On translating Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, Divine Liturgy, and cocktails

When we first met, Dr. Matthew K. Minerd greeted us with his favorite cocktail and a warm smile in his home where the smell of books and good food invited every newcomer to a cozy day of feasting and camaraderie. The more our families got to know each other, the more we benefited from Matthew’s knowledge on theology as well as his culinary adventures.

Little did I know, in addition to his writing—his book titled Made by God, Made for God: Catholic Morality Explained was recently published by Ascension Press—and his many other scholarly accomplishment, he is a consummate translator—a profession that often goes unnoticed and unappreciated. Most recently, his translations of Thomistic Common Sense and The Order of Things of Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. (1877-1964) were published by Emmaus Academic.

We recently spoke about some rather eclectic topics: translating, Eastern Catholicism, Thomism, and “liturgical drinking”.

CWR: Your latest work is a translation of volume, Thomistic Common Sense , written by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange. What in your academic life and faith journey led you to the works of this Dominican?

Dr. Matthew Minerd: I am something of an accidental Thomist and “student” of Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange. Once upon a time, while still a Roman Catholic and in seminary as a Benedictine in simple vows, I was presented Thomism as something passé, really useless and sclerotic today. The caricature is so common that I need not describe it in detail. However, the implicit tone from many, both among the seminary faculty (with a few exceptions, whose status as exceptions enforced the general rule), as well as my confreres in the monastery, was ringing: what a waste of time it would be to bother with Thomism—especially “neo-Thomism.” (If I had more space, I would get on my soapbox about why I find this expression, “neo-Thomism,” to be a unacceptably vague, something I would like to bury, at least as applying to Garrigou-Lagrange and the great tradition in which he figures importantly.)

But, the truth has a way of insinuating itself into the crevices of our intellect looking for light. Due to a schedule conflict, two of us from the monastery needed to take our epistemology course as an independent study with our former novice master, Fr. Sebastian Samay, O.S.B., a brilliant old Hungarian who was at that time an emeritus professor of philosophy at the college run by the monastery. In addition to our primary text for the course, Fr. Sebastian assigned each of us a separate book to discuss in our seminar-style meetings. I was assigned Jacques Maritain’s The Degrees of Knowledge. The book was way above my head, but I was transfixed by its breadth, both philosophically and theologically.

The end of my monastic experience was somewhat sudden, due to the unhealthy state of politics at the abbey under the former Archabbot. Upon leaving the monastery, I was like many ex-religious: a lost soul. Maritain’s works and a rather lonely life of prayer were my only concrete connections to my past life as a monk. Reading Maritain, Yves Simon, Charles Journet, and John Deely made me realize something very important: Thomism was incredibly fruitful. Near the end of grad school, I finally began reading Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange’s works and making them a regular point of contact in my thought, and gradually his spirituality works had become dear to me as well. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange’s philosophical thought is, yes, of great aid in the confused world of our present moment. But, it is his spiritual theology that transfixes me.

Properly speaking, I don’t come from a purely “blue collar” background; however, my general upbringing was basically blue collar. There is something, how to say, down to earth in Garrigou which hits my heart-strings in this regard. I feel that, in some sense, I deserve just as much as the very well-educated, urbane, and well-traveled Dominicans of DC the title “Hillbilly Thomist.” I believe you can attest to the fact that where we both live the billies are in the hills. I personally am more comfortable in such a setting. Strange it is that the erudite Roman professor resonates precisely with this part of my soul! (But, if one reads much supposed “erudition” in academia, one will then see the earthy wisdom hidden just one remove behind his scholastic vocabulary.)

CWR: Reading in a different language is a completely different experience than translating the same work into another language. Why did you become a translator?

Dr. Matthew Minerd: It was such an accident, actually. As you likely recall from your own graduate studies, languages are just a normal part of the skill set we need in order to do our research (and to pass all the needed exams….). Unlike you, I don’t come by bilinguality by the force of life’s pressures. We Americans are stubbornly monoglot, and truth be told, nothing in my upbringing would lead one to think I would ever have become a translator. Nonetheless, various fortuitous events led me down the path.

When I was in high school, I was transfixed by Tolkien as a linguist. I had some training in French and Latin at the time. I loved it, actually, and in particular, my experience with Latin opened my eyes to thoughts of studying linguistics. But, I was quickly deflected by family pressures: “Choose a real major.” (I was a Computer Science major as an undergrad. Sometimes I actually miss it!) Prior to graduate school, I did some brushing up in Latin at Notre Dame, but most of my exercise came from grad school itself. With Dr. Timothy Noone, you just had to be ready for him to look at you, in front of everyone in a class, and say, in response to some cryptic snake of a sentence written by Bl. Duns Scotus: “Mr. Minerd, translate.” I remember one time when I was looking at something really weird. Timothy laughed and said, “No, no! It’s that miserable. Let me help here.”

