Gerald J. Sigler

Gerald J. Sigler, 77 of Mount Dora died Tuesday, January 10, 2012. He retired after 4 decades of service, first to the Catholic Church and then to the community in health and human services. He is probably best known for creating and coordinating the first English translation of the Latin liturgy for Mass English-speaking countries (England and Wales, Ireland, Scotland, South Africa, India, Pakistan, The United States, Canada, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand and some 40 other areas where English was widely used). Officially known as the International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL). It was also called a “Liturgical Common Market.” Following the initial publication of the English Mass in 1967, Archbishop Denis E. Hurley of Durban, South Africa asked The Rev. Frederick R. McManus, then Director of the U.S. Bishops’ Commission on the Liturgical Apostolate, who was responsible for the translation and how it came about. McManus replied “... if principal credit should be given to anyone, it is to Jerry Sigler. Not only does he do most of the work but also manages to conciliate some very strong temperents throughout the procedure. He has done a magnificent job.” Writing in America C.J. McNaspy noted that “the Herculean task of task of coordinating such an enterprise was entrusted to Fr. Gerald J. Sigler. He has done his work surprisingly well, despite all manner of right-wing harassment” (Dec. 6, 1969). Upon concluding his doctoral dissertation at Notre Dame: Behind the Text: A Study of the Principles and Procedures of Translation, Jeffrey M. Kemper wrote “It is clear to me and to others that [he has] had a major impact on the worship of the Catholic Church in half the world.” (July 1994) Working with a New York law firm, Fr. Sigler created an internationally enforceable copyright for the newly translated text thus returning the financial start-up investment to the contributing countries and providing for continuing support for the work of ICEL. A natural development from this work and spearheaded by ICEL, was the creation of an ecumenical committee (The International Committee on English Texts-ICET), to provide a common version of shared texts, e.g., The Kyrie, Gloria, Agnus Dei, Benedictus, Lord’s Prayer, Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, Gloria Patriae, Te Deum, etc. These agreed upon versions, established by representatives from Episcopal, Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, Catholic and other churches, and the U.S. Armed Services, are in wide -use today. At the request of the Jesuits of Maryland and New York, Fr. Sigler was appointed Director of the Woodstock Center for Religion and Worship, and experimental program in the spirit of the Vatican II. The Center sought to plumb the psychology of symbols, the history of liturgical rites as expressions of mankind’s yearning to reach deeper levels, and the historical intersection of literature, the performing and visual arts with the sources of religious meaning. The Woodstock, New York program closed when the Jesuits ended their effort to train men within an urban and large university setting. Sigler resigned from the Catholic priesthood in 1974 and subsequently obtained a post graduate degree from Columbia’s School of Public Health. In 1975 he married Marion Quinn, a speech pathologist and audiologist who was in involved in the New York State deinstitutionalization of individuals with developmental disabilities. The ability to reconcile the major obstacles among board members, institutions and political traditions, was noted in other of his undertakings. Among them, director of the Health Systems Agency of Southeastern Pennsylvania, a federally funded program for the development of a health plan for approximately four million people and an annual review of capital expenditures of $500 million(1976-1979). Additionally, Executive Vice President of Hahneman University Medical School and Hospital(1979-1983), and Executive Vice President to the Devereux Foundation (1984-1988), a national program for developmentally disabled. Born in 1934 in Sharon, Pennsylvania, he was graduated from Sharon High School in 1951 and recruited by the FBI to become an identification specialist and prepare to be a special agent. He attended night school at Georgetown University. In 1953 he chose to enter the seminary and study for the priesthood as a member of the Erie Diocese. He was assigned to Theological College in Washington, D.C. and ordained in 1959. He was immediately appointed Assistant Chancellor of the Diocese and directed to study church and civil law at Catholic University in Washington where he received graduate degrees. In 1963 he was sent to the Gregorian University in Rome to complement these studies in jurisprudence. While there, doing research on the laws for administering the sacraments, he discovered the long-lost original manuscript of the Roman Ritual (Rituale Romanum) in a small library housing the Barnabite seminary. Charles Borromeo, following the dictates of the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and the subsequent reform of Catholic seminaries had founded a religious order, the Barnabites. It was under Borromeo’s tutelage that the Rituale Romanum was developed as an effort to create a uniform set of liturgical laws and practices in view of the wide disparity in existence at that time. Pope Paul IV signed the reform document in 1614 and it was this original that Sigler discovered “stored” on the otherwise open shelves of the seminary. This manuscript now takes it place in the Vatican with the originals of the other major liturgical books, the Ordo Missae (Mass), the Officium Divinae (Divine Office- the priest’s prayer book) and the Graduale ( the Gregorian chant parts of the Mass). Mr. Sigler and his wife moved to Florida in 1988. In the following years he served as an adjunct faculty member of Beacon College, Lake and Sumter Community College, and Lynn University. He was certified as a Home Health Aide and also, for the Fifth Judicial Circuit as a Mediator and as a Guardian ad litem. His publications include “A Health Systems Plan for Southeastern Pennsylvania”; “Planning and Construction of Health Care Facilities’ and numerous articles on the evolution of contemporary liturgy. With Lawrence Madden, S.J. and the Columbia University film department, he created and produced a short film (with teaching Guidebook) Ritual Makers featuring Vera Zorina, the famous ballet dancer and wife of Balenchine. With his wife Marion, he regularly shared family traditions at gatherings with his sisters Nancy Lynn of Tallahassee, FL., Marcella Carney of North Olmstead, Ohio, Joan Parent of Dallas, Texas, eighteen nieces and nephews and numerous grand nieces and nephews. Following a critical kidney failure, Marion died on June 2, 2007 in Mount Dora.