Australian cardinal calls Catholic translation of Mass texts a priority

Published: 2004-11-11

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- While the Catholic Church wants English-speaking Christians to have common texts for prayers they share, priority must be given to completing a new Catholic translation of the Mass texts, said Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, Australia. Ecumenical texts in English exist for some of the Mass prayers, including the Nicene Creed and the Gloria, but there is not a common text for the Mass as a whole, and that is what English-speaking Catholics need, the cardinal said. Cardinal Pell is chairman of the "Vox Clara" Committee, a group of bishops appointed in 2001 to advise the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments on the English translation of liturgical texts for the Latin rite. At the end of its Nov. 9-11 meeting at the Vatican, the committee issued a statement saying it had "discussed the implications for its work of pursuing the development of common liturgical and devotional texts with Christians of other churches and ecclesial communities." The statement said, "In this regard, the committee stressed the pressing pastoral need for the translation" of the 2002 edition of the Roman Missal in Latin "as a first priority."

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