First U.S. edition of missal in Spanish is on horizon

    WASHINGTON (CNS) – Anyone who’s familiar with the arduous, years-long process of getting English-language liturgical texts into use might be a bit surprised to learn that there is no comparable system for single-source Spanish translations of missals and other liturgical books.
    In the U.S., priests celebrating daily or weekly Mass, a wedding or other liturgy in Spanish have a choice of using texts of the second edition Misal Romano approved for use by any national bishops’ conference. Unlike the system for English liturgical texts, no multinational entity oversees the translations from Latin – it’s just between the individual nations’ bishops’ conferences and the Vatican.
    In the U.S., which has never adopted an official Spanish translation, it’s a matter of the priest’s – or perhaps the local bishop’s – preference whether to use the Misal Romano of Mexico, Argentina, Spain or any other Vatican-authorized translation.
    That could change as soon as next fall, if the U.S. bishops accept recommended changes on the agenda of their Nov. 11-14 meeting in Baltimore. The bishops’ Committee on Divine Worship is proposing a handful of liturgical items, including adopting the third edition of the Mexican Misal Romano as the base for the first U.S. version of the missal in Spanish. The committee also is asking the bishops to approve local adaptations for that missal, including Mass prayers for U.S. observances such Independence Day and the feasts of saints from various Spanish-speaking countries.
    In comparison to the process for English liturgical texts, it should be a relative breeze.
    As Bishop Ocatvio Cisneros of Brooklyn, N.Y., chairman of the subcommittee on Spanish liturgy for the divine worship committee explained, the other countries’ missals differ from each other primarily in minor ways. Spanish itself is fairly close to Latin, so translators rarely have significant variations.