Lately I have made it my personal mission to try to understand why the U.S. Bishops have not provided us with English translations of the sung propers of the Mass (i.e. English translations of the texts of the Graduale Romanum). And, as a result, I have tried to figure out which translations we should be using in the absence of an "approved translation" of these texts. Although article 110 of Liturgiam Authenticam states that its principals apply to the transations of all liturgical books, including the Graduale Romanum, it doesn't mean that the U.S. Bishops will choose to translate it. In fact, I know of some who wouldn't desire that the GR be officially translated. But I hold the conviction that we need to have some middle ground between "proper latin chant" and "another suitable song". I believe that this chasm is too big and that chanted propers in English would do a great deal of good for our current liturgical culture. Resources obviouly already exist that offer such settings--but I'll get to that in a moment.

The confusion about which texts are actually "proper" has been intensified by the U.S. GIRM translation/adaptation that was released as liturgical law in 2003. I have recently heard that the U.S. Bishops have decided to correct the GIRM's instruction on sung proper antiphons to accord to the prescriptions of the official Vatican document, to universal law--I've been told that the GIRM will drop its previous instruction that "option 1" of the processional chants are to be taken from either the Roman Missal or the Roman Gradual, clarifying that the sung proper text is to be taken from the Roman Gradual, while if there is no singing the text is to be taken from the Roman Missal. This, of course, is how the Vatican IGRM reads. This comes to me as very good news as it will clarify which texts are actually "proper."

The next question, though, becomes "what translation of the sung propers should we use?" Resources like the American Gradual and the Anglican Use Gradual exist and are used by many for chanting the propers in English. These are wonderful resources, for sure, but they use differing translations of the Latin texts of the Graduale, and are by no means standardized or approved translations.

Of course--we don't have approved translations of the propers, as I stated before. Or do we?

Just recently I found a clue that seems to suggest that we might be getting approved translations of the propers after all. I was perusing a document entitled "Observations on the English-language Translation of the Roman Missal"--A letter sent from the CDW to the U.S. Bishops in 2002. Paragraph IV-M states:

"In order to assist the faithful to commit various parts of the sacred text to memory and to appropriate the text more deeply without the jarring inevitably created by the dissonance of diverse translations of the same passage, those texts taken directly from Sacred Scripture, such as the antiphons, should reflect the wording of the same approved version used in the Lectionary for which the Conference has received the recognitio of the Holy See. Only those textual adjustments should be made which are necessitated by the manner in which the editio typica has employed the official Latin text (e.g., sometimes adding a vocative such as "Domine" or condensing two verses). For the sake of such unity as regards the biblical text, it is appropriate and preferable that this element of diversity be maintained among the versions of the Roman Missal eventually to be published by the various Conferences."

After reading this I revisited Liturgiam Authenticam and discovered that article 36 mirrors this statement:

"In order that the faithful may be able to commit to memory at least the more important texts of the Sacred Scriptures and be formed by them even in their private prayer, it is of the greatest importance that the translation of the Sacred Scriptures intended for liturgical use be characterized by a certain uniformity and stability, such that in every territory there should exist only one approved translation, which will be employed in all parts of the various liturgical books. This stability is especially to be desired in the translation of the Sacred Books of more frequent use, such as the Psalter, which is the fundamental prayer book of the Christian people. The Conferences of Bishops are strongly encouraged to provide for the commissioning and publication in their territories of an integral translation of the Sacred Scriptures intended for the private study and reading of the faithful, which corresponds in every part to the text that is used in the Sacred Liturgy."

(The added emphasis in these documents is mine)

This tells me that the Vatican has given us approved translations of the proper antiphons of the mass, even if the U.S. Bishops won't. We simply take them from the approved scripture translations which will be used for the mass, for the office, and for the devotional life of the faithful. This seems so simple, almost too obvious, but nonetheless it is something that never occurred to me before I read it in these documents. It makes me think of Palestrina and his contemporaries who simply opened the Vulgate when they wished to set a liturgical text--They didn't have a web of translations to sort through, among other challenges that we've faced in modern times. Will we soon have the same luxury?

One remaining issue, though, would be the handling of the non-scriptural texts. The offertory of the requiem mass comes to mind, and I'm sure that there are others.

But it seems clear in the above documents that all scripture used in the vernacular in the liturgy is to be uniform and from the "approved" source. That source may be the Revised Grail Psalter (with recognitio) for the Psalms. And I'm not sure what translation is proposed for the rest of scripture--Does anyone else know?

Am I reading these passages correctly? Does this mean that we will finally have approved translations of the sung proper texts of the Mass?