Open Dissent On The Translation Fixes

Lots of folks have probably already seen this, but I wanted to bring up one bit of irony associated with Fr. Anthony Ruff's recent letter in America wherein he expresses his disdain for the corrected translation of the Missal and the folks involved with it. Please note the following excerpt:

The forthcoming missal is but a part of a larger pattern of top-down impositions by a central authority that does not consider itself accountable to the larger church. When I think of how secretive the translation process was, how little consultation was done with priests or laity, how the Holy See allowed a small group to hijack the translation at the final stage, how unsatisfactory the final text is, how this text was imposed on national conferences of bishops in violation of their legitimate episcopal authority, how much deception and mischief have marked this process—and then when I think of Our Lord’s teachings on service and love and unity…I weep.

I wonder if Fr. Ruff has any familiarity at all with how the Pauline Mass came about, much less the broken translation that ended up with. I'm sure he does, which is why this letter seems a bit dishonest to me. Everything he complains about here happened in spades during the post-conciliar liturgical reform. Does he think that "with your spirit" is bad? How about having the whole Roman Rite basically annihilated and then draconian implementation of a completely new liturgy, something unheard of in all of Church history, as a follow-up? I can't help but think this letter and the feelings of those with similar views are very immature.

Or comedic if you consider the bit about the "legitimate episcopal authority" of national bishops' conferences.

His closing paragraph begins:

I see a good deal of disillusionment with the Catholic Church among my friends and acquaintances. Some leave the Catholic Church out of conviction, some gradually drift away, some join other denominations, some remain Catholic with difficulty.

I would very much like to know Fr. Ruff's opinion of those who suffered disillusionment after the promulgation of the Pauline Mass. What sort of sympathy do they get? If he's going to play this disillusionment/leaving the Church card over stuff like "consubstantial," I really want to hear his feelings on how the liturgical reforms that got us here were handled and how he measures up any complaints and dissent that resulted from them.

I found his blog, but there didn't seem to be anything giving answers to my questions. There was this post, in which the hysteria being projected over the translation was fever pitched with everything from talk of "leaving the Church" to "organized resistance." If someone is willing to leave the Church over this issue, then I must respectfully disagree with Fr. Ruff's opinion that they "love the Church." Leaving the Church over this is the equivalent of ending a marriage over burned meatloaf.

While Fr. Ruff weeps over a translation of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we should all weep that things are in such a state that said translation is treated as a reason for schism or apostasy.