Orphaned Beauty
Introducing Hans Urs von Balthasar
April 1, 1996
After the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, the American Catholic bishops commissioned a new translation of the Bible from the scholars of the American Catholic Biblical Association for use in the reformed liturgy, a translation later published under the name of the New American Bible. Several years after its final promulgation as the official text for the lectionary, noted Professor of Law (and now Federal Appeals Court Judge) John T. Noonan published two articles in Commonweal sharply attacking the translation for an assortment of linguistic, semantic, and theological sins, such as calling the unjust steward a "devious employee" or changing the familiar "there was no room at the inn" with the much clumsier phrase "there was no room at the place where travelers lodge." According to Noonan, by replacing the monosyllabic "inn" by the five-word circumlocution "the place where travelers lodge" the translators were bound to conjure up, however unintentionally, the motel chain TraveLodge with its famous billboard on interstate highways of a tousled teddy bear in a nightcap promising motorists a "Good Night's Rest." In other words, this translation managed to exploit every bureaucratic euphemism and Madison Avenue cliche of contemporary American "English."
But how did this translation ever get made? And more importantly, how did it gain the approval of the American bishops for use in worship? Why did the howls of protest that greeted the translation from such prominent Catholic laymen as Judge Noonan not cause a change? And why, after all these years, is it still with us?
The Alienation of Beauty
Students of the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988) could certainly volunteer their own answer to these questions: if his ...
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