The last time the Graduals, Tracts and Alleluias (from the Graduale) were given in official translation was with the 1964 Missale Romanum.

This statement contains two errors of fact.

There was no 1964 Missale Romanum. There were both a 1962 Missale Romanum and a 1970 Missale Romanum. And there was a 1964 USA Sacramentary, much of it in English and based on the 1962 Missale Romanum but already containing some early liturgical revisions/concessions approved by the Congregation for Rites (Consilium).

The second error has appeared more than once on this Forum. The English translation of "Graduals, Tracts and Alleluias (from the Graduale)" in that 1964 Sacramentary was never canonically approved by the National Conference of Catholic Bishop. Rather, as is stated in the September 1965 issue of the Newsletter of the then-Bishops' Commission on the Liturgical Apostolate, "The texts of the Proper parts, both the prayers and the prefaces, have been adapted from the Daily Missal of the Mystical Body (Maryknoll Missal). As the 1964 Sacramentary was always understood to be a stop-gap liturgical book until such time as the Latin Missale Romanum were to be completely revised, published and then translated into English, no effort was made by the NCCB (or ICEL) in the mid-1960's to translate anything more than was absolutely necessary, that is, the ordinary of the Mass. (And those texts did receive canonical approval of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.) Everything else was lifted from the Maryknoll Missal. Thus, from their origin those texts were never intended for public proclamation or for singing. They were for the lay faithful to read silently while Mass was celebrated in Latin.

I composed hundreds of settings of the propers from the 1964 Sacramentary during the late-1960's. And World Library Publications' Summit Series - more than 200 really fine musical settings which sold poorly and which contributed to the bankruptcy and ultimate sale of the company to J.S. Paluch - also used those texts. But those texts were never intended to be or remain "official."

Fr. Krisman:

Firstly, I don't intend to sound argumentative, and I apologize if I sound so. You are probably right, since you lived through it and worked with it, but I have a couple questions to clear up my own misunderstanding, if you'd please bear with me.

Secondly, I have a feeling that chonak might break this up into another thread.

1: Are we talking about the same book, Father? My title page says:

ROMAN MISSAL
MISSALE ROMANUM

Ex Decreto Sacrosancti Concilii
Tridentini Restitutum
Summorum Pontificum Cura Recognitum
cum
Versionibus Lingua Anglica Exaratis
et a
Coetu Episcoporum Civitatum
Foederatarum Americae Septentrionalis
Rite Approbatis
Actis ab Apostolica Sede Confirmatis

CATHOLIC BOOK PUBLISHING CO.
NEW YORK
1964

Then, the only copyrights given are for the general Copyright of the whole book (National Catholic Welfare Conference), Scriptural readings (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine), and the "Scriptural verses adapted from The Book of Psalms" (again CCD). There is no mention here of another copyright, e.g., Proper Antiphons taken [or adapted] from Daily Missal of the Mystical Body (Maryknoll Missal), (c) Copyright 19-- by the Maryknoll Fathers. &c. Why would the NCCB not acknowledge the originator of those texts and any Copyright held by the authors? Again, not saying you're wrong, just asking why this was not mentioned in the Altar book, not that you'd know the answer to that, but to me, at least, it's weird that they omitted that. There is a Decree from the NCCB (pg. iv) which says:

1 The Mystery of the Holy Eucharist

a. For the lessons---the version translated fro the original languages by members of the Catholic Biblical Association of America and sponsored by the Episcopal Committee of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, including those not yet published;
b. For the ordinary parts pertaining to the people---the translations appended to this decree;
c. For the proper parts pertaining to the people---the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine version, described above, of the Book of Psalms and other books of the Bible, adapted, to the extent necessary, to the text of the Roman missal.

Again, no mention was made of the Maryknoll Missal, only the Confraternity version of the Bible. Am I missing something? Were the Maryknoll texts themselves taken from the Confraternity version and then adapted to fit the Latin of the Roman Missal?

(After the copyright notices, of course, appear the Decrees from the NCCB (one in Latin, then the second in English from which the above was extracted); the letter from Card. Lercaro (Sac. Cong. for Rites); Quo Primum (Pius V); Cum sanctissimum Eucharistiae Sacramentum (Clement VIII); Si quid est (Urban VIII); Rubricarum instructum (John XXIII); Decree from Cicognani (SCR); and the Rubricae Generales.)

Considering that the texts of the propers would have been read aloud by the priest at Low Mass, would they then not be raised to the level of official texts by virtue of that use? I ask because I don't know. Thanks.