Reading a language is difficult enough, but you often get by just fine reading it. However, when you realize that you need to express this same text in clear English, you then see a formidable foe rise up before you! Sometimes, as a translator even, you sometimes miss the native, source-language constructions that find their way into your translated text. Thus you can end up with a very French-sounding English passage, which, no doubt, is problematic for your reader. (I have been told that my own English prose has been affected by all my translating… One colleague says that I write in too French a style.) The great and difficult task is figuring out how to rework the text into a flowing English idiom that remains textually faithful. Truth be told, it’s difficult to do, and perhaps is impossible for technical texts.

So, how did I start all this work? By accident. I had to do a lot of French and Latin reading and translating for my PhL thesis and my dissertation. After I moved back to Pennsylvania, I was somewhat bored, waiting for feedback on my dissertation. Thus, I basically translated the whole Sens du mystère by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, during a period when I was growing in appreciation for the depth and balance of his thought. The folks at Emmaus Academic took a chance on me, and their excellent review process really helped me learn along the way. I then reached out to them about the Order of Things, Thomistic Common Sense, and De Revelatione. The rest was history….. Then other projects found their way onto my desk.

CWR: Translating Garrigou-Lagrange is a formidable undertaking. What does the process of translation of a volume like this look like?

Dr. Minerd: That it is – and having come to the end of the process for De revelatione, I can say so doubly.

For French, the tools have gotten much better even these past five years. For all translations any more, I make PDF scans for my own use, running them through a text scanner so that I can pull the text out quickly. Luckily, this kind of scanning is something I can do, for example, when I have the kids while my wife is at work. Thus, efficiency is helped along….

Anymore, I run each paragraph through DeepL’s tools online. I’ve learned very well how to look side to side at the French and English. This first draft is surprisingly good – things really changed a few years ago as the AI got better. Some translators might lament this, but I actually rejoice at it. It lets me do the really fun (though difficult) part of translating, eliminating a lot of boiler plate work. Sometimes, it spits out some oddballs. But very often, it’s almost frightening how good it is, reordering things just the way that a human would. There are a number of excellent dictionary tools online, as well, and when things become very French, I then turn to French-only dictionaries to check on things.

For Latin texts, it’s a different beast. Here, things are much less developed. I have my physical grammar texts, and William Whittaker’s Words is an immensely useful online tool. However, Google Translate is quite behind here. Blessedly, scholastic texts are relatively easy to read once you have the basic bones of vocabulary. (Fr. Sebastian would say: “It’s kitchen table Latin.”) Still, Latin is slower going.

Then, in either case, the French (especially from Garrigou’s era) are much sloppier with their citations. I’ve become an expert in filling out footnotes, finding names that are puzzling, and finding official ecclesiastical translations.

Then, also…. For both languages, I have my little black book of people whom I bug on occasion, asking: “What in the world would you do with this construction….???!”

A very important thing to do is to let the translation sit. Revisit the text with fresh eyes—WITHOUT looking at the original except where needed. I focus on the English sound during this stage, often just flagging things to be checked later. Then, I go through and address the flagged issues. Often, too, during this process, which involves several iterations, I have at least one time when I read the whole text out loud. This really helps you hear if it sounds “too French” or “too Latin”. (If I had more time, I would do this several times, but time is limited in this sublunary world.)

Finally, once everything has settled, I actually have my computer read the English to me, with the original before my eyes, just to check everything once more.

CWR: I had the opportunity of doing some simple translation into Turkish, a language so different from English that often concepts and meanings got lost in translation. What is the hardest part of translating into English?

Dr. Minerd: Striking the right balance between technicality and readability is very difficult sometimes. If you end up with very important points stuck in an intricate, but very French-sounding, subordination structure, you want to rip out your hair, trying to figure out just how much you should massage your text.

In such technical works, you have to be very careful not to lose the concepts in the transition. Sometimes, you just have to accept a slightly clunky sentence because otherwise you’ll adulterate the text’s meaning. Not to put the texts on anywhere close to the same level, but think of scriptural translations or the old Summa theologiae translation. The RSV is a very good translation, but at times, it just has to be clunky.

CWR: What would you like to share with those who are capable of translating?

Dr. Minerd: Do this work, even if it is just one book. If you are capable of translating, you’ve read something that you feel that others should read. It’s a real blessing to be able to read multiple languages, and if you can do some small work (even a little article) that would benefit those who do not have expertise in the given language. I think it is a very noble thing to try to bring already-existing authors into another language, instead of always trying to reinvent the wheel.

In point of fact, there are a lot of works that really should be brought into English precisely because much knowledge has been lost merely in the Catholic world. I feel that the wheel is reinvented way too many times in academia. Merely to cite one example, imagine the great light that would be shed on sacramental theology if the massive tomes by Fr. Emmanuel Doronzo were in English. His work risks being lost, or merely being the province of a VERY small group of experts. This is quite problematic, and it is a tale that can be recounted over and over during our current, forgetful age.

Importantly: scrape your knees a bit in the process. Of course, make sure that you have a good translation reviewer along the way. But by all means, you must first give it a go before you know what translating is really like.

