
The author of the article is the Jesuit Cesare Giraudo, 76, a professor emeritus of liturgy and theology at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome.
The following are the essential passages from his article.
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“MAGNUM PRINCIPIUM” AND LITUGICAL INCULTURATION
by Cesare Giraudo. S.I.
It is truly a “great principle,” that which the constitution “Sacrosanctum Concilium” of Vatican Council II proclaimed in article 36, attributing to the individual liturgical assemblies the right to converse with God in their own language. […]
With the creation of the “Consilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de sacra Liturgia,” set up by Paul VI with the Motu Proprio “Sacram Liturgiam” of January 25, 1964, the liturgical reform went into action, setting off on a path marked out by the first great instructions: "Inter oecumenici" (1964), "Tres abhinc annos" (1967), "Comme le prévoit" (1969), and "Liturgicæ instaurationes" (1970). Although later, for ideological reasons, the instruction “Comme le prévoit,” meaning the letter from Cardinal Lercaro to the presidents of the episcopal conferences on the translation of liturgical texts, was not taken into account among the great instructions, it remains such, and as such must be understood. […]
The first great instructions were later joined by two more from the congregation for divine worship: "Varietates legitimæ" (1994) and "Liturgiam authenticam" (2001).
This last above all has been systematically presented as a normative point of reference - as the subtitles say - not only “on the use of vernacular languages in the publication of the books of the Roman liturgy,” but also “for the right implementation of the constitution on the sacred liturgy.” […]
What to say about the instruction “Liturgiam authenticam”? […] Obviously, the person most qualified to evaluate the directives contained in it is the expert on liturgy, theology, and pastoral practice. […]
The liturgist does not conceal his perplexity when he notes, for example, that the notion of “liturgical reform” is entrusted, in the whole instruction, to six parsimonious occurrences of the expression “instauratio liturgica.” And the question arises: why shroud with such modesty that ecclesial event of such great proportions which was the liturgical reform desired by Vatican II and prudently managed by Paul VI himself? And why so much emphasis, in relation to the admittedly necessary verification, on a centralization that risks damaging the role of the episcopal conferences and of mortifying the dignity of the local Churches? […]
Reading and rereading “Liturgiam authenticam,” perhaps more than one person will have wondered if the end of the line had truly come for the management of the vernacular languages in the editions of liturgical books.
But the recent motu proprio “Magnum principium” has offered an important and clear response. […] Pope Francis has decided that he had to intervene to streamline procedures that an excessive polarization over the notion of “recognitio” had brought to a point of stagnation, but above all to give back to the territorial episcopal conferences those responsibilities in liturgical matters that had been unduly taken away from them. […]
While before the congregation had authority over the “recognitio” of liturgical translations, previously elaborated by the episcopal conferences, which went through the exacting sieve of “Liturgiam authenticam,” from now on all the authority over translations is being restored to the episcopal conferences, which are going back to being the authoritative and only guarantors of their fidelity. […]
Up to here everything seemed clear, but once again the scenario reopens. Between October 12 and 14 there appeared on a few media outlets, first in an Italian translation and then in the original French, a long letter entitled “Humble contribution pour une meilleure et juste compréhension du Motu Proprio 'Magnum principium’,” which Cardinal Robert Sarah had addressed to the pontiff and was dated October 1. […]
Up to here everything seemed clear, but once again the scenario reopens. Between October 12 and 14 there appeared on a few media outlets, first in an Italian translation and then in the original French, a long letter entitled “Humble contribution pour une meilleure et juste compréhension du Motu Proprio 'Magnum principium’,” which Cardinal Robert Sarah had addressed to the pontiff and was dated October 1. […]
In the face of this interpretation, the pontiff saw himself constrained to intervene - in a manner that observers agree in calling “unprecedented” - addressing a personal letter to his eminent interlocutor, and asking him to send it to the websites on which the “Commentaire” had been published, as well as “to all the episcopal conferences, to the members and advisors of this dicastery.” Compliance with this request brought the letter to public notice. […]
In restoring full authority over the translation of liturgical books to the episcopal conferences, the motu proprio “Magnum principium” intended to reaffirm the principle of subsidiarity, on the basis of which the higher authority must not overrule or replace the lower authority in the exercise of roles legitimately attributed to the latter. Besides, who better than the episcopal conferences, each of them equipped with a group of experts who elaborated the translations, to judge the conformity of these with the original texts? […]
For this reason we are grateful to the motu proprio for having restored the voice, indirectly, of the instruction “Comme le prévoit,” with which at this point the directives of “Liturgiam authenticam” will have to be harmonized and integrated. […]
Another reason for gratitude is the fact that the motu proprio sets liturgical inculturation back into motion, in particular that which, in harmony with the Fathers of the Church, Vatican II and the first Synod of the Churches of Africa and Madagascar (1994), goes in search of the “seeds of the Word” in the pre-Christian patrimony of the young Churches.
In line with the theme of inculturation - and as a result with the translation of texts, intimately connected to it - we can conclude with a citation from Saint Ambrose, who in defense of a practice proper to the Milanese Church said: "In omnibus cupio sequi Ecclesiam Romanam; sed tamen et nos hominis sensum habemus!"
In applying and adapting to themselves this legitimate and deserved assertion of rights, the representatives of the young Churches can say today: “We too want to follow the Roman Church in everything; but we also have the sense of man! Allow us to translate our liturgical prayers ourselves, in harmony with the gifts of grace that the Word Sower has always scattered in the fertile furrows of our land.”