Great idea, cue cards in church! Now Catholics won't even have to memorize their rote responses!

Probably it won't be these exact cue cards that'll be used in Catholic churches, but it's nice to see clergyfolk adapting to the times.


"Priests have been discussing the changes in homilies, in notices in parish bulletins, and in workshops and webinars. Many clergy plan to use poster-sized laminated cue cards for parishioners as the new text is introduced."

-- from "American Catholics Prep for New Mass
Translation," by Rachel Zoll, on HuffPost Religion

by Ken

When I saw this tease on AOL yesterday, I couldn't resist.

Getty Images

Big Change Coming to Catholic Mass

For decades, when priests offer the blessing 'Lord be with you,' the response has been, 'And also with you.' Now, that's about to change.

What new response will be as of Nov. 27

I just had to click through to find out the answer. Probably you already know. Hey, why don't we find out, with a ---

DWT POP QUIZ
Are you ready for the new English version of the Mass?

TODAY'S QUESTION: Which of the following is the correct new response to the priest's "Lord be with you"?

(a) "Or without you."
(b) "And a top o' the mornin' to you too!"
(c) "Who loves ya, baby?"
(d) "So's your old man."
(e) "Where's the beef?"
(f) "Double, double, toil and trouble."
(g) "Maybe yes, maybe no. Who wants to know?"
(h) "And with your spirit."
(i) "Have a nice day."
(j) "Half-and-half, three sugars, and maybe you have a nice French cruller to go with it?"

THE ANSWER, I'm disappointed to have to report, is (h) "And with your spirit." To which, really, the obvious reply is, "And with my spirit what?" At which point I fear we're only a rejoinder or two away from "Who's on first?" Which would undoubtedly make for a more entertaining service, but possibly a theologically inauthentic one.


IT'S ALL THAT WACKO POPE JOHN XXIII'S FAULT

What we're dealing with here sounds something like a last gasp of the reforms instituted by the Vatican in the wake of the (briefly) pathbreaking Second Vatican Council, presided over by the accidental revolutionary, Pope John XXIII, whose efforts to lift the Church out of the spiritual darkness have been pushed back against ever more strongly by his increasingly rotten successors. (Yes, including -- perhaps especially -- the monstrously revered John Paul II, who had the soul of a Stalinist.)

One reform that most of us thought had long since been accomplished was permitting celebration of Mass in vernacular languages. However, it turns out that the English-language version that has been in use since 1973 was only a stopgap. Rachel Zoll explains:

Bishops in English-speaking countries created the International Commission on English in the Liturgy to undertake the translation. The panel produced a missal by 1973, but that version was considered temporary until better texts could be completed. As the commission worked to make the Mass more familiar in idiomatic English, some of the language strayed from the Latin. Also in some cases, the commission sought to use language that would be gender neutral.

The work took a new direction in 2001, when the Vatican office in charge of worship issued the directive Liturgiam Authenticam, or Authentic Liturgy, which required translations closer to the Latin. The Vatican also appointed another committee, Vox Clara, or Clear Voice, to oversee the English translation, drawing complaints from some clergy and liturgists that the Vatican was controlling what should be a more consultative process. (Cardinal George Pell, the Sydney, Australia, archbishop and chairman of Vox Clara, has called the complaints baseless and ideologically driven.)

Of course I don't know enough about it to speak to Cardinal Pell's intentions. The timing of that "new direction in 2001" sure stinks, though -- the year before Cardinal Joseph Ratguts (the future Pope Cardinal Ratguts), the increasingly fragile John Paul II's longtime trusted doctrinal whip-cracker, became Dean of the College of Cardinals, a significant step toward consolidating his chokehold on the papal succession, which came to pass in 2005. Besides, what's more characteristic of diehard ideologues than complaining that their enemies are "ideologically driven"?

The new English-language missal goes into official use on November 27, the first Sunday of Advent, and --

The biggest challenge will be for priests, who must learn intricate new speaking parts -- often late in their years of service to the church. At an Archdiocese of Newark training at St. Peter the Apostle Church in River Edge, many clergy had just received a final published copy of the Missal, a thick hardcover bound in red, accompanied by an equally dense study guide. Earlier drafts had been available for orientation sessions that have been ongoing for months nationwide.

Many clergy are upset by the new language, calling it awkward and hard to understand. The Rev. Tom Iwanowski, pastor of St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church in Oradell and New Milford, N.J., turned to the section of the new missal that calls funeral rites, "the fraternal offices of burial."

"How can I say those words? It doesn't make sense," said Iwanowski, who has been a priest for 36 years. "It separates religion from real life."

In the new translation, in the Nicene Creed, the phrase "one in Being with the Father," will change to "consubstantial with the Father." When a priest prays over the Holy Communion bread and wine, he will ask God for blessings "by sending down your spirit upon them like the dewfall."

There are rumblings of discontent, and not just among parishioners who grumble, as Mark J. Sullivan, music director of the Catholic Community church in Pleasanton, CA, puts it: "I've got everything memorized. Why are you messing with it?"

The Rev. Anthony Ruff, a Benedictine monk and theology professor at St. John's University in Minnesota, said he was removed last year as head of the music panel of the international translating commission because of criticisms he posted on his blog. In an open letter to U.S. bishops published in the Jesuit magazine America, Ruff cancelled his plans to speak on the text to diocesan priests because, "I cannot promote the new missal translation with integrity."

On the other hand, one Jeffrey Tucker,

a lay musician at St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church in Auburn, Ala., . . . said he found the new missal "extraordinary." The text and music are truly integrated for the first time since the changes from the Second Vatican Council, Tucker said. He has been introducing the new text to lay people and church leaders in recent months, and has found the reaction to mostly be, "Oh, wow.'"

"The language is more accurate, but that is the most boring thing you can say about it. The more important thing about the language is that it's beautiful," said Tucker who is managing editor of Sacred Music, the journal of the Church Music Association of America. "Hardly anything ever good comes out of a committee. This time it did."

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