USA - By saying Jesus died “for many” instead of “for all,” will Roman Catholic priests be proclaiming a different theology beginning this weekend — narrowing the extent to which they believe Jesus saved sinners?
No, say the pope and bishops, the official teaching authorities of the church.
Opponents of sweeping liturgical revisions that will take effect this weekend, already distrustful of the top-down process that led to the changes, aren’t so sure.
The change in wording is just one of many in the works.
As we reported earlier this fall, the revisions are the biggest since Catholics began having Mass in local languages rather than Latin decades ago. They take effect with Masses this weekend.
Controversies have ranged from the content — such as the use of more technical theological terms and the revival of symbolic penitential breast-beating — to the Vatican process for approving the revisions, which critics said overrode years of work by an English-language commission.
Supporters say the new text is more poetic, reverent and faithful to the Latin original.
After months of classes, training and other preparation, parishes locally and throughout the English-speaking world will be using new words (and music) beginning with Masses Saturday evening and Sunday for start of the liturgical season of Advent.
The revised Roman Missal, which contains the language used in the Mass, reflects more of a word-for-word translation of the Latin than the previous version that Catholics have used for years.
The previous version relied on the concept of dynamic equivalence — trying to capture the idea of the original language rather than the literal phrasing.
In one section, recalling Jesus’ words at the Last Supper, the priest described Jesus’ blood being “shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven.”
In the new version, the priest will describe it as “poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
Pope Benedict XVI specifically authorized the change from “for all” to “for many,” according to a 2006 letter from the Vatican to bishops. (This affected more than English-language Masses; Catholics speaking other languages, such as Italian, had been using the term for “all.”)
“For many” is a more faithful translation, the Vatican said, to the Latin original, “pro multis.”
Michael Diebold of the Louisville Liturgy Forum, a group that has opposed the liturgical changes, said there’s no question “multis” means “many.”
But Diebold — a former priest and high school Latin teacher — said the new translation misses what “many” meant in its Latin context.
“That meant for the whole crowd,” he said in a recent interview. “When you translate it into English it should mean ‘all.’ ”
The new translation, he said, “means that some of them didn’t get redeemed, so who’s the some that didn’t get redeemed?”
He called it a “subtle but very marked change” from the mindset of the 1960s Second Vatican Council, which opened a new era of warmer ties with non-Catholics.
Louisville Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz said there’s no change in church doctrine.
“Just as Scripture very clearly supports both the universal call to salvation as well as for the individual to freely receive and embrace that call, so there is a need for conversion,” he said in an interview earlier this year. “Salvation is never forced on someone. There has to be some act of freedom to receive.”
The question relates to one that has preoccupied Christian theologians of all stripes for centuries: how to reconcile biblical passages that say Jesus died for all with those that say some will reject salvation and face eternal damnation.
Theologians have written volumes about “the interplay between freedom and grace,” but Catholic theology has made clear that both are essential, Kurtz said.
It’s the “Providence of God to decide who has and who has not accepted it,” Kurtz added.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops reiterates those points in a section on its Website dedicated to the “pro multis” question.
“It is a dogmatic teaching of the Church that Christ died on the Cross for all men and women,” it says.
For the Rev. Anthony Ruff — a Benedictine monk from Minnesota who resigned from work on a liturgy commission over the Vatican’s handling of the translation — the problem is not the accuracy of “many.”
In contemporary culture, it sounds like “not for all but for some,” he said, according to the National Catholic Reporter. “So you could make the case that it's a mistranslation because it distorts the original meaning.”
The Vatican, in a 2006 letter expressing the pope’s view, said that “all” is a “correct interpretation of the Lord’s intention” and should be taught that way.
But the change reflects the shift to word-for-word translation rather than conveying general ideas.
“Many” reflects what Jesus actually said and also conveys the idea that salvation is not “mechanistic” but involves a believer accepting an invitation, the Vatican said.
As we have noted in our coverage, most Catholics surveyed this summer weren’t even aware of the impending changes, although awareness was higher among regular Mass attenders.
Ready or not, they’ll be aware of it beginning this weekend.