The Double Con

The latest number of The Spectator - or at least the last one I've received - contains William Oddie's thoughts on the proposed de novo English translation of the Missal that is currently making the rounds of our episcopal masters for their approval. You can find it here.

In his article Oddie points out that at about the same time that the ICEL was mistranslating the sacred liturgy into bad English for the Catholic Church the Anglican Church, in which he was then a clergyman, was enduring similar - often identical - linguistic abuse. He makes this comment:

For this, and all the other reductionist mistranslations, we blamed the RCs. It was all a matter of ecumenical agreement, we were told, quite accurately as it turned out: the translations by ICEL (the Catholic Church’s International Commission on English in the Liturgy) were in general adopted by Anglicans.

Fascinating. Because we blamed the Protestants since we, too, were told this linguistic atrocity was necessary for ecumenical purposes.

As nifty a double con as ever was.