How ICEL works. ICEL back in the news! Pope Francis Is lurking.
How did we end up with so many mistranslation in the Novus Ordo English liturgy? Why Pope Francis wants to reverse what Pope Benedict corrected.
From RES SACRAMENTIyou
HOW IT HAPPENED
'I suspect you will find Fred McManus at the centre of the web.' Thus L. Brent Bozell, early in 1968, addressing Gary Potter, founding member of Triumphmagazine, and suggesting he write 'an article on how the Mass gets changed.'
It was brief guidance, but sufficient. The result was published in May, 1968 and is very nearly my only source for what follows. It had been debated what to call the article. Finally, mindful of the dictionary definition of a club - 'A select number of persons in the habit of meeting for the promotion of some common object,' according to The New Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language - it was decided to entitle it 'The Liturgy Club.' A photo of Father McManus was put on the cover of the magazine. The caption read, 'The President of the Liturgy Club.'
The 'Liturgy Club' is not to be thought of as an official organization, such as a society,incorporated or not as the case may be, with, say, dues-paying members and other identifying notes of societies generally. It would not have a letter head. It would not have, say, a president, a secretary, treasurer and the like, though functions of that kind could be performed by individuals invited ad hoc to do so, should it be thought convenient. It is instead, quite simply, 'a select number of persons in the habit of meeting for the promotion of some common object.' Which object, efficiently and ruthlessly pursued and achieved, has wrecked the Western Church.
The term 'Liturgy Club' is then a term of convenience to describe a reality which could be likened to a corporate eminence grise. You don't see much of it, you are not sure quite what it is or where it is, but its influence permeates everything.
The most prominent expression of the United States liturgical scene since 1940 is something called, simply, the Liturgical Conference. Power in this organization resides in its board of directors.The membership of the board is pretty much co-terminous with the 'Liturgy Club'. The chairman of the board is always the president of the Conference.
From early days, even way back in the forties and fifties and before, members of the board, notably Father Godfrey Diekmann, O.S.B., urged that the Conference actively sponsor vernacularization.Father Diekmann became editor-in-chief of Worship, the more-or-less official publication, indeed bulletin, of the 'Liturgy Club'. The masthead of Worship listed Fr. McManus as an associate editor.
In 1959 Fr McManus became the Conference president. Massive reorganization took place.The Liturgical Conference began to move.
The board created a permanent staff to administer the increasing work load. A direct link was established with the American hierarchy. The Conference was now to have an official episcopal adviser. It was established by statute that the episcopal adviser would be the chairman of the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy, the BCL.
The Conference began to exercise far reaching influence in the years 1961-62 when various bishops appealed to it to help collect material and prepare proposals for the approaching Vatican Council.
Father McManus spent the years 1962-64 in Rome as a Council Peritus. Another associate editor of Worship, Father Gerard S. Sloyan, kept the Conference President's chair warm for him until he returned for a final year (1964-65). It was during this term that Father McManus became, on January 1, 1965, the Director of the Secretariat of the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy, that is, the BCL.
This Secretariat is described in the Catholic Almanac as the continuing working body of the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy and served as a channel for the communication of official documents among the bishops, as an information office for the bishops and diocesan liturgical commissions, and as a liaison agent between various organizations concerned with liturgical renewal.
The episcopal adviser to the Liturgical conference, being as he was, the chairman of the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy, would have asked the Liturgical Conference board to recommend someone to assume the position of director. This individual would run the BCL Secretariat and implement the hierarchy's official renewal programme.
As chairman of the Conference board Father McManus would have received the request from the BCL chairman. He would then have courteously communicated the board's choice, which, by the nature of these things, would naturally turn out to be, ah, Father Fred McManus.
The United States hierarchy was re-organized after Vatican II into the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB). Of course the NCCB has its own secretariat, a formidable bureaucracy known as the United States Catholic Conference (USCC). The BCL is both a department of the NCCB and a department, one of many, of the USCC.
