AMERICAN CATHOLICS PREP FOR NEW MASS TRANSLATION

By RACHEL ZOLL – AP Religion Writer  

RIVER EDGE, N.J. (AP) — Each Sunday for decades, Roman Catholic priests have offered the blessing — “Lord be with you.” And each Sunday, parishioners would respond, “And also with you.”

Until this month.

Come Nov. 27, the response will be, “And with your spirit.” And so will begin a small revolution in a tradition-rich faith.

At the end of the month, parishes in English-speaking countries will begin to use a new translation of the Roman Missal, the ritual text of prayers and instructions for celebrating Mass. International committees of specialists worked under a Vatican directive to hew close to the Latin, sparking often bitter protests by English speakers over phrasing and readability. After years of revisions negotiated by bishops’ conferences and the Holy See, dioceses are preparing anxious clergy and parishioners for the rollout, one of the biggest changes in Catholic worship in generations.

“We’re tinkering with a very intimate and personal moment,” said the Rev. Richard Hilgartner, executive director of the worship office for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “It’s public worship, it’s the church’s official public prayer, but for the individual faithful, it’s one of the primary means of their encounter with the Lord.”

The biggest challenge will be for priests, who must learn intricate new speaking parts — often late in their years of service to the church. At an Archdiocese of Newark training at St. Peter the Apostle Church in River Edge, many clergy had just received a final published copy of the Missal, a thick hardcover bound in red, accompanied by an equally dense study guide. Earlier drafts had been available for orientation sessions that have been ongoing for months nationwide.

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