Saturday, March 31, 2007

"It is fitting that such liturgies be celebrated in Latin"

The English translation of the Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis has been revised. The initial translation, critiqued on this site and also, and crucially, at Fr. Zuhlsdorf's blog, said in paragraph 62 that international liturgies "could be" in Latin - a strange formulation to describe a liturgy the normative form of which is already Latin. The new translation says "it is fitting" that these liturgies be in Latin.

It is a striking revision given that ironic twist that it was the Latin language itself that was at issue. The phrase in question is "aequum est" which Fr. Zuhsdorf says is best rendered as "it is reasonable, proper, right" - or "it is becoming." in this case, fitting is a big improvement.

Other translation issues from this document are still under consideration.

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