One of the consequences of this complex arrangement is that Father McManus, as executive officer of the BCL, not only has the duty of guiding the corporate body of bishops in liturgical affairs, he also has at his disposal the well-oiled and well-heeled machinery of the USCC to publicize and implement the decisions he helps the bishops to make. The task of making so extensive an organization as that, function, requires a man of considerable talent. Father McManus was such a man.
The very complexity of such an arrangement, calls into play the First Law of bureaucracy: If you turn your business over to one only individual, the bureaucrat you put in charge will tend to take over the business itself. He has to take over everything because only he knows how to work the machinery. Power was increasing in Father McManus' hands in large increments at a time but so far the increments I have indicated, were contained in the United States scene.
While all this was going on in the United States another bureaucracy, this time an international one, began to be in the ascendant. Its name: The International Committee for English in the Liturgy (ICEL). ICEL had its own intricate chain of command and accompanying procedures.
All the various English-speaking Episcopal Conferences around the world formed the head of this body, which resulted in another very complex arrangement. To make such a top heavy body function, there was formed what is known as the International Episcopal Committee. This episcopal committee was made up of selected bishops from the different episcopal conferences.I recall that Bishop Snedden, gone to his reward this many a year, was New Zealand's representative. There may have been others from this country, but I do not know.
The International Episcopal Committee made yearly reports. Listed in the report for 1966, as secretary-treasurer, was Father McManus. The following year the report for 1967 shows Fr McManus as treasurer and Father Gerard Sigler as Executive Secretary. These reports, of course, issue from the secretariat of the International Episcopal Committee, which in turn is ICEL reduced to manageable proportions.
It is interesting to learn that this secretariat is located in the Washington offices of the Liturgical Conference and to recall that both Fr. McManus and Fr Sigler, the two people who make ICEL work, are, with a few others, components of the 'Liturgy Club' whose stamping ground is the Liturgical Conference.
It would have made sense for the ICEL secretariat to have been accommodated in the USCC building, but that option was not taken because, as Mr Manion, who was the Liturgical Conference's executive director at the time this matter was being arranged explained: 'They didn't want it to look like the ICEL was completely dominated by Americans. That's why they didn't want to put … (Father Sigler) ... in the ... (USCC) Building... so he wouldn't be there right under Father McManus.'
Why did they bother? It was already becoming clear that ICEL, far from being an international organization of autonomous prelates, was developing into a cosy little home body, but with far flung minions around the world, doing the bidding of one man.
Beneath the International Episcopal Committee is to be found ICEL's real working body - the all-important Advisory Committee. This is where the Canon of the Mass was subjected to something mendaciously bruited abroad as a translation.This is where new canons and other parts of the Mass undergo the same treatment. The members of the Advisory Committee for the United states were: Professor George Harrison, Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan, Father Godfrey Diekmann of Worship and Father Frederick McManus.
It is very instructive to see how things in this area of our interest happen. The decision is made to 'translate' the fifteen-century-plus old Roman Canon into English. The decision was made by the members of the Club.
That means that the decision was made by the Liturgical Conference Board, the BCL, Worship, Father McManus, Father Diekmann, Father Sigler et al., all Club members. The decision was made without any instructions from the hierarchy. No poll of the faithful was taken. No steps at all were ever taken to determine whether anyone outside the Club wanted a vernacular Canon or, for that matter, a vernacular Mass. The Club simply decided.
Under the supervision of the Advisory Committee, the translators, who can be simply the members themselves of the Advisory Committee, got down to work. They 'translated.'
The translation was then approved by the ICEL Advisory Committee. There was one only dissenting vote - that of Professor H.P.R.Finberg of England. The translation was passed to the English speaking Episcopal Conferences. This means that Father McManus sent the translation, which he had already approved as member of the Advisory Committee, to himself as Director of the BCL Secretariat for transmission to the BCL itself.
