www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Was RDL, now Q on Father Rober Taft

Ver Rev. Fr. Taft serves in the Ukrainian Church, not the Ruthenian.

To clarify Father Taft's position, I believe Mitred Archimandrite Robert Taft is officially a Jesuit, and not a member of any particular church. However, I believe he was ordained a priest by Bishop Nicholas Elko of the Ruthenians, elevated to Mitred Archimandrite by Metropolitan Stephen Sulyk of the Ukrainians, and serves regularly at the Russicum (Russian College and parish adjacent to the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome) according to the Russian Recension (which is neither Ruthenian nor Ukrainain).

His involvement in the RDL was only as a consultor to the Congregation for Oriental Churches wherein he was asked to review the RDL text of the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom alone, and offer comments as to any heretical or inaccurate content, mostly on the text and not on rubrics or music or any other text such as troparia, etc.

Jack

I don't know about this. Father Petras seems to think that all the ideas about reform are Father Taft's. And that when Father Taft reviewed the RDL he praised them for it. Now I read that Father Taft condemned the RDL I wonder. Who is telling the truth?

So, who is telling the truth?

I believe the Reverend Archimandrite Robert is technically a member of the small Russian Greco-Catholic Church. Although he has received honorifics from hierarchs of the UGCC and other Byzantine Churches.

He is often called on to review Liturgical texts. It must be very difficult for him. His own preferences are in the Byzantine Church very Orthodox (he serves in Church Slavonic in the Russicum) but he must restrict himself to approve Liturgical texts not on the liturgical wisdom of the revisions but merely on the dogmatic correctness of the texts.

Of course as a Liturgiologist, he understand the reasons why the changes in the revisions are proposed, however he cannot impose his own opinion on the wisdom or advisability of such changes, only on their textual correctness.

Liturgical wisdom analyses and approvals are the purvey of the Hierarchs, Synods, and Popes (should that be necessary).

Jack is correct that Bishop Nicholas Elko (during his tenure as Eparch of Pittsburgh) ordained Father Robert but, though a member of the Society of Jesus, Father is indeed (must be) a member of a particular Church (although Jesuits ordained to the service of a Church other than the Latin are required to also have bi-ritual faculties in the Latin Church).

In Father Robert's case, he was at the time of his ordination a member of the Society's Missio Orientalis - Eastern Mission, and, as Herb notes, was ordained specifically to the service of the Russian Greek-Catholic Church.

Many years,

Neil

Surpised nobody caught this before. In In Through Their Own Eyes, Liturgy as the Byzantines Saw It Archimandrite Robert calls Liturgiam Authenticam an unfortunate document on page 5.

See the closely related discussion in Fr. Taft 2007 on liturgical reform, Liturgiam Authenticam, etc..

That discussion was based on Fr. Taft's 2007 McManus Award [fdlc.org] remarks.

For a devastating critique of the delusional Liturgiam Authenticam read Peter Jeffrey's Translating Tradition published by Pueblo. Excerpts are available on line.

I did read Jeffrey's book / Worship articles back in 2008 when the previous forum thread was active. The word delusional applies all right, but to Jeffrey. His book is rather eclectic. He has a gripe that Vatican documents don't present history the way he, a historian of chant, would write history. No fooling, Peter, official documents are a different genre. The remainder of his book is a collection of disjointed (though at times informative and engaging) anecdotes and vignettes that he has collected over time and now assembled and, it seems, desperately wants to share. If there is a designation for the latter it would best be named the hodge-podge school of writing.

I think Jeffrey was at the right place at the right time to become the darling of Worship, America Magazine, the liturgical establishment etc., as a convenient source and reference to blast Liturgiam Authenticam as the epitome of all they dislike and reject about accurate translations, the most important of which is that an accurate translation is for them too much of the text and not enough of themselves as the translators. I thought Jeffrey's approach and critique so wanting in focus that I had to wonder if Taft and company had actually bothered to read it, so eager were they to jump on the bandwagon and play the same old tune. Because oddly enough, Jeffrey is rather conservative in many ways and, as I recall, I got the impression that he was actually quite disturbed by the original post-VCII liturgical and chant debacle, and that he finds rather that the overall correctives mandated by Liturgiam Authenticam don't go far enough.

This was discussed at the time, and I understand that Father Taft has walked back from some of his comments. Firstly, if one examines the translations he uses in his books on Liturgy they are fairly literal, much more literal than those used in the now abandoned translations of the Roman Mass. For someone who also embraces the politics of gender neutral language, I find that curious. Secondly, Father Taft has openly condemned the type of revisions in the Pittsburgh Ruthenian Revised Divine Liturgy (that also has been discussed at great length here).

I am not sure how anyone can consider Liturgiam Authenticam to be “delusional”. In the end, all it says is to translate accurately. A literal translation gives one a good sense of what the original text says. A paraphrase translation gives you what the translations think about the text, and changes meaning.

One of Fr. Robert's pet rocks has always been the exchange, "Peace be to all/And to your spirit", which the original ICEL translators said was just a "semitism" for "And also with you". Taft pointed out that in the Assyrian Qorbono, "that most semitic of semitic liturgies", the exchange is "Peace be to all/And to you and your spirit", which makes has of the ICEL explanation. He then went on to present a nice florelegium of patristic commentaries that demonstrated that the "spirit" in question is not a synonym for the celebrant, but the Holy Spirit that descends upon and dwells within the celebrant as he presides at the liturgy.

When you get to be Father Robert's age, you gain the right to be inconsistent.

I would be very interested in seeing/hearing/reading this. I've been all over this section of the forums, and don't think I've really found that, maybe I missed it.

I know how I feel about the RDL, but having as many references as possible is always helpful, and I do admire Fr Taft.

See the following thread: Father Robert Taft, S.J. Rejects Revising the Divine Liturgy

Father Taft told me in an email that he was not invited to comment on the Pittsburgh Ruthenian Revised Divine Liturgy. My understanding is that he was invited in 2001 to review the translation for heresy, but was not invited to comment on the textual or rubrical revisions. A friend of mine was present when Father Taft celebrated the RDL here in America. He was underwhelmed.

The comments in the linked thread are indeed referring to the RDL. It seems that RDL supporters have indicated that he wanted the revisions, and he indicates that he in no way suggested such changes.

Thank you.

In going through lots of those old threads, it seems like there are a lot of events that went down before and right after its introduction, and the only place I can find reference of them is throughout this forum, but searching can be painstaking.

This forum has been, in my experience, the best source of an account of exactly what happened, when, and why, but there is still so much that is difficult to understand. I read accounts of people being forced out of the church, bishops being "strong armed" into accepting the changes, unreleased letters, etc. It's still a very difficult history to penetrate.

Has anybody considered creating a one-stop timeline or account of events? If there is such a resource, I would love to know about it. I realize much may be hearsay, but an account would be pretty valuable to old faithful who experienced it, new faithful perhaps ignorant of it, and as a history of the church in general, it seems. Hopefully the story is not yet ended, but for everything to be "on the record" somewhere would seem to be valuable.