The counterpart. Tempus fugit.
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This is foolishness of the highest degree.
The National Sodomitic Reporter has an opinion piece by Jesuit Thomas Reese who doesn’t believe in transubstantiation: “I just don’t believe in transubstantiation, because I don’t believe in prime matter, substantial forms, and accidents that are part of Aristotelian metaphysics.” HERE HERE HERE Reese, as a Jesuit, is likely as famously well-formed as most Jesuits regarding things liturgical.
He thinks the present English 2011 translation of the Novus Ordo Missale Romanum should be scrapped and the (rejected) 1998 translation should be adopted. He wrongly calls the 2011 version a “word-for-word translation” three times and opposes it to the 1998 which is says “conveyed the meaning of the text but was understandable when spoken aloud to contemporary Americans.” He sees an opportunity because there is now a Pope who speaks English and because Roche is at DDW and because Francis issued Magnus principium.
Enough of that folly.
Instead…
The three martyrs we commemorate today SS. Margaret Clitherow, Anne Line, and Margaret Ward – were all martyred because they protected Catholic priests from the Elizabethan authorities, who were seeking out all Catholic priests for execution. May their bravery inspire us daily. pic.twitter.com/MODCXV7GJ0
— Ninefold Kyrie (@Gda1238) August 30, 2025
And…
Alfredo Schuster
“La gente pare non lasciarsi più convincere dalla predicazione, ma di fronte alla santità crede, si inginocchia e prega. Ignara delle realtà soprannaturali e indifferente ai problemi della salvezza, se un Santo autentico passa, tutti accorrono al suo passaggio” pic.twitter.com/9YXXqSoza0— Dicastero delle Cause dei Santi (@CauseSanti) August 30, 2025
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Bruvver Eccles has an illuminating post about certain types of architecture on his luvvly bloggue :
https://ecclesandbosco.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-eight-ugliest-churches.html
As a matter of interest, was it ever stated why the 1998 translation was rejected? While this may not be a popular opinion here, I think 1998 was the best translation made. Not flawless by any means, but way better than the original ICEL (not that that is a high hurdle to cross) while also being way more natural in its use of English than the current translation. I’m afraid the current one often reads to me like an anxious third-former (I think you transatlantic folk would probably call that 8th grade?) trying desperately to prove to teacher that he really did know what all the words meant, however cumbersome and stilted the outcome may be. (I do know Latin, by the way, having studied it at the same institution as the late, great Fr Hunwicke, though I don’t claim anything like his erudition.) Anyway we are stuck with what we’ve got, and yes, it’s a huge improvement on what we had before, so perhaps we should count our blessings – and certainly not allow heterodox Jesuits any influence on the matter.
What are the only two things a Jesuit won’t change in the Mass?
The bread and the wine.
Always thought it a joke; guess it’s actually formation.
WillP: I don’t mind in the least that it sounds like a translation.
IT IS a translation!
The Latin Church’s true language of prayer is NOT English.
Let all be reminded.
If a ‘priest’ comes right out and publicly denies Transubstantiation, that casts serious doubt on the validity of his Masses.
“If anyone says that in the sacred and, holy sacrament of the Eucharist the substance of the bread and wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and denies that wonderful and singular change of the whole substance of the bread into the body and the whole substance of the wine into the blood, the appearances only of bread and wine remaining, which change the Catholic Church most aptly calls transubstantiation, let him be anathema.”
*tips fedora*
It’s an old meme but seems appropriate.
In Aristotle’s philosophy, an accident is a property or attribute that a substance can have, but that is not essential to its identity. It’s something that exists in a substance but not as a substance.
A substance is what something fundamentally is (e.g., a tree, a cat, a person).
An accident is a feature that can change without altering the essence of the substance.
e.g.
A cat might be black, but its color is an accident — it could be white and still be a cat.
The form an Angel takes when appearing is accidental to its substance.
Christ’s human form — his appearance as a Jewish man — is accidental to his substance as a man. (As is Mary’s appearance as a Hebrew woman, hence she can appear to different peoples as one of them c.f. Our Lady of Las Lajas, our Lady of Guadalupe. Her accidents change, her essence remains the same.)
Reese’s “explanation” doesn’t pass the sniff test.
At an elementary level, disregarding contentious words like “metaphysics”, accidents and substance are just information theory.
I have a good pastor who likes to mention particularly on Trinity Sunday that if there is ever a sermon that the Trinity is not important…get up and run to another parish.
Years back (mid-1980s) as a teenager a priest (now deceased) gave a homily on a Holy Day that tied in Holy Days were for back in the olden days so Catholics could take a day off. After that experience, I confess that I skipped Mass for several years on Holy Days.
If a priest de-emphasized transubstantiation, why is he on the altar? He might as well become a Methodist or a Presbyterian.
Years ago (later 1990s) a permanent deacon (ordained mid 1970s) told a few of us from a young adult group that the Rosary was just a devotion. He wasn’t too encouraging to some of us to get together one evening in the Church to pray the Rosary.
On Trinity Sunday, I usually like to thank the priest or deacon if he doesn’t mention shamrocks.
A good priest wrote a book “The Crisis of Bad Preaching.” I think some priests and permanent deacons need a tutorial (or some CEU’s) every now and then.
Regarding translations of the Mass, liturgical Latin is not a language that the common people understood. According to Christina Mohrmann the Mass was not translated into Latin until a version of Latin was developed worthy of The Mass. Oddly, she was not allowed to be an expert at Vatican II because she was a female, but perhaps it is because she would have explained why vernacular liturgies would not work. Being an ex-Episcopalian, I think Elizabethian English would be perfect for an English Mass but nowhere near as good as Ecclesiastical Latin. But in the late ‘60’s it was common to hear clergy say that the English in the Book of Common Prayer was too difficult for people to understand.
Regarding language once again, when the Jesuits started to translate the Bible into the language of the Choctaw Indians in present day Mississippi they had a choice of three languages. These were not three different dialects of Choctaw, rather they were languages with three different degrees of formality. So the ones the Jesuits chose was the language used to hand down their creation myths and fables because of the very great respect the Choctaw had for these stories. This language was not used for everyday conversation. I learned this from a Wycliff Bible translator who gave a talk to a small group of faculty at my university. The Wycliff people found that no one in the Mississippi Choctaw now understands the old language so anew translation was needed.
WillP – the short answer to your question is that what was submitted by ICEL in 1998 was NOT just a translation. It included a translation of the Mass formularies, but also an extensive collection of newly composed prayers as alternatives, and a proposed revised Order of Mass.(!) CDWDS never gave a formal response to the document, they ‘let it be known’ that ‘it is not a translation’. Longer answer later if Fr Z will allow me.
ex seaxe: Cardinal Medina Estevez issued “Observations” on 16th March 2002. I remembered having read it in “Adoremus” at the time:
https://adoremus.org/2007/12/observations-on-the-english-language-translation-of-the-roman-missal/
“The language often lapses into sentimentality and emotionality in place of the noble simplicity of the Latin.”
Yep.
Thank you for that link jaykay, the ‘observations’ spell out the procedural difficulties (and save me from the effort). Since then ICEL was restructured on lines acceptable to CDWDS, who exercised close control (via ‘Una Voce’) and we got new Missals, though ‘Magnum principium’ will have removed that control again!
I would still like to see the 1998 draft translations of the orations analysed by Fr Z along with the 1973 travesties in wdtprs posts.