The BCL, that is to say, Father McManus, passed the translation to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the NCCB. The United States Bishops, in the corporate personality of the NCCB, voted their 'approbation.' The voted their 'approbation' without however actually seeing the translation. Said one Archbishop who was afterwards interviewed: 'They did not distribute the text so that we could review it.' The interviewer inquired: 'Did you vote, then, simply on the recommendation of the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy?' The Archbishop replied: 'Yes.'
In some measure present to all this toing and froing was Rome, represented by the 'Consilium for Implementing the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,' known most commonly as the 'Consilium,' though often and characteristically called the 'Postconciliar Liturgical Commission' in the Newsletter of the BCL. The Newsletter of the BCL is edited by Father McManus.
The Consilium is a new creation emerging from Vatican II. The Consilium is supposed to share responsibility in many cases with the Sacred Congregation of Rites. In practice, it exercises its own competence.
After a liturgical change receives the 'approbation' of the NCCB (all the moving and shaking at this moment is taking place in the United states) the change is supposed to receive the 'confirmation' of the Holy See, i.e. of the Consilium, before it actually goes into practice. The Consilium would route anything sent it and needing confirmation to its appropriate consultants.
Sometime prior to any concrete activity of that kind in this area, Father McManus became a consultant to the Consilium. At this stage Father McManus may fairly be described as ubiquitous.Wherever there is a 'where' to be, he is there and he is not standing around looking decorative, he is at work.
So, the translation which the United States hierarchy, i.e. our candid Archbishop, together with his confreres, approved, without seeing, approved simply on the say-so of Father McManus, was posted off by Father McManus to the Consilium, where the same Father McManus, originator, with others in the 'Club,' and chief helmsman of the whole initiative, was, as consultant, awaiting its arrival.
At this point something approximating a set back occurred. Consilium did not 'confirm.' The set back may be described as 'approximate' because Consilium returned the English Canon to the International Episcopal Committee not with an anathema which it fully deserved but with the instruction that its use be regarded as 'temporary.'
This minor hiccup in the smooth progress of the destruction of the Church was not given any publicity. Only the inner circle knew of it. Father McManus, of course, knew of it. He had to remove his hat as consultant to Consilium and, as executive officer of the International Episcopal Committee, had to convey the decision not to 'confirm,' to the English speaking Episcopal Conferences. Australia and Ireland decided not to proceed with the thing for the time being.
Meanwhile, Father McManus as director of the BCL is receiving the adverse decision, which, as handler of the International Episcopal Conference, he had posted to himself, and is proceeding to pass it on to the BCL Committee members.
What to do? What does the BCL do? It passes, now for the second time, the same unconfirmed and still unrevealed text to the NCCB, who vote, for the second time, their 'approbation.'
October 22, 1967 the new 'Canon' emerges from its wraps, into the light of day. Whereupon the Liturgical Conference issued a statement proclaiming that the Canon would 'develop a new understanding of our Mass.'
From then on it has been all downhill. One disobedience after another, with Rome subsequently traipsing along behind, giving authorization to successive disobediences, after some convulsive token protests.
Carefully undisclosed, even to the general membership of the ICEL Advisory Committee, was the fact that an official letter from the Consilium, dated Novermber 29, 1967, explicitly demanded the revision of the current English Canon. Similarly, carefully undisclosed was the fact that two subsequent letters, asking when a 'definitive' text would be ready, were sent by Consilium and ignored by the addressee. Such correspondence is, as a matter of course, routed through the ICEL secretariat, where it is dealt with, or, not dealt with, if expedience so dictates.
It has become as Father McManus predicted, to the speechless disbelief of Gary Potter interviewing him:
'Ultimately the approval of the Holy See will probably be dispensed with, since it does not figure in the Constitution on the Liturgy.’
As late as 1965 Consilium was protesting that permission would never be given for a vernacular Canon. In 1967, May the 4th. Tres Abhinc Annos, otherwise known as the Instructio Altera, i.e. the 'Second Instruction on the Proper Implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,' was promulgated. It granted permission for the whole Mass, including the canon, to be said aloud and in the vernacular.
