Category: Religion

A seemingly minor piece of news may foretell a shift of emphasis in Catholic culture, as the Vatican has ruled that the formula for consecration of wine at Mass must be translated “for many” rather than “for all”. The traditional Roman liturgy, as well as all the ancient eastern liturgies, follows the Gospels in declaring that the blood of the New Covenant would be shed “for many, unto the remission of sins.” This move will please those traditionalists who have questioned the legitimacy and even the validity of the “for all” consecration used in many vernacular Masses, and it comes on the heel of rumors that the Pope will issue a universal indult for the practice of the traditional Roman liturgy.

This reaffirmation of tradition undermines two aspects of the “progressive” liturgical enterprise: historical criticism and linguistics. Modern liturgists have often rationalized their novelties as restorations of primitive Christianity, prior to the accretions of the medieval and Tridentine periods. This pseudo-traditionalism has all the credibility of a man who would honor his grandfather by disparaging his father, and more pertinently, it is often unsubstantiated by historical fact. In the case at hand, the advocates of the “for all” translation speculate that the original Aramaic word (conveniently lost to history) could have had this meaning, despite the fact that the Evangelists (including Aramaic-speaking Mark) render it in Greek as polloi, not pantes. Moreover, the context, “shed for you and for many, unto the remission of sins,” suggests restriction to those whose sins are remitted. As a matter of liturgical history, all the ancient rites of the east and west use “for many” in the consecration. In the face of this evidence, we can conclude that advocates of the erroneous translation are motivated less by the dictates of exegesis and historical criticism than by a favoritism for a more inclusive-sounding theology.

The Holy See is also insisting on a more literal rendering of the editio typica of the Roman liturgy, which is in Latin. Notwithstanding the speculations about Aramaic, the authoritative version of the Roman liturgy is in Latin, which renders the consecration formula, “pro multis.” All vernacular translations are supposed to be faithful to this edition, and no one can credibly argue that “for all” is an accurate translation of the Latin. It is not the task of the translator to second-guess the Latin version and return to the supposed original source in Aramaic, but only to translate the Latin as it reads. The current Roman liturgy is actually closer to the traditional liturgy than many English-speakers realize, owing to the distorted and paraphrased English translations. This effective usurpation of authority over the text of the Mass by liturgical translators can be expected to recede over the next few years.

Cardinal Arinze expressed the view that teaching how Christ’s sacrifice is intended “for all,” though effective only “for many,” is a subject for catechesis, not liturgy. This amounts to a refutation of any rationalistic, social engineering model of liturgy. The liturgical reform proposed before and during the Second Vatican Council was intended to renew some apostolic forms that had been lost through the centuries and eliminate some redundancies, but in a way that was respectful of received forms. Many of the reform generation, unfortunately, had insufficient reverence for tradition as such, and to some extent directed the liturgy away from the eternal God, and more toward the supposed “needs of the people,” evincing a profound failure to understand the basic function of liturgy and ritual. This well-intentioned, well-planned liturgy has never been as aesthetically endearing as the old, for the simple reason that culture cannot be synthesized. Like most “progressive” artifacts of the sixties and seventies, the liturgical aesthetic from that period already seems dated, so many churches have traded their aesthetic heritage in exchange for kitsch. The Vatican’s present inclination is to restore some of what was heedlessly discarded, so that the Church may engage modern culture, yet retain an authentic culture of its own.

This month, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a fascinating discourse on the question of whether Hellenic rationality is essential or incidental to Christian religion. Philosophical and theological subtleties being unable to sustain the interest of our mass media, we have instead been delivered sensationalist reporting of the Pope’s citation of Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus, “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

The purpose of the citation was to show how the emperor’s “brusqueness which leaves us astounded” results from a conviction that God cannot act contrary to His essentially rational nature. The accuracy of the emperor’s assessment of Islam as a whole is immaterial to the Pope’s discourse, which immediately turns to a discussion of Hellenic rationality, not Islamic jihad. If journalists were more sophisticated, they might have faulted the Pope for asserting that Muslims do not require God to behave rationally, but here he is merely following noted Islamist Theodore Khoury and the medieval Muslim theologian Ibn Hazm.

Sooner than admit their own illiteracy, our demagogues have argued that Pope Benedict has been tactless in his choice of citation, if not ignorant and bigoted, as they fall back on kneejerk anticlericalism in place of library research on previous works of Ratzinger. The latter option would have revealed a much more nuanced, respectful approach to Islam than, say, your average journalist’s approach to Catholicism.

In absurd irony, many Muslims have turned to violence in response to the perceived accusation that Islam encourages violence. Mainstream Muslims have demanded an apology since, unlike their Christian counterparts, they are unaccustomed to having their religion publicly ridiculed. However, the tide is turning as even the president of Iran has acknowledged that the Pope’s comment was taken out of context, while our secular press continues to feign outrage on behalf of Muslims.

I would be disappointed if the secular media missed an opportunity to vent its rage against organized religion. Surely enough, the usual checklist is ticked off:

• Failure to believe in secular liberalism or religious indifferentism is a sign of intellectual limitation or intolerance, no matter how erudite the speaker. That’s obvious, isn’t it?
• Christians have been just as violent as Muslims, as evidenced by the Crusades. Tell that to the people of India, who suffered one of the worst genocides in history at the hands of the Muslims. The Crusades, as I have discussed at length, were motivated by a combination of secular and religious causes quite distinct from the rationale of an Islamic jihad, and were not an attempt to convert by the sword. “Conversions by the sword” were statistically insignificant to the spread of Christianity, to the chagrin of secular commentators who would like to insist no reasonable person would freely assent to this religion. In Islam, on the contrary, “conversion by the sword” was no aberration, but an explicit command of the prophet, and a key to the early success of Islam, though it later thrived on its own merits.
• Religion in general causes violence. This takes extraordinary chutzpah, considering that we just emerged from the bloodiest century in human history, filled with atrocities committed by secular and atheistic regimes. There hasn’t been a religious war in the West since the Thirty Years’ War, yet secularist demagogues still invoke the specter of religious warfare to prove the evils of religion. If this anticlerical posture were motivated by courage rather than cowardice, perhaps they would just as forcefully reject the religions of money and the state, which have caused and continue to cause far more bloodshed than any religion of the supernatural.