On the lectionary, 11 men made the deal: critics allege group was unqualified, biased in judgement

National Catholic Reporter, Sept 25, 1998 by John L. Allen, Jr.

Critics allege group was unqualified, biased in judgment

Eighteen months ago, 11 men met in the Vatican to overhaul the American lectionary, the collection of scripture readings authorized for use in the Mass. Short-circuiting a six-year debate over "inclusive language" by retaining many of the most controversial uses of masculine vocabulary, and revamping texts approved by the U.S. bishops, this group decided how the Bible will sound in the American church.

To this day, the bishops, Bible scholars and liturgists whose contributions to the lectionary were either dumped or revised can only guess who was at the table when the decisions were made. Rome never said whose advice on questions of detail mattered, whose scholarship was relied on to settle disputes -- information vital, observers say, to evaluating the credibility of the work.

Over the past few weeks, NCR has learned who the members of this special Vatican working group were and pieced together something of their backgrounds. Based on this information, certain points, long the subject of rumor, can now be confirmed:

* Only one of the 11 men -- no women were included -- holds a graduate degree in scripture studies;

* Two members of the group were not native English-speakers, and another is from the United Kingdom with no significant time in the United States -- critical, some say, to an appreciation of idiomatic American English;

* At least one of the advisers was a graduate student at the time of the meeting;

* Several members of the group had a history of objecting to inclusive-language translations, including two of the American archbishops and the lone scripture scholar.

What has also become clear is that the elaborate consultative process used in developing English-language translations for nearly three decades meant little. Powers in Rome handpicked a small group of men who in two weeks undid work that had taken dozens of years.

"This is the scandal of it," said one source close to the battle over the lectionary, upon hearing the names of those involved. "These decisions were being made by unqualified people with a clear bias against inclusive language," said the source, who asked not to be identified.

Working group members

Members of the working group interviewed for this article see it differently, arguing that dozens of scripture scholars had been consulted along the way to that Vatican meeting. Putting together a lectionary, they say, is about more than Bible scholarship -- it's about liturgy, doctrine and the exercise of pastoral office.

The working group met from Feb. 24 to March 8, 1997, in the offices of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. It consisted of four archbishops, five advisers and two note-takers.

The four prelates were: Jerome Hanus of Dubuque, Iowa, the chair of the bishops liturgy committee; William Levada of San Francisco; Justin Rigali of St. Louis; and Cardinal Francis Stafford, formerly of Denver and now head of the Pontifical Council for the Laity. As a member of the doctrinal congregation, Stafford chaired the group's sessions. The bishops' names were made public at the time and widely reported.

The other members, whose names are published here for the first time, were Marist Fr. Anthony Ward, Jesuit Fr. Mario Lessi-Ariosto, Fr. Thomas Fucinaro, Fr. Charles Brown, and Michael Waldstein. Ward, Lessi-Ariosto and Fucinaro work for the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, while Brown works for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Waldstein, an Austrian layman who was teaching at the University of Notre Dame at the time, was the lone outside expert.

The group was rounded out by two note-takers: Fr. James Moroney, head of the U.S., bishops' Secretariat for Liturgy, and Fr. Joseph Hauer, Hanus' chancellor in Dubuque.

Hanus told NCR the identities of these other group members were never secret. Most sources contacted for this article, however, said they regarded them as such, citing Rome's long-standing practice of demanding that the identities of advisers and consultors be kept confidential. In some cases, sources told NCR, bishops have been asked to formally swear not to reveal the names of those with whom they met after a visit to Rome to discuss translation issues.

The working group is not merely a matter of historical interest. The effects of their deliberations are still being felt, as recently as decisions in June and July by the U.S. bishops to overhaul the lectionary's introduction and to lift the imprimatur from another translation of the psalms. Both decisions were made under pressure from Rome.

Moreover, the working group was the first body to apply a new set of Vatican norms for translation to an American liturgical document. Those norms, which had been issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in secret in the mid-1990s, superseded guidelines for inclusive language translations approved in 1990 by a vote of the full body of U.S. bishops. The Vatican norms ruled out inclusive language in many cases where it had been approved by the U.S. bishops.