Father Coughlin reveals1 that: 'The immediate cause of this was the American's hierarchy's request that the Canon of the Mass be allowed to be said out loud and in the vernacular.'
Father Coughlin adds: 'Other hierarchies were not slow to follow their lead.'
Rome wanted a single translation for each linguistic group. Michael Davies2states that for English speaking countries, this meant, in practice, that other hierarchies had to go along with whatever the American bishops approved. It soon became clear that the American hierarchy was prepared to approve whatever the ICEL bureaucracy told it to approve, read or not read, as the scandalous example given above proves beyond cavil of doubt.
In practice, the final arbiter of what ICEL would advance for approval was determined by Father Frederick R. McManus, who, for practical purposes, had become the Liturgical Puppet Master for the entire English-speaking world.
The puppets loved him. Two of them, Cardinal Gray for Scotland and Archbishop G. P. Dwyer for England and Wales, did not simply defend his indefensible travesty of the Roman Canon but waxed lyrical in its praise. They reported its considerable measure of success, even asserting that, as a translation, it accurately conveyed the sense of the original. This, surely, is proof that they, like their American colleagues, simply did not read it, or if they did read it, then they did so without engaging the intellect. Further, they would have it that it combined dignity with simplicity of language and possessed a rhythm suitable for public recitation.
It is not to be thought that only English speakers were intent, mindlessly or otherwise, on destroying the Mass. The rest of the world was at it too. But the point of focus of this writing is the new Mass as mediated to us in English and the purpose of this chapter is to show only that whatever may be thought of the Pauline Mass, whether one embraces it or not, in fact, nobody in the English-speaking world is actually saying it.What is being said is not Paul's Mass but Fred's Mass, as may be verified by anybody with the hardiness to compare, beginning with the words of consecration and expanding from there backwards and forwards to the extremities, the mass rite of Paul VI with the mass rite, darling of the Liturgy 'Club', rammed through the steps of a contrived procedure, by the vigour, tenacity and all round exceptional competence of Frederick R. McManus.
From RES SACRAMENTIyou
HOW IT HAPPENED
'I suspect you will find Fred McManus at the centre of the web.' Thus L. Brent Bozell, early in 1968, addressing Gary Potter, founding member of Triumphmagazine, and suggesting he write 'an article on how the Mass gets changed.'
It was brief guidance, but sufficient. The result was published in May, 1968 and is very nearly my only source for what follows. It had been debated what to call the article. Finally, mindful of the dictionary definition of a club - 'A select number of persons in the habit of meeting for the promotion of some common object,' according to The New Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language - it was decided to entitle it 'The Liturgy Club.' A photo of Father McManus was put on the cover of the magazine. The caption read, 'The President of the Liturgy Club.'
The 'Liturgy Club' is not to be thought of as an official organization, such as a society,incorporated or not as the case may be, with, say, dues-paying members and other identifying notes of societies generally. It would not have a letter head. It would not have, say, a president, a secretary, treasurer and the like, though functions of that kind could be performed by individuals invited ad hoc to do so, should it be thought convenient. It is instead, quite simply, 'a select number of persons in the habit of meeting for the promotion of some common object.' Which object, efficiently and ruthlessly pursued and achieved, has wrecked the Western Church.
The term 'Liturgy Club' is then a term of convenience to describe a reality which could be likened to a corporate eminence grise. You don't see much of it, you are not sure quite what it is or where it is, but its influence permeates everything.
The most prominent expression of the United States liturgical scene since 1940 is something called, simply, the Liturgical Conference. Power in this organization resides in its board of directors.The membership of the board is pretty much co-terminous with the 'Liturgy Club'. The chairman of the board is always the president of the Conference.
From early days, even way back in the forties and fifties and before, members of the board, notably Father Godfrey Diekmann, O.S.B., urged that the Conference actively sponsor vernacularization.Father Diekmann became editor-in-chief of Worship, the more-or-less official publication, indeed bulletin, of the 'Liturgy Club'. The masthead of Worship listed Fr. McManus as an associate editor.
