Cardinal calls for truce over ICEL

By Luke Coppen A SENIOR American cardinal has called for an end to the rift between the Vatican and English-speaking bishops' conferences over the translation of Latin texts into English.
Cardinal Francis George of Chicago made the appeal last week in his first public comment on the dispute between the Vatican and the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) over the creation of English liturgical texts.
The cardinal said that ICEL and the Holy See had lost their "mutual trust" in the row and that as a result not a single ICEL text had received Rome's approval for the past three years. He called on both bodies to "rebuild" relations by agreeing on a new constitution for ICEL.
Cardinal George was speaking at the US bishops' meeting in Milwaukee last weekend during a discussion of a draft constitution prepared by a group of ICEL bishops. The cardinal, himself a member of the group, urged the bishops to approve the draft, which he described as "a good piece of work". ICEL was asked to revise its rules last year to give greater powers to the Vatican over translations. The Vatican, led by Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship Ind the Sacraments, called for drastic changes to the body, which it accused of "paraphrasing" Latin texts. But the revised constitution, discussed last week by the US bishops, rejects a number of the Vatican's proposals. In particular, the draft keeps the nomination and election of ICEL consultants entirely in the hands of the 11-bishop Episcopal Board and the bishops' conferences the board members represent.
It also dismisses Cardinal Medina's plea that ICEL should not work on common ecumenical texts or create original English texts, but limit itself to translating Latin liturgical texts from Rome into English. The draft says ICEL may undertake such ecumenical and original projects "which particular conferences are unable to do singly or desire to do collectively". It argues that in so doing ICEL is acting at the behest of the world's 11 English-speaking bishops' conferences according to Church law.
Cardinal George said that the Vatican's concern for greater control over ICEL stemmed from the prominence of the English language in the international community. "English is the new Latin and they blow that in Rome," he said.
To address this concern, the draft proposes that in the future all ICEL translations be presented in three columns: the original Latin text, an exact literal translation for study purposes, and the polished English text proposed for liturgical use.