Vatican City, Oct 22, 2017 / 11:43 am
In a letter responding to questions raised by Cardinal Robert Sarah on the new process of translating liturgical texts from Latin into vernacular languages, Pope Francis offered several points of clarification.
The Pope discussed points regarding the approval of new translations and the relationship between translations and Latin texts.
He clarified that while in the past, it was the task of the Vatican's liturgical office to judge whether or not a translation is faithful to the original Latin, episcopal conferences themselves have now been given the faculty of "judging the goodness and consistency of one and the other term in the translations from the original, in dialogue with the Holy See."
Dated Oct. 15, the Pope's letter was in response to one he had received from Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, at the end of September thanking the Pope for his recent motu proprio "Magnum Principium" (MP) on the translation of liturgical texts, and offering a commentary on how to interpret the motu proprio.