In 1959 Fr McManus became the Conference president. Massive reorganization took place.The Liturgical Conference began to move.
The board created a permanent staff to administer the increasing work load. A direct link was established with the American hierarchy. The Conference was now to have an official episcopal adviser. It was established by statute that the episcopal adviser would be the chairman of the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy, the BCL.
The Conference began to exercise far reaching influence in the years 1961-62 when various bishops appealed to it to help collect material and prepare proposals for the approaching Vatican Council.
Father McManus spent the years 1962-64 in Rome as a Council Peritus. Another associate editor of Worship, Father Gerard S. Sloyan, kept the Conference President's chair warm for him until he returned for a final year (1964-65). It was during this term that Father McManus became, on January 1, 1965, the Director of the Secretariat of the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy, that is, the BCL.
This Secretariat is described in the Catholic Almanac as the continuing working body of the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy and served as a channel for the communication of official documents among the bishops, as an information office for the bishops and diocesan liturgical commissions, and as a liaison agent between various organizations concerned with liturgical renewal.
The episcopal adviser to the Liturgical conference, being as he was, the chairman of the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy, would have asked the Liturgical Conference board to recommend someone to assume the position of director. This individual would run the BCL Secretariat and implement the hierarchy's official renewal programme.
As chairman of the Conference board Father McManus would have received the request from the BCL chairman. He would then have courteously communicated the board's choice, which, by the nature of these things, would naturally turn out to be, ah, Father Fred McManus.
The United States hierarchy was re-organized after Vatican II into the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB). Of course the NCCB has its own secretariat, a formidable bureaucracy known as the United States Catholic Conference (USCC). The BCL is both a department of the NCCB and a department, one of many, of the USCC.
One of the consequences of this complex arrangement is that Father McManus, as executive officer of the BCL, not only has the duty of guiding the corporate body of bishops in liturgical affairs, he also has at his disposal the well-oiled and well-heeled machinery of the USCC to publicize and implement the decisions he helps the bishops to make. The task of making so extensive an organization as that, function, requires a man of considerable talent. Father McManus was such a man.
The very complexity of such an arrangement, calls into play the First Law of bureaucracy: If you turn your business over to one only individual, the bureaucrat you put in charge will tend to take over the business itself. He has to take over everything because only he knows how to work the machinery. Power was increasing in Father McManus' hands in large increments at a time but so far the increments I have indicated, were contained in the United States scene.
While all this was going on in the United States another bureaucracy, this time an international one, began to be in the ascendant. Its name: The International Committee for English in the Liturgy (ICEL). ICEL had its own intricate chain of command and accompanying procedures.
All the various English-speaking Episcopal Conferences around the world formed the head of this body, which resulted in another very complex arrangement. To make such a top heavy body function, there was formed what is known as the International Episcopal Committee. This episcopal committee was made up of selected bishops from the different episcopal conferences.I recall that Bishop Snedden, gone to his reward this many a year, was New Zealand's representative. There may have been others from this country, but I do not know.
The International Episcopal Committee made yearly reports. Listed in the report for 1966, as secretary-treasurer, was Father McManus. The following year the report for 1967 shows Fr McManus as treasurer and Father Gerard Sigler as Executive Secretary. These reports, of course, issue from the secretariat of the International Episcopal Committee, which in turn is ICEL reduced to manageable proportions.
It is interesting to learn that this secretariat is located in the Washington offices of the Liturgical Conference and to recall that both Fr. McManus and Fr Sigler, the two people who make ICEL work, are, with a few others, components of the 'Liturgy Club' whose stamping ground is the Liturgical Conference.
