Tablet compares publication of new Mass translation to child sex abuse. Time for Pepinster to resign

Here is an extract from an article in the new issue of the Tablet. The author is someone called Philip Endean. I’ve never heard of him, but what he has to say is disgusting:

Bit by bit, the Catholic Church has been edging towards the moment when the new English translation of the Roman Missal will be in use in English-speaking countries around the globe. On 30 April 2010 the Holy See gave its recognitio to what was thought to be the final text, while on 20 August the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released an updated version of the Ordinary with confirmation that Americans will start using it in Advent 2011. Yet the text is apparently still being revised in Rome. Matters remain unclear.

There are problems here about what counts as good translation. There are also serious questions about how authority is being exercised. In some ways, there are overlaps with the clerical-abuse scandal. Of course, the objective damage done by bad liturgy is as nothing to the moral wrong of children being violated. But in both cases authority has dealt high-handedly and secretively with the sacred, the intimate, the vulnerable. High officialdom has been evasive; lesser authority has tacitly colluded.

It’s been clear for some time that the Tablet under the editorship of Catherine Pepinster is a publication out of control. Last week it described the Pope as “notoriously reclusive” and lacking in pastoral experience, but this misjudgment is of an entirely different order of magnitude. Presumably this magazine is on sale in Westminster Cathedral, where Pope Benedict XVI will celebrate Mass in three weeks’ time. It should be removed. And the Tablet Trust should find a new editor.