ICEL
The internet's democratisation of debate catches out church authorities
Fr Finigan, a Sussex Roman Catholic parish priest, was ordered to remove a copy of the latest draft of the long-awaited Roman Catholic English-language liturgical texts from his blog site. On 13 April 2007, the draft from the International Commission on the Liturgy (ICEL) was placed on his blogsite: the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.com He was told he was in breach of copyright. The church authorities clearly have little understanding of the way the internet works, as a quick search reveals that the unofficial text spread rapidly, especially around conservative Roman Catholic blogsites, and is now available as a PDF document online and even has its own dedicated blogsite. Those who had missed the original post could merely read the material in a search engine’s cached copy of the site. The English magazine the Tablet had a half-page article on the fracas, which inevitably must have led to further web searches and proliferation of the material.
At least one translation of the Bible into English has been criticised for being so pedantic in its word-for-word accuracy that it results in a form of English that has never actually been spoken by anyone. Glancing at the unofficial ICEL translation, with its firm commitment to replicate the official Latin texts word for word into English, I wonder whether it will be similarly critiqued. There is a clear move towards a more “Cranmerian” style of English that will result in some material sounding very “Anglican”. On the other hand, and extremely unfortunately, there is an abandonment of ecumenically agreed English-language texts. The Gloria looks very different, the Sursum Corda and Sanctus in English are also quite different to the current, ecumenically agreed texts. There will be a loss of shared musical settings, and all current Roman Catholic musical settings will need to be abandoned or significantly revised.
The controversy surrounding Fr Finigan’s publication and his subsequent removal of the texts from his blog increased debate about the lack of openness about ICEL’s processes and their unwillingness to allow any public discussion about its drafts. It also led to public debate once more about copyright of liturgical texts. On that issue certainly, this site is strongly convinced that liturgy is the duty and right of all the people of God, and as such, theologically at least, all texts, if they are to be regarded as liturgical texts, belong to the whole people of God.
Further reflection: what happens when responses differ