Of course, there is the inglorious fact that many don’t really take translation all that seriously. Granted, I have been shown much kindness by people who have thanked me for my work. However, there is a bias that would say that this sort of thing isn’t “real” academic work. If I were in a tenure track institution, it is almost certainly the case that this would not be counted as “scholarship” by my peers. Alas, too, the money is not good. Rare is the donor who likes to recognize this sort of work. Despite this fact, we have been blessed by tireless translators without whom we would all be much impoverished as English-speaking Catholics. (I am thinking, in particular, of the great Michael J. Miller, to whom we all owe a great debt of gratitude for his many translations over the years. I’m sure we could think of others too!)

CWR: While your academic concentration is on Western theologians, you teach at Byzantine Catholic Seminary and attend Divine Liturgy. What can you tell us about this transition?

Dr. Minerd: The Byzantine world is quite “bread and butter” in its spirituality. One senses the centrality of liturgy and scripture more clearly in the basic warp and woof of our outlook. The West had many pressures that led to internal divisions of spirituality, above all the various political-social-cultural differentiations that gave birth to the modern period. I think that my life as a Benedictine primed me for Byzantium in part too. The West was very much liturgical-scriptural in spirituality for her first twelve-hundred years. Internal differentiation and development began to accelerate with the passage of time, whereas in the East various factors muted this same process. No doubt this is a simplification, but I think that on some level it explains part of my basic attraction.

I grew up in a Roman Catholic environment that was nonetheless very ethnic, particularly Slavic and Polish. This basic environment primed me to love the Ruthenian Church, I believe. There is something very “blue collar” about our particular jurisdiction, and it immediately hit my heartstrings. In fact, I credit the first stirring of my change of ritual Church to the very chant in the Ruthenian Church. The simple peasant-Slavic music immediately echoed something in my soul. Thus, although I have a love for the melisma of the Traditional Roman Rite, and find Bach’s organ fugues to be transfixingly sublime in their Baroque meshwork, nonetheless, liturgically, I here found myself immediately at home.

Then, the rest just felt at home. Even our utterly repetitive prayer forms, so different from Latin terseness, just hit right at home. Really, the change was much more a matter of the “heart.” I had for some time solely attended the Traditional Latin Mass, but I never felt spiritually at home. Whether chanting in the schola or merely “assisting” at Mass, I always felt somewhat outside the liturgy. For different reasons did I feel the same at the “Ordinary Form” of the Roman Rite. But in both cases, I had not felt at home for a long, long while.

I suppose that my background, from a family of “blue-collar hunkies” on my mother’s and step-father’s side—and, in their own way, dutiful and hardworking mountain-top loggers and farmers on my father’s side, which did have a great influence upon me growing up, through the mediation of my dearly departed Minerd grandparents—primed my spirituality for feeling at home in such an environment.

Also, I must say, as a sui iuris Church (especially one that is poor and small), it is much easier to feel just a bit detached from the controversies of the American Roman Church, which become quite vociferous. I’m not indifferent to them, but I’ve noticed, over the passage of years that they matter less to me. It reminds me somewhat of the Arab proverb that Fr. Sebastian liked to quote to us as novices in the monastery: “The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.” The Church faces many problems today, and they can feel overwhelming, but I must admit that the ecclesiastical and liturgical independence of our Eastern Churches helps to give one enough distance to avoid being swamped under the massive flood that is the Roman Church. God bless folks like yourself who remain in the midst of them, with a stronger spine than my own!

CWR: On your website, there is a section for cocktails that pair with certain feast days. Do you think there is such a thing as “liturgical drinking”?

Dr. Minerd: Well, the cocktails sometimes pair with feast days. Sometimes, they are just in parallel with some of my online interviews. Without being too loose with words, we can say that our life is broadly a kind of liturgy. If I might steal something from Fr. Gardeil: grace should stamp our character with the visage of Christ, from the top of our brow (the spiritual heights of the soul) down to—if such crude metaphors may be permitted—the very tips of our toenails (the little details of life, through the mediation of the activity of infused moral virtues, often using the acquired moral virtues as their instruments). Although one should not unqualifiedly wax poetic about drinking alcohol, the virtue of temperance enables us to Christianize even this lowly domain. By a constellation of effects (most particularly, my brother-in-law), I’ve picked up some skills in mixing drinks. It’s a wonderful thing, on a holiday, to be able to treat people to things that they never would have otherwise. And what is more, this little special detail bears witness to the fact that the day is being recognized in a unique way. It is one way in which to incarnate the details of a liturgical feast. It is also a way to extend hospitality in a special manner.

Of course, the very liturgy of life requires us to forego such expenditure on regular occasion, lest through overindulgence we slip into vice and, in point of fact, render it impossible to have such things for our guests. But then, on a feast day, or on a special visit, how nice it is to greet one’s guests with a full table and a specially chosen drink to match the occasion, season, and tastes of the guests in question.