Tridentine Translation Turmoil

ASJ issues a warning to all faithful Catholics concerning bogus translations of the Council of Trent that misrepresent the true Christian teaching on the relation between celibacy and marriage.

Anyone familiar with our apostolate knows, the Apostolate of St. Jerome believes that the biggest problem in the Church is a diminished appreciation among Christians for the power and goodness of celibacy and virginity.

The celibate life, especially when coupled with virginity, is the key ingredient missing from the divinely-given recipe that grew the Church from a handful of fervent disciples to the corners of the earth. Powered by the twin engines of celibacy and virginity, the Church made ardent Catholic disciples, even droves of martyrs, from every race on every continent in every century.

But in the last few decades a dark movement has arisen that seeks a systemic dismantling of the ancient Catholic belief that esteems and promotes the celibate and/or virginal life. This movement is a very organized, calculated effort that aims to replace this Catholic preference for celibacy with a contrary veneration of carnal enterprises like the natural family, marriage, and ultimately the sex act itself. In fact, it is this very movement that ASJ was chartered to combat and, by the grace of God, to defeat it soundly. For we believe the rise of this anti-celibacy movement to be the cause of all kinds of headaches for the Church, slowing her growth, and cooling her fervor.

Now we fully realize the alarmist nature of these charges we bring against many respected Catholics, theologians, and clergymen. So over the past few years since our inception ASJ has embarked steadily on the mission of exposing how Scripture texts that traditionally were used to promote and defend celibacy are being blatantly changed, and in some cases even deleted, from Catholic Bibles, the Lectionary used at Mass, and even the liturgical rites themselves. As a result Catholics today receive a gospel message far different than the one Jesus gave to the Church. Our aim is to raise awareness about this assault on the received Faith by those who, for reasons we don’t fully understand, are viciously hostile to all forms of chastity.

This hostility is made manifest in a constant pattern of identifying Scripture verses that present celibacy and chastity positively, and then replacing them with bogus mistranslations of the word of God. Again, ASJ has documented countless examples of this. But if those we combat have such disregard for Scripture, which is the very word of God, then one might certainly expect them to alter other doctrinal sources that also favor celibacy and virginity, but which by their own admission are the words of mere men. Church councils for example, are merely protectors of divine revelation, not revelation itself. So wouldn’t those who hate what the Bible says about celibacy turn their same techniques of misinterpretation on the decrees of councils?

We are sad to say that the answer is yes; this very thing has happened. The conciliar text in question involves the tenth canon of the twenty-fourth session of the Council of Trent. This text forms the most doctrinally-authoritative safeguard of the belief that celibacy and virginity please God more than marriage. But ASJ issues a warning to all faithful Catholics concerning bogus translations of the Council of Trent that misrepresent the true Christian teaching on the relation between celibacy and marriage.

Thanks to a deliberate attempt to undermine celibacy, this particular text gets translated to English in two ways that give totally divergent meanings, but only one of them is correct. The figure shows two widely-circulated English translations of Canon X, but looking carefully at them reveals a huge difference between them. In the proper translation, given by priest-scholar James Waterworth, the council condemns any who deny that celibacy and virginity are superior to marriage. In the erroneous translation, by H.J. Schroeder, Trent merely says that it is wrong to hold marriage as superior to celibacy or virginity.

ASJ is warning Catholics about bogus translations of Trent’s teachings on celibacy.

The obvious difference between the two is that the correct translation clearly condemns the view that marriage is equal to celibacy in goodness and blessedness. But the false translation permits this heresy, which is widespread in today’s Church.

Now without turning this into a Latin class, the key error in the Schroeder translation is the total neglect of the Latin word non, which means “no,” or in this case, “not.” Notice that Schroeder leaves this word totally untranslated! But to totally ignore the word “not” is utterly preposterous, and obviously changes the intended meaning of the Trent fathers.

The Catholic truth is that celibacy and virginity are not merely equal to marriage, they are better. Scriptural support for this belief comes from 1Cor. 7:40, among other places, where, after granting widows the right to re-marry, Paul adds, “But she is better and more blessed if she remains as she is,” i.e., unmarried. To show that he’s not merely talking about widows, he says that whoever marries does well, but that whoever does not marry does better (v.38).

This very apparent Scriptural theme was defended and protected by the Church Fathers, especially those like Augustine, who wrote that “by divine right continence is preferred to wedded life, and pious virginity to marriage.” St. Jerome, the patron of our apostolate, only expounded the plain sense of Scripture when he wrote, against those who even then distorted God’s words, “whether you like it or not, marriage is subordinated to virginity and widowhood.”

This very distinctive truth of the Catholic faith was made incarnate at the close of the Patristic era when the rise of monastic life would be the strength of the Church in her mission to take the gospel to the heathen. The remarkable spread and acceptance of the Christian message was possible only because very marriable men and women denied themselves through trust in the word of God.

So when Trent got around to condemning the errors of Luther and friends, it surprised no one that it merely re-affirmed this truth about celibacy and virginity that had been an integral part of the Christian faith since the day Jesus turned the gaze of those inquiring about marriage to something that was loftier. But knowing that the Church has gone on record along with St. Paul, Jesus, and the Church Fathers in placing celibacy and virginity clearly above marriage, those who seek to exalt sex and marriage in a manner contrary to the doctrine of Christ have turned their techniques on infallible conciliar pronouncements like Trent.

If ASJ has made anything clear in the last few years, it’s that enemies of celibacy in the Church will stop at nothing to rid Catholic theology and practice of its preference for celibacy. It pains us to think that our opponents are assaulting such an important text for safeguarding the truth about celibacy in Catholic doctrine. For an Internet search is just as likely to turn up this false translation as it is the correct one, and this will surely confuse and mislead many fair-minded souls. But it should be comforting to know that at least one group, ASJ, is exposing and fighting these efforts so the enemies of truth won’t get away with it.

 This article appeared in the February 7, 2007 issue of The Loyal Lion.