Editorial

The Ear of the Typical Person in the Pew
Proponents of inclusive language say that they are responding to popular demands. A CWR poll proves otherwise.
The overwhelming majority of Catholics are unfamiliar with the term "inclusive language." When the rationale is explained, they reject it.
Last December, as he returned from a visit to the Vatican, Cardinal William Keeler predicted that when a new Lectionary is finally approved for liturgical use in the United States, it should "be sensitive to the ear of the typical person in the pew in the United States." Who could possibly object to that?
Behind his eminently logical statement, however, Cardinal Keeler was hiding a suppressed premise. Along with the other six cardinals currently active in the United States, he had traveled to Rome for the express purpose of gaining approval for a new translation of the Lectionary: a translation that would incorporate the use of inclusive language. By inference, then, the cardinal(s) suggested that the sensitive ears of Catholic Americans required the use of inclusive language.
Is that true? Do Catholics really want inclusive-language translations? If they were presented with such translations, would they approve them? Would they care at all?
Early in January, Catholic World Report decided to test those propositions, by commissioning a professional survey of Catholic Americans. The results of that survey are described in some detail in our cover story on page XX. For now, let us merely touch the highlights:

• Most Catholics sense no need for new liturgical translations.
• The overwhelming majority of Catholics are unfamiliar with the term "inclusive language."
• When the rationale for inclusive language is explained to them, most Catholics reject it.
• When asked to choose between two sets of actual Biblical texts--one drawn from a standard translation, the other from a new inclusive-language version, Catholics choose the standard translations by comfortable margins.
• The preference for standard English holds for all demographic groups: men and women, old and young people, daily communicants and lapsed Catholics.
• The preference for standard English is strongest among the people who adhere most closely to Catholic teaching and practice; it is weakest among those who rarely receive the sacraments, and those reject Church teachings.

Vertical and Horizontal alike
In previous battles over translation--most noticeably in the long struggle to produce an appropriate English-language edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church--Vatican authorities have pointed to grave failing in gender-neutral language. From time immemorial, they point out, our faith has taught of God the Father. That tradition has the endorsement of no less an authority than his divine Son--who in his human form is unmistakably male. The Scriptures are replete with references to the Father and the Son--sometimes direct, sometimes metaphorical. So the elimination of gender from all biblical pronouns could weaken our sense of the Trinity and of the Incarnation--a risk which no believing Christian could accept.
Proponents of inclusive language admit that point, but fall back on a "compromise" position. Inclusive language is dangerous, they concede, when it is "vertical"--that is, when it eliminates the masculine gender of words which refer to the Almighty. Still they insist that "horizontal inclusive language"--the neutering of words which refer only to human beings--must be used, because the American people demand it.
But the American people demand no such thing. The Roper poll offered respondents four examples of inclusive-language translations--two "horizontal" and two "vertical." Respondents rejected all of them, by roughly similar margins.
No reason remains
For several years translators have argued that we need their new inclusive-language efforts, in order to avoid divisions within the Church. Women will be offended, they warn us, if they hear too many masculine pronouns. But they skip lightly over the possiblity that some women might also offended by those unisex creations. And they take it for granted that most Catholics would prefer inclusive-language translations. Now we know: that assumption is wrong.
How could the American bishops possibly justify an effort to impose the views of a minority, while still claiming to be sensitive to "the ear of the typical person in the pew?" Why would translators ignore the linguistic preferences of a clear majority, especially when those preferences are most firmly held by the most active churchgoers? What conceivable reason could there be for undertaking radical surgery on liturgical texts, when most Catholics apparently find the existing texts preferable to the inclusive-language alternatives?
It was an interesting debate. Now it's over.

- Philip F. Lawler