It would have made sense for the ICEL secretariat to have been accommodated in the USCC building, but that option was not taken because, as Mr Manion, who was the Liturgical Conference's executive director at the time this matter was being arranged explained: 'They didn't want it to look like the ICEL was completely dominated by Americans. That's why they didn't want to put … (Father Sigler) ... in the ... (USCC) Building... so he wouldn't be there right under Father McManus.'
Why did they bother? It was already becoming clear that ICEL, far from being an international organization of autonomous prelates, was developing into a cosy little home body, but with far flung minions around the world, doing the bidding of one man.
Beneath the International Episcopal Committee is to be found ICEL's real working body - the all-important Advisory Committee. This is where the Canon of the Mass was subjected to something mendaciously bruited abroad as a translation.This is where new canons and other parts of the Mass undergo the same treatment. The members of the Advisory Committee for the United states were: Professor George Harrison, Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan, Father Godfrey Diekmann of Worship and Father Frederick McManus.
It is very instructive to see how things in this area of our interest happen. The decision is made to 'translate' the fifteen-century-plus old Roman Canon into English. The decision was made by the members of the Club.
That means that the decision was made by the Liturgical Conference Board, the BCL, Worship, Father McManus, Father Diekmann, Father Sigler et al., all Club members. The decision was made without any instructions from the hierarchy. No poll of the faithful was taken. No steps at all were ever taken to determine whether anyone outside the Club wanted a vernacular Canon or, for that matter, a vernacular Mass. The Club simply decided.
Under the supervision of the Advisory Committee, the translators, who can be simply the members themselves of the Advisory Committee, got down to work. They 'translated.'
The translation was then approved by the ICEL Advisory Committee. There was one only dissenting vote - that of Professor H.P.R.Finberg of England. The translation was passed to the English speaking Episcopal Conferences. This means that Father McManus sent the translation, which he had already approved as member of the Advisory Committee, to himself as Director of the BCL Secretariat for transmission to the BCL itself.
The BCL, that is to say, Father McManus, passed the translation to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the NCCB. The United States Bishops, in the corporate personality of the NCCB, voted their 'approbation.' The voted their 'approbation' without however actually seeing the translation. Said one Archbishop who was afterwards interviewed: 'They did not distribute the text so that we could review it.' The interviewer inquired: 'Did you vote, then, simply on the recommendation of the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy?' The Archbishop replied: 'Yes.'
In some measure present to all this toing and froing was Rome, represented by the 'Consilium for Implementing the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,' known most commonly as the 'Consilium,' though often and characteristically called the 'Postconciliar Liturgical Commission' in the Newsletter of the BCL. The Newsletter of the BCL is edited by Father McManus.
The Consilium is a new creation emerging from Vatican II. The Consilium is supposed to share responsibility in many cases with the Sacred Congregation of Rites. In practice, it exercises its own competence.
After a liturgical change receives the 'approbation' of the NCCB (all the moving and shaking at this moment is taking place in the United states) the change is supposed to receive the 'confirmation' of the Holy See, i.e. of the Consilium, before it actually goes into practice. The Consilium would route anything sent it and needing confirmation to its appropriate consultants.
Sometime prior to any concrete activity of that kind in this area, Father McManus became a consultant to the Consilium. At this stage Father McManus may fairly be described as ubiquitous.Wherever there is a 'where' to be, he is there and he is not standing around looking decorative, he is at work.
So, the translation which the United States hierarchy, i.e. our candid Archbishop, together with his confreres, approved, without seeing, approved simply on the say-so of Father McManus, was posted off by Father McManus to the Consilium, where the same Father McManus, originator, with others in the 'Club,' and chief helmsman of the whole initiative, was, as consultant, awaiting its arrival.
At this point something approximating a set back occurred. Consilium did not 'confirm.' The set back may be described as 'approximate' because Consilium returned the English Canon to the International Episcopal Committee not with an anathema which it fully deserved but with the instruction that its use be regarded as 'temporary.'
