Msgr Andrew Wadsworth on ICEL and the New Translation

From the Bishops Conference of England & Wales:

In a few days Catholic parishes in England and Wales will begin to use the new translation of the Roman Missal for the celebration of Mass. Monsignor Andrew Wadsworth, Executive Director of the Secretariat of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), talks about the new translation:

“There has been a lot of feedback from the countries that are already using elements of the translation. The Order of Mass is already in use currently in South Africa, in New Zealand and in Australia and a number of places including ourselves here in England and Wales are now implementing the sung parts of the Mass, and looking to an implementation of the Order of the Mass at some stage between now and the beginning of Advent."

Feedback

“Generally the feedback has been very positive. People find the elegance of the language, its dignity, the sort of cadence of the language - which particularly lends itself to the sung parts of the liturgy - they find all of that to be a great improvement."

Music

“The printed altar edition of the new Missal has the largest amount of music of any Missal the Church has ever produced in any language. The style of the music that’s in the altar edition of the Missal is Gregorian chant, which is a common form of liturgical song which is traditional in the Catholic Church and takes us back to the Church of the first Millennium and the earliest centuries. That’s the music which is in the Latin Missal, of which our English Missal is a translation."

“So the music that we have in the new Missal, that’s about to be implemented, is an English adaptation of those same Latin chants that are found in the Missal. Now we’re not saying that that will exclusively be the style of music that people have to adopt in their liturgies. The Church admits a great diversity of styles, not only of liturgical celebration but particularly of liturgical music."

Creativity

“I think it’s exciting to think that there will be a great moment of creativity. A lot of composers have already responded very positively to this challenge and a lot of new Mass settings are becoming available at the present time. A lot of very familiar settings that we’ve sung for a long time have been revised by their composers so that they meet the needs of the new text.”

In England and Wales, the Order of Mass in the new translation will be used in Catholic parishes from September 2011, and from Advent 2011 all of the Mass will be said using the new translation.

Listen here: ICEL's Mgr Wadsworth on the New Missal

Thanks to Fr Z.