From the Editor

From the Editor Rev. Thomas M. Kocik In June 2008, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDWDS) granted recognitio to the ICEL translation of the Order of Mass, which the bishops of the United States had approved two years earlier. This past April, the CDWDS approved the remaining segments of the ICEL translation of the Roman Missal, which the U.S. bishops approved in November 2009. It is anticipated that the new ICEL translation of the Mass will be authorized for use in the dioceses of the United States beginning in Advent 2011. Also of great liturgical import is the Holy See’s recognitio, given in March, to the Revised Grail Psalter, which received approval from the U.S. bishops in November 2008. This revision of the 1963 Grail Psalter was undertaken by Benedictine Abbot Gregory Polan and the monks of Conception Abbey in Missouri. In a process taking just over a decade to complete, the Grail psalms were revised (and retranslated where necessary) to bring them into line with current biblical scholarship and the 2001 Instruction Liturgiam authenticam, which sets forth the principles for preparing translations of liturgical texts. The Instruction insists that a single consistent translation be used in all liturgical services, which has not been the case as far as the psalms are concerned. Once the revised Grail psalms are incorporated into the liturgical books, Latin-rite Catholics in the United States and most other Anglophone countries will use the same version of the psalms for all liturgies celebrated in English: Holy Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office), baptisms, etc. In the Current Number Although Antiphon is not published topically, the present issue is almost completely devoted to matters apropos of the forthcoming revised translations. The bulk of this number consists of a solidly researched study (really a short book) on the “pro multis” of the   ICEL = International Commission on English in the Liturgy. On its fortieth anniversary in October 2003, ICEL was formally re-established by the Holy See in accordance with the principles set out in Liturgiam authenticam (2001), the fifth Instruction on the proper implementation of the Vatican II Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum concilium. Antiphon 14.2 (2010): 162-164 163 from the editor consecratory formula. Its author is the renowned theologian Father Manfred Hauke, Professor of Patristics and Dogmatic Theology at the Theological Faculty of Lugano in Switzerland. In the Foreword to this study, also published herewith, Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith notes that Father Hauke “presents the biblical foundation of the theme, follows the interpretation of the sacred words through the course of history, reports the relevant documents of the Magisterium, and finally offers a systematic interpretation of the accurate translation in light of the theological doctrine of the Eucharist.” In view of the new ICEL translation, Father Hauke was eager to make this work available in English quam primum, even if doing so would necessitate serial publication. Consequently, he had it translated from the original German and, to my great delight, submitted the English translation for publication in Antiphon. I am grateful for the opportunity to present this important study to our readers in its entirety. Another translation piece, much shorter but nonetheless timely, concerns the greeting Dominus vobiscum and its response, Et cum spiritu tuo. It was written by the liturgical historian Dom Bernard Botte O.S.B. (died 1980) and first published in French. The precise meaning of these phrases has long been the subject of much disagreement, and what Botte writes in 1965 about the French translation can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the present circumstance. He indicates that if the greeting were translated “The Lord is with you,” thus interpreting it as a declarative statement of fact, the people’s response would naturally be the affirmation, “Amen.” In favor of a more literal translation of the response, he quotes the Dominican exegete Father Ceslas Spicq, who describes the Pauline understanding of pneuma as “the spiritual part of man most closely united to God.” From the point of view of biblical anthropology, it is not possible to translate the people’s response as “And also with you.” While I think Botte...