Dumaguete Diocese set to implement new English version of Roman Missal

DUMAGUETE CITY, Philippines  – The Diocese of Dumaguete is gearing up for the implementation on December 2, this year, of the new English translation of the Roman Missal.

Monsignor Gamaliel Tulabing, diocesan administrator, expressed optimism there will be little or no difficulty at all for Catholics to adjust to the new English translation of the Mass, which was approved by the Vatican last year and was supposedly to be implemented on the 1st Sunday of Advent in 2011.

At the time then, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines however requested for a one-year grace period to allow enough time to catechize and educate the people before the new English version of the Roman Missal will take effect, he said.

Tulabing believed enough time has been given for the people in the diocese to adjust to the new version, even as he noted that in the countryside parishes, most Masses are said in the Cebuano dialect. Also, there are materials like books and videos to aid the priests as they continue educating their parishioners on the new English version of the Mass.

Masses in Cebuano and other dialects in the Philippines do not have a new word-for-word translation of the Roman Missal in its original Latin version.

Father Anscar Chupungco, OSD, a Benedictine monk and an authority in the Philippines on the liturgy, recently conducted a seminar for the Dumaguete clergy, nuns, seminarians and a handful of lay faithful, on the new English version of the Roman Missal.

He said Filipinos will get used to the new English version easily if they are being made to understand the new translation.

There is a need to look into difficult text and be able to explain it to the people, Chupungco said, adding that everything new would always be a challenge to the priests to know the exact meaning. “Sometimes we don’t even bother any more to know what those prayers we are saying are all about. With this new translation, we are forced to go back to the Latin and English text to understand better what the Church is saying with the prayers”, said Chupungco.

The new English translation is not really more faithful to the original Latin text, “because fidelity is not word for word translation (and) it can have some problems also,” he said. — text and photo by Judy Flores Partlow