Overall, 59 per cent of responding priests said they disliked the new English translation of the third edition of the Roman Missal. At the same time, 39 per cent of respondents said they liked the text.
The survey by the Godfrey Diekmann, OSB Centre for Patristics and Liturgical Studies at St. John's School of Theology-Seminary in Collegeville, Minn., also found that 80.1 per cent of respondents found some of the language in the missal "awkward or distracting."
Researchers conducted the survey from February through early May. A total of 1,536 priests participated, a response rate of 42.5 per cent. All 178 Latin-rite dioceses in the United States were invited to participate in the survey; 32 dioceses accepted the invitation. There are more than 14,000 priests in the United States.
Chase Becker, the survey's project manager, described the results as surprising in an interview with Catholic News Service.
"When you look through the optional comments that priests were able to leave, I just was really struck by the things that surfaced," Becker said. "A lot felt the translation affected negatively on their own prayer life or the ability to connect with their parishioners.
"These priests have devoted their lives to their work, and the celebration of Mass is the huge part of their work and their own identity as priests. Clearly this is something that has touched them on a very deep level."
Fr. Daniel Merz, associate director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat of Divine Worship, welcomed the findings, but was cautious in accepting them without question, especially after a more detailed survey of laypeople last fall by the Centre for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University found that 70 per cent of respondents said the translation was a "good thing."
"The (bishops') Committee on Divine Worship and the bishops will be very interested in studying the full report as well as the one I would say is more scientific that CARA put out," Merz told CNS. "We're going to put those together so it's not just one or the other. We want to get an idea of the whole Church.
"I do think it's important to listen to what these priests and other priests are saying. They're voicing some struggles and frustrations. As the report itself points out, their own kind of love for the liturgy comes out and love for their people comes out. That's kind of nice."
Merz said the findings would be helpful as the bishops prepare to vote on changes in prayers in the rites for marriage and confirmation that will be voted on at the U.S. bishops' fall general meeting in November as well as the Liturgy of the Hours down the road.
"I wouldn't perceive this survey stopping those translation projects, but at the same time it might make the bishops and others involved in the process a little more involved, a little more attentive. That could potentially be a good thing from the survey," he said.
The translation process for the Roman Missal, co-ordinated by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, took a decade to complete as the bishops' conferences in English-speaking countries reviewed, revised and prayed over the wording that would become standard at Masses around the world.
Msgr. Andrew R. Wadsworth, ICEL executive director, said in comments posted online by the Diekmann Centre that accompanied the survey's release May 21 that the priests who responded represented a small portion of the more than 14,000 priests in the United States.
"The new translation clearly has a different voice and the survey shows that some priests do not like it," Wasdworth said in his online comment. "Whether they are representative of wider opinion is not ascertained by this survey."
The survey looked at a variety of factors to weigh the views of priest. The overriding concern priests expressed in comments left on the survey site was that the language seemed to separate them from the people in the pews.
Nearly half of the respondents, 48.7 per cent, said they disapproved of the way the Vatican handled bringing about the new missal, indicating they felt it was a top down process. Forty per cent of priests said they approved of the Vatican's leadership in the process.