Penguin,
First of all, I recommend no one listen to Catholic Answers! lol. Personally, I think they represent a very shallow and fideistic Catholicism that prizes the politics of identity craft over genuine spirituality.
I do believe this translation is an improvement. The argument made by some (typically the progressives) is that it too closely approximates the Latin syntax, which therefore sounds awkward in English. There are a few instances where I prefer the old translation to what we will now receive.
However, on the whole I think the 1970 translation was dominated by an ideology that sought to down play or purge a sense of the spiritual, as well as personal culpability for sin, the reality of sin and the need for repentance--- finding these concepts perhaps repugnant to modern ears. But they have always been such an intrinsic part of the Roman rite.
But, even with this new translation I am not happy with the Missal of Paul VI, period. I do believe that in the rush to be "ever-so-relevant", the Catholic Church has (in large measure) turned its back on its own rich heritage- something for which we are paying for today.
The error has been quietly realized. There are presently attempts to reinvigorate the religion by reaching back and compensating, but in so doing, large bouts of reactionary, neo-conservative ideology are being snuck in and made to be normative. My fear is that we will end up with a pseudo, superficial "traditional looking" Catholicism that is, however thoroughly modern/ reactionary at its core---the very opposite of what Paul VI intended and the ultimate irony of traditionalism today. Such an outcome might, in my opinion, be the danger and unforeseen consequence of the ideological bomb of Vatican II .
What began as an attempt to overhaul the ethos of the Catholic religion--- to make it more of a "shinning light" to the modern world--- could end as the Church's own perverse modernity, a kind of farce or parody of traditional religion as seen through comic modern eyes. The joke, of course, would be on us.
The ethos of a spiritual tradition develops organically, it is never "legislated" by councils, scholars and popes.
For me, this illustrates the hubris of Church leaders and Western intellectuals who thought they understood so well the dynamics of history and the real substance of Catholic tradition that they imagined it a putty in their hands to shape according to the moment. Well, it has misshapen.
What passes today in most parishes for the Roman Mass would have been slandered as Protestant heresy worthy of shunning only a hundred years ago.
