Lost in Translation: The English Language and the Catholic Mass by Gerald O’Collins (review)

Abstract

O’Rourke paints a picture of himself in the introduction as a child in rural Ireland who had access to a pre-electric age, and therefore who lived in a natural world similar to the one which Aristotle might have inhabited. We in Ireland are not so estranged from our roots that we can forget the soil in which we were nurtured. Poets such as Seamus Heaney, quoted in this introduction, are able to refresh our memories in this regard. It was through this world of unspoilt nature that both these philosophers, Aristotle from Stagira in Greece, and Fran O’Rourke from Ratheniska, in the Irish midlands, made the discoveries which formed their minds and hearts. ‘A country childhood affords endless experiences of nature in its fresh sensuality’(2), the author declares with pride. These lifetime reflections of Fran O’Rourke on one of the greatest philosophers the world has known, both in their original inspiration as talks delivered throughout his professorial career, and now in their comprehensive and yet accessible form, should be required reading for all, especially those of us who think the world began when we arrived. Mark Patrick Hederman has been a Benedictine monk of Glenstal Abbey, Limerick, Ireland, for the last fifty years and is former abbot of the monastery and headmaster of the school. His doctorate was in the philosophy of education. He is a founding editor of The Crane Bag Journal of Irish Studies, and his most recent book is The Opal and the Pearl (Dublin: Columba Press, 2016). Lost in Translation: The English Language and the Catholic Mass, Gerald O’Collins SJ (Collegeville, Maryland: Liturgical Press Academic; 2017), 125 pages. If we were to think of this author’s books (all sixty-nine of them now) as ships, they would amount to a sizeable navy for a middle power such as Australia. Many of them are weighty tomes of serious original scholarship. Within our naval image, these would be battleships, aircraft carriers or other large ships of the line. This work before us is more in the nature of smaller but nonetheless necessary craft. We might think of a patrol boat or frigate or, perhaps, a guided missal destroyer. This work is not out to destroy, however. Though Gerry O’Collins, it is clear, would happily see the 2010 translation given decent Christian burial. Summer 2018: Book Reviews Studies • volume 107 • number 426 238 If Lost in Translation contains a serious critique, it does so entirely ‘within the family’, so to speak. It is not taking pot-shots at anyone from outside. The facts are soberly presented, especially in the historical survey by British journalist John Wilkins, which forms the opening, introductory chapter. Then the author himself takes over, summoning up his vast armoury of talent – historical, linguistic, theological and literary – in a penetrating analysis of all the documents relevant to the case. Of course, as in all stories there are heroes and villains. Wearers, as in Westerns, of hats white and black. Though, in this case, the hats for the most part tend to be purple or red. John Wilkins and Gerry O’Collins simply recite the facts, allowing readers to judge for themselves the motives of the major players involved. One suspects that, were the cause for canonisation of Cardinal Medina Estevez, sometime prefect of the Congregation of Divine Worship, to arise, the Devil’s advocate might find in this slim volume much grist for his mill. However, its author is not here playing the man, rather he is reaching behind the polemics to state a case for rejection of the translation introduced – or rather imposed – in 2011, and doing so on two grounds in particular: first, the theological and pastoral intent of the Second Vatican Council; second, a theory of translation, with a pedigree he shows to reach back behind George Steiner, T S Eliot, Ronald Knox and Cardinal Newman, to ThomasAquinas in the MiddleAges, and even further back to the Patristic era. Here is Aquinas, no less, writing in letter to Pope Urban IV: ‘It is … the taskofthegood translator,whentranslatingmaterial dealing with the Catholic faith, to preserve the meaning but to adapt the mode of expression, so that...