Special Report

Holy See Rejects Inclusive Language

"The translation of Scripture should faithfully reflect the Word of God in the original human languages."

By Helen Hull Hitchcock

While not mentioning the term 'inclusive language' as such, the Holy See has conclusively rejected the possibility of inclusive-language devices for biblical translation. The so-called 'secret norms' for translation of biblical texts for use in the liturgy were sent to all bishops two weeks before their June meeting in a confidential packet of documentation on the proposed Lectionary for Mass. (The Vatican norms were published in the July 4 issue of the National Catholic Reporter.)

The Vatican norms are, in essence, a point-by-point negation of the US bishops' Criteria for the Evaluation of Inclusive Language Translations of Scriptural Texts Proposed for Liturgical Use, adopted in November 1990, in preparation for the revision of the Lectionary for Mass. The revised Lectionary based on these Criteria was sent to the Vatican for approval two years later.

The Vatican norms were issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. They appear in their entirety in the attached sidebar.

The key norm of the document is Norm 3:

Of course, the 'improvement' of sacred texts in the service of modern sensitivities is the precise purpose of inclusive language, and its elimination by the Holy See means that the project of politically tuned gender-sensitive translation is doomed in the Catholic Church.

The Vatican Norms help to clear up a number of unexplained circumstances surrounding the controversy over biblical translation that took place in the past five years. Reflecting as they do the Holy See's position on the primacy of fidelity to the sacred text, the norms demonstrate that the Vatican rejection of the proposed Lectionaries based on the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) and Revised New American Bible (RNAB) was not a matter of trifling quibbles. which a little fine-tuning could correct, but pointed instead to a profound disagreement about the nature of translation and of the Church assembled at prayer in the liturgy.

While the theory behind the US bishops' project was one of 'pastoral concession'--in effect, cutting a deal with feminist cutters-and-pasters by accepting as final their less outrageous changes in the text--the principle governing the Holy See's criteria was doctrinal: the conviction that God reliably speaks to us in Scripture and that the integrity of His Word must be safeguarded in translation.

The two approaches are irreconcilable, and in hindsight it is obvious why three archbishops had to be dispatched to Rome to patch together a Lectionary from parts salvaged from works earlier judged 'obsolete' on pastoral grounds. The final translation contains some inclusivist expressions that are, in context, awkward rather than erroneous (after all, if you render every word of the Bible by 'nostril' you're going to be right some of the time) but the defeat for the project of inclusivist translation is staggering.

While making some things clear, however, the published Norms spawn some mysteries of their own.

In particular, how is it that Bishop Donald Trautman was able to say repeatedly during the past year that the Vatican norms were largely congruent with the US bishops 1992 guidelines on translation--last yar, while serving as chairman of the US bishops' liturgy committee, he even told reporters that he was pleased that the Vatican norms used some of the "same language" as the US bishops' criteria--when he now complains bitterly that the Vatican norms consign to oblivion the project carried out according to the US guidelines? Something doesn't add up.

Perhaps the most significant phrase in the June discussion of the Lectionary was Archbishop Rembert Weakland’s comment that the result of applying the Vatican norms to the Lectionary results in a "creeping christologicism." The Holy See's Norm #6/2 requires that translators take care that Christological connections between the New and Old Testaments not be precluded in translation: a fairly modest stipulation, one would think. The fact that a bishop should be affronted by the insistence that Old Testament references to Jesus Christ not be obscured--and, moreover, should view the Holy See's concern as evidence of a dangerous trend--puts into vivid relief the contrast between the principal adversaries in the Translation Wars. The conflict pits political accommodation against theological truth. The Vatican norms make it clear where the See of Peter stands.

Helen Hitchcock is the editor of the Adoremus Bulletin. Because of the unusual importance of the subject matter, this article is being carried simultaneously, in a slightly different form, by that publication.

When the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) met in Kansas City, Missouri, on June 19, the most controversial item on the agenda was a proposed new Lectionary--the subject of a long editorial process which had been marked by unusually open disagreements between the leaders of the American bishops' conference and the Holy See. When the NCCB meeting ended on June 21, the fate of the Lectionary was still unclear. The vote on the Lectionary was close enough so that, as many bishops left the meeting early, a mail-in vote was needed to establish the final result.

The newly approved Lectionary will now be submitted to the Vatican for final approval. But since the text of the new translation was the result of lengthy negotiations between US bishops and Vatican representatives, there is no reason to doubt that the Holy See will approval the translation itself. The only element of the US bishops' resolution which could raise eyebrows in Rome is the suggestion that this Lectionary will be a temporary solution, and a new effort to revise the text may be undertaken in five years.

Archbishop Jerome Hanus of Dubuque, Iowa presented the new Lectionary to the June NCCB meeting. The chairman of the bishops' liturgy committee, Archbishop Hanus had also been one of three American delegates (along with Archbishops William Levada of San Francisco and Justin Rigali of St. Louis, Missouri) who traveled to the Vatican earlier this year for a series of meetings in which a combined US-Vatican team hammered out a new translation of the Lectionary that would ease Vatican objections regarding the use of inclusive language.

