VATICAN CITY — A high-powered new committee met in Rome April 22-24 to advise the Congregation for Divine Worship on English translations of liturgical books, especially the new Missale Romanum, issued last month.

The 12-member committee, Vox Clara (Clear Voice), is chaired by Archbishop George Pell of Sydney, Australia. Archbishop Oscar Lipscomb of Mobile, Ala., is vice chairman, and Archbishop Justin Rigali of St. Louis is treasurer. Cardinal Francis George of Chicago and Archbishop Alfred Hughes of New Orleans are the two other Americans on the committee.

All the members were appointed by the Congregation for Divine Worship (CDW) and represent the vast English-speaking world. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor of Westminster and Bishop Colin Campbell of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, are also members.

The creation of such a formidable group immediately led to speculation that the Congregation for Divine Worship was preparing to sideline the work of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), the troubled body which has principal responsibility for translating texts into English.

“Vox Clara is simply an advisory body within the CDW,” Archbishop Pell said. “We are very hopeful that ICEL will survive and prosper after its reformation.”

“ICEL now faces a major challenge to renew its statutes and structures, in light of the instruction Liturgiam Authenticam, to send an unmistakable signal that the goal of good liturgical translations is in sight,” said a Vox Clara press release.

Liturgiam Authenticam is a Congregation for Divine Worship document released in March 2001 that laid out new guidelines for translations.

The procedure for translations will remain the same. The International Commission on English in the Liturgy will produce drafts that will be sent to episcopal conferences for approval. Once approved by local bishops, the texts are then sent to the Holy See for final approval, termed a recognitio. Vox Clara will advise the Congregation for Divine Worship on whether to grant that recognitio, which is necessary before any translation of any liturgical book may be used.

While the procedure remains the same, the creation of Vox Clara is clearly an attempted solution to the problems of English translations, which have dragged on interminably as the Holy See has repeatedly refused to approve the work of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy without major revisions.

“Obviously there is dissatisfaction on the part of CDW and a goodly number of bishops with the quality of some of the translations, and this touches upon the fundamental philosophies of translation,” Archbishop Pell said.

Archbishop Pell was involved as an adviser to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the revisions demanded by Rome to the new lectionary used in the United States. With a doctorate in patristics, he also has a “very thorough background in Latin,” he said, which is “mandatory if you are going to talk about translations from Latin into English.”

“The task is a translation of the Roman Missal, not an adaptation, and it must be precise, theologically faithful and easily proclaim-able,” Archbishop Pell said. “Our goal is to have translations that are beautiful.”

While the key factor is the reformation of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy and the speed of its work, Archbishop Pell said Vox Clara is hopeful that an English translation of the Roman Missal might be ready in two years. Before the new Roman Missal was released, the commission had been working on a revised translation of the previous missal — an unfinished task that had already dragged on more than 10 years.

In a message to the Vox Clara committee members April 20, Pope John Paul II commended “to the pastors of the Church the important task of making available to the faithful, as quickly as possible, the vernacular translations of the editio tertia of the Missale Romanum.”

The Holy Father said that the role of the committee is to assist “the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in ensuring that the texts of the Roman rite are accurately translated” into English, and he stressed that the committee must carry out its work “in accordance with the norms of the instruction ‘Liturgiam Authenticam.’”

Outspoken Archbishop

The appointment of Archbishop Pell as chairman is only the latest significant appointment the Vatican has given to the outspoken Australian. He served as a member of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace from 1990-95, as a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1990-2000, and is a Consultor to the Pontifical Council for the Family.

In October 1999, he was chosen by Pope John Paul II to represent the bishops of Australia and Oceania at the Special Synod for European Bishops in Rome, and in 2001 he was named archbishop of Sydney, the senior Church position in Australia.

“A bishop is to serve his local Church firstly, but we are Catholics, so we also serve the universal Church,” Archbishop Pell said. “A beautiful and faithful translation of the Roman Missal would be an inestimable gift to the whole Church.”

(With files from Zenit)