This minor hiccup in the smooth progress of the destruction of the Church was not given any publicity. Only the inner circle knew of it. Father McManus, of course, knew of it. He had to remove his hat as consultant to Consilium and, as executive officer of the International Episcopal Committee, had to convey the decision not to 'confirm,' to the English speaking Episcopal Conferences. Australia and Ireland decided not to proceed with the thing for the time being.
Meanwhile, Father McManus as director of the BCL is receiving the adverse decision, which, as handler of the International Episcopal Conference, he had posted to himself, and is proceeding to pass it on to the BCL Committee members.
What to do? What does the BCL do? It passes, now for the second time, the same unconfirmed and still unrevealed text to the NCCB, who vote, for the second time, their 'approbation.'
October 22, 1967 the new 'Canon' emerges from its wraps, into the light of day. Whereupon the Liturgical Conference issued a statement proclaiming that the Canon would 'develop a new understanding of our Mass.'
From then on it has been all downhill. One disobedience after another, with Rome subsequently traipsing along behind, giving authorization to successive disobediences, after some convulsive token protests.
Carefully undisclosed, even to the general membership of the ICEL Advisory Committee, was the fact that an official letter from the Consilium, dated Novermber 29, 1967, explicitly demanded the revision of the current English Canon. Similarly, carefully undisclosed was the fact that two subsequent letters, asking when a 'definitive' text would be ready, were sent by Consilium and ignored by the addressee. Such correspondence is, as a matter of course, routed through the ICEL secretariat, where it is dealt with, or, not dealt with, if expedience so dictates.
It has become as Father McManus predicted, to the speechless disbelief of Gary Potter interviewing him:
'Ultimately the approval of the Holy See will probably be dispensed with, since it does not figure in the Constitution on the Liturgy.’
As late as 1965 Consilium was protesting that permission would never be given for a vernacular Canon. In 1967, May the 4th. Tres Abhinc Annos, otherwise known as the Instructio Altera, i.e. the 'Second Instruction on the Proper Implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,' was promulgated. It granted permission for the whole Mass, including the canon, to be said aloud and in the vernacular.
Father Coughlin reveals1 that: 'The immediate cause of this was the American's hierarchy's request that the Canon of the Mass be allowed to be said out loud and in the vernacular.'
Father Coughlin adds: 'Other hierarchies were not slow to follow their lead.'
Rome wanted a single translation for each linguistic group. Michael Davies2states that for English speaking countries, this meant, in practice, that other hierarchies had to go along with whatever the American bishops approved. It soon became clear that the American hierarchy was prepared to approve whatever the ICEL bureaucracy told it to approve, read or not read, as the scandalous example given above proves beyond cavil of doubt.
In practice, the final arbiter of what ICEL would advance for approval was determined by Father Frederick R. McManus, who, for practical purposes, had become the Liturgical Puppet Master for the entire English-speaking world.
The puppets loved him. Two of them, Cardinal Gray for Scotland and Archbishop G. P. Dwyer for England and Wales, did not simply defend his indefensible travesty of the Roman Canon but waxed lyrical in its praise. They reported its considerable measure of success, even asserting that, as a translation, it accurately conveyed the sense of the original. This, surely, is proof that they, like their American colleagues, simply did not read it, or if they did read it, then they did so without engaging the intellect. Further, they would have it that it combined dignity with simplicity of language and possessed a rhythm suitable for public recitation.
It is not to be thought that only English speakers were intent, mindlessly or otherwise, on destroying the Mass. The rest of the world was at it too. But the point of focus of this writing is the new Mass as mediated to us in English and the purpose of this chapter is to show only that whatever may be thought of the Pauline Mass, whether one embraces it or not, in fact, nobody in the English-speaking world is actually saying it.What is being said is not Paul's Mass but Fred's Mass, as may be verified by anybody with the hardiness to compare, beginning with the words of consecration and expanding from there backwards and forwards to the extremities, the mass rite of Paul VI with the mass rite, darling of the Liturgy 'Club', rammed through the steps of a contrived procedure, by the vigour, tenacity and all round exceptional competence of Frederick R. McManus.