Why translation of liturgical texts must be accurate and inspiring?

Liturgical language is important for the life of the Church. Lex orandi, lex credendi. In liturgy, the words addressed to God and the words spoken to the people voice the Faith of the Church. They are not simply the expressions of one individual in one particular place at one time in history.

The words used in liturgy also pass on the faith of the Church from one generation to the next. For this reason, the bishops take seriously their responsibility to provide for the faithful the ranslations of liturgical texts that are accurate and inspiring.

Bishop Arthur Serratelli, in a 2008 speech to the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions, to sums up the importance of this endeavor.

Question: What is the nature and purpose of Canon Law?

Canon Law, the oldest continuously functioning legal system in the western world, is the internal legal system of the Catholic Church. It affects virtually every aspect of the faith life of some one billion Catholic Christians throughout the world. But, as Pope John Paul II explained when he signed the 1983 Code into law, canon law “is in no way intended as a substitute for faith, grace, charisms, and especially charity in the life of the Church and of the faithful. On the contrary, its purpose is rather to create such an order in the ecclesial society that, while assigning the primacy love, grace, and charisms, it at the same time renders their organic development easier in the life of both the ecclesial society and the individual persons who belong to it.”

See ap. con. Sacrae disciplinae leges, para.16.