View of new texts by an educator with children

I'm wondering what might happen if the only voice heard at this point is the priest's - as in, the congregation goes silent and simply skips these words?

Given my lifelong experience as a member of the Church, I'd wager that the implications of asking youngsters to pronounce themselves inwardly filthy were indeed thought through.

For the Restorationists to attempt to make children feel that they are the moral equilivent of Nazi war criminals is laughable and just plain wrong. The nuns tried it with me and my classmates and it had the opposite desired effect.

For awhile I was debating if my characterization of the new Confetior as 'child abuse' was going too far--but apparently I'm not the only one that sees it that way--I've often thought that by inculcating children to believe this about themselves (by this 'self-talk') will allow pedophile priests to continue to abuse them--the sexually abused child will believe they 'deserved' it because they were "great sinners"........................
I attended a seminar on the new translations last week and the party line was in full force--no discussion--- just "how can we find ways to positively get parishioners to accept the new translation?"--NO 'thinking' about the translations just accepting them and their inane reasoning ('because it is closer to the Latin'!!! as if Latin was the end all and be all of anything!!)--they suggested we begin by wearing a ridiculous button with the words, "And with your Spirit"--I might have been more inclined to wear a button if it said, "Are your children safe in the Catholic Church?" or "Are you a thinking Catholic or a 'sheeple'?"

Cheers,

Couldn't agree more! Is this really going to bring back the prestige and power of the church? And what about words such as "hosts" in the Sanctus? Doesn't "God of power and might" have more meaning. And don't we also refer to the Eucharistic bread as host? And what about "I am not worthy that You come under my roof"? What's that mean, the roof of my mouth? I'm just saying, the whole issue of this translation is ridiculous. No! We are not "anxiously awaiting this 'gift' of the Church."

New South "Whales"? Gales of laughter... Try New South Wales...

Any Army or Marine drill sergeant would recognize that the bowing and repetitious mea culpas have less to do with piety than control. GIs are trained to respond to orders reflexively, to maitain the cohesion that's necessary to function as a unit. Right now our episcopal generals see the unit as undisciplined and out of control. Therefore, order must be reestablished, and one way is through drills that get everybody back to a state of reflexive response to leadership. So, look for some additional steps down this path--such as communion with bread alone and only on the lips. I'll bet the "chain of command" will be strengthened by eliminating or significantly reducing the role of the laity in presiding at communion services or deliving the host to shut-ins. With discipline "restored," those who drill sharply to episcopal command will look upon themselves as elete and hold the undisciplined rabble in disdain. This public kow-towing also sems to be in contrast to Jesus's advicein the Sermon the Mount, to pray and do alms in secret and not to preen in public. Okay, troops, "to the rear, march."

This kind of stuff was all words when I was raised with it pre-V2 and will fall back to being all words in the future.

If you want to disengage the slack-jawed pew potatoes even more than they might be now, make they language with which they are to pray even more arcane and we'll start to see newspaper reading, day dreaming and maybe even a return to doing the stations of the cross and rosary-saying that was quite common in the bad old daze.

New South "Whales." Are you sure it was North Dolphins?" Maybe the Creed's not the only thing we need to laugh at.

Hi Tom,          

I think you intended to type "Confiteor" rather than "creed" :))
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Anyway...   Having waded through the new liturgical offering in an effort to wrap my brain around it ahead of its launch,   I was struck by the archaic language,   awkward syntax,   unnecessary wordiness   and run-on sentences.     In a couple of places in particular,   if the priest   (especially a priest whose second language is English)   puts emphasis and pauses in the wrong place,   a truly weird unintended meaning emerges — startlingly so for those of us who actually listen to the words of the prayers.
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Ostensibly,   we enter into the mystery of God as worship in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.     I fear that instead of entering divine mystery,   the average person and their children will merely be 'mystified' by the verbiage.     Lofty language may sound 'spiritual' on the surface,   but what good are those lofty sounding words if we miss the substance by grasping for the superficial shadow?     Perhaps in that case,   what should be meaningful worship of God   (come Advent,   erstwhile "active participation")   becomes mere theater with the pew-peons as spectators...   with a little breast-beating thrown in for good measure?     Perhaps the latter is the actual intent of the Vatican prelates?
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Whales (sick) often make funny noises.

