HELLO. I'M A CATHOLIC AND I CAN'T UNDERSTAND BIG WORDS

For 2000 years we were expected to worship in Latin, a language which only a small percentage of Catholics spoke fluently. Now, here in America we are being told that a little 10th grade English may be too difficult to understand. Maybe Mass could be offered in pictures so that no one is left out.

Lowering the bar will not raise the understanding. Priests may have to be required to explain all of the really, really big words to all of us uneducated twits in the pews. That is, if we're smart enough to find the church.

"Bishop Donald W. Trautman of Erie, Pa., former chairman of the U.S. bishops' liturgy committee, sharply criticized what he called the "slavishly literal" translation into English of the new Roman Missal from the original Latin.

He said the "sacred language" used by translators "tends to be elitist and remote from everyday speech and frequently not understandable" and could lead to a "pastoral disaster."

"The vast majority of God's people in the assembly are not familiar with words of the new missal like 'ineffable,' 'consubstantial,' 'incarnate,' 'inviolate,' 'oblation,' 'ignominy,' 'precursor,' 'suffused' and 'unvanquished.' The vocabulary is not readily understandable by the average Catholic," Bishop Trautman said."

The Boston Pilot