When that working group originally met, Cardinal William Keeler of Baltimore had assure reporters that the final text would incorporate the inclusive language which the majority of American bishops sought. Just prior to the bishops' meeting, NCCB officials had adopted a more cautious tone, saying that the text negotiated in Rome used "moderate horizontal inclusive language." Even during the debate in Kansas City, Archbishop Levada referred to the new text as "an updated, inclusive-language text." But when Archbishop Hanus formally introduced the final product, Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, Pennsylvania--his predecessor as chairman of the liturgy committee--admitted that the new version "has been substantially and radically altered, rendering it no longer an inclusive-language text." So the bishops' final vote represented a first major setback for the proponents of inclusive language within the American bishops' conference.

Some of the more liberal American bishops were not ready to accept such a defeat quietly, and the NCCB debate was a lively one. Bishop Trautman bitterly complained that the new Lectionary "is not pastorally helpful," and led a chorus of voices raised in opposition to approval of the new text. As it became apparent that most bishops were not prepared for yet another confrontation with Rome, Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee introduced a motion to approve the Lectionary "as a provisional text for five years, during which time a designated committee will work on a more definitive edition." That motion--amended to soften its tone--was then grafted onto the resolution by which the bishops approved the Lectionary.

During the NCCB meeting, some bishops had expressed concerns that if the Lectionary did not embrace the use of inclusive language, many priests and lectors would adopt a "cut-and-paste" approach, making their own unauthorized changes in the Mass readings. (Of course, that approach is already commonplace in most American dioceses.) Yet the hint that the new Lectionary is merely a "provisional" text might give even more encouragement for such illicit tinkering.

Nevertheless, the Vatican insistence on close adherence to the biblical text has apparently begun to sway a substantial number of American bishops. And Rome's success in influencing the process of new English translations was visible again soon after the NCCB meeting, when Bishop Anthony Pilla, the president of the US bishops' conference, announced the appointment of Chicago's Archbishp Francis George as the US representative to the International Commission on English in the Liturgy. Archbishop George--who has consistently upheld the vatican position in the "translation wars"--replaces Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati, the American representative to ICEL for the past decade, who was generally supportive of inclusive language.

But the debate on inclusive language is far from over. After another debate the same June meeting, involving a new Sacramentary, the NCCB members considered a new proposed translation of congregation's response to the "Suscipiat" prayer. The proposed translation would have read: "May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands, for the praise and glory of God's name, for our good and the good of all the Church." [emphasis added] In each instance, the italicized word replaces the masculine "his." The American bishops voted overwhelmingly (188-20) to reject that inclusive-language text.

The natural gender of personae in the Bible...must not be changed...

1. The Church must always seek to convey accurately in translation the texts she has inherited from the biblical, liturgical, and patristic tradition and instruct the faithful in their proper meaning.

2. The first principle with respect to biblical texts is that of fidelity, maximum possible fidelity to the words of the text. Biblical translations should be faithful to the original language and to the internal truth of the inspired text, in such a way as to respect the language used by the human author in order to be understood by his intended reader. Every concept in the original text should be translated in its context. Above all, translations must be faithful to the sense of Sacred Scripture understood as a unity and totality, which finds its center in Christ, the Son of God incarnate (cf. Deo Verbum III and IV), as confessed in the Creeds of the Church.

3. The translation of Scripture should faithfully reflect the Word of God in the original human languages. It must be listened to in its time-conditioned, at times even inelegant, mode of human expression without "correction" or "improvement" in service of modern sensitivities.

4/1. The natural gender of personae in the Bible, including the human author of various texts where evident, must not be changed insofar as this is possible in the receptor language.

4/2. The grammatical gender of God, pagan deities, and angels according to the original texts must not be changed insofar as this is possible in the receptor language.

4/3. In fidelity to the inspired Word of God, the traditional biblical usage for naming the persons of the Trinity as Father, Son ,and Holy Spirit is to be retained.

4/4. Similarly, in keeping with the Church’s tradition, the feminine and neuter pronouns are not to be used to refer to the person of the Holy Spirit.

4/5. There shall be no systematic substitution of the masculine pronoun or possessive adjective to refer to God in correspondence to the original text.

4/6. Kinship terms that are clearly gender-specific, as indicated by the context, should be respected in translation.

5. Grammatical number and person of the original texts ordinarily should be maintained.

6/1. Translation should strive to preserve the connotations as well as the denotations of words or expressions in the original and thus not preclude possible layers of meaning.

6/2. For example, where the New Testament or the Church’s tradition have interpreted certain texts of the Old Testament in a Christological fashion, special care should be observed in the translation of these texts so that a Christological meaning is not precluded.

6/3. Thus, the word man in English should as a rule translate adam and anthropos (anqwpos), since there is no one synonym which effectively conveys the play between the individual, the collectivity, and the unity of the human family so important, for example, to expression of Christian doctrine and anthropology.