Well, my guess is the kids will pay about as much attention to the words as I and my classmates did back in the 50's and 60's when it was "mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.."
On of my sons, who is in his 30's, asked me lately, "So Mom, what's up with this "Through my fault, through my fault, through my son-of-a-b**tchin' fault"? When I caught my breath and finished laughing I tried to explain that the new wording (not his wording!) was considered a more accurate translation of the Latin "mea culpa".

---"if anyone’s thought through the implications of teaching youngsters to repeatedly beat their breasts and utter “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault,” essentially, in her view, pronouncing themselves “inwardly filthy.”"

this has always been a cause for wonder, although many of us did it in incomprehensible Latin, if not mumbled gibberish, with the appropriate beatings of breast coordinated between us acolytes with nods and winks, one as good as the other to the blind horse of a priest.

one advantage of the Latin liturgy: we did not understand it at all. Now we do and tremble at our unhealthy child development.

In any case, is this Biblical, Gospel even, or Jansenist?

Mea culpa, indeed! I'll blog again, carefully, should the people in New South Wales ever get around to commenting on the Creed. TR

I think that the Sunday Gospel of today should become one of very few dogmas in our RCC. Matthew 11: 25,26 “At that time Jesus said, “Father, Lord of heaven and earth! I thank you because you have shown to the unlearned what you have hidden from the wise and learned. Yes, Father, this was done by your own choice and pleasure.”

Some day the hierarchy of our Church is going to have to stumble upon the elephant in the room. The sooner the better, since we still believe that the only reason for the existence of the RCC is “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” which according to Jesus is the ”Good News” that merited his birth, life, assassination, resurrection and his continual presence with us today: the governance of his “Abbá, Daddy” in modern parlance “that other possible society”, that “other possible world” , different from our world of today where every 4 seconds one of our sisters or brothers dies of hunger as we nonchalantly continue to destroy our dear Mother Earth by our consumer greed.

Justiniano de Managua

The one last bastion of connection with their Church for many Catholics is the liturgy; an understandable one in the true 'vernacular' at that. What happens to them when that goes away, and we're back to the breast beating of the 1960's?

These comments are right on, as far as I am concerned. I used to be a sort of copy-editor to three or four scientists, and they could really mangle the English language. My job was to sort it all out and make sense of the language. I never could understand the physics of it all. Consequently I am most distressed over these changes, but oddly, the worst change, in my opinion, is the first word of the creed. As it is now, we stand and as a community say, "We believe...". We will be going back to "I believe...", taking us away from our sense of community as the People of God. Scatter the sheeple and they are easier to control, for sure.

I do not intend to say any of these changes, and will keep on saying "We believe...".

When no one is at fault, everyone is a victim. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa is not about being a nazi or a war criminal. It is about recognizing that I have responsibility and if I fail to meet that responsibility, it's my fault, no one else's. We live in a time where responsibility has virtually disappeared and been replaced by finger pointing. I'd like to see that change.

How revealing! I believe that the "gales of laughter" in response to the Confiteor may be the purest indication of the need for some --what shall I say -- penitential gravitas? in our prayers. The laughter may indicate a blindness to personal sinfulness and its effects on others. Yet I know that the people of this parish in New South Wales can be vicious gossips, porn consumers, adulterers, drunks, aborters... just as the people of any parish can be, mine included.
I have taught in Catholic schools and I think that there is psychological abuse --a moral starvation that deprives the kids of good conscience formation. Are there no angelic looking nasty girls in New South Wales who bring classmates to tears? No bullies, cyber or otherwise? No young swaggering males already puffing up their egos by making “things” of girls? Yet in a flurry of generous class projects caring for the poor whom they do not personally know, they remain unaware that the lies they told about the girl two rows over are sins, sometimes even quite devastating sins. Why would we deprive them of the extremely healthy path of repentence and forgiveness offered in Catholicism?
I heard Michelle Obama mention that kids today are much “more vicious” to each other than they were when she was young. I agree. Why then would we deprive them of the the insight and maturation that can come from “mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa?

As a survivor of child abuse, I resent the trivialization of such serious matter.