The International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) is a commission set up by a number of episcopal conferences of English-speaking countries for the purpose of providing English translations of the liturgical books of the Roman Rite, the originals of which are in Latin.
Decisions to adopt these translations are made by the episcopal conference of the country concerned, and these decisions are reviewed by the Holy See before being put into effect.
Bishops from English-speaking countries who were in Rome for the Second Vatican Council set up the Commission in 1963 in view of their intention to implement the Council's authorization to use more extensively the vernacular language, instead of Latin, in the liturgy. On 15 September 2003, ICEL was formally established as a mixed commission of several bishops conferences in accordance with the Instruction Liturgiam authenticam
Eleven bishops conferences are full members of ICEL, each of them represented by a bishop. Conferences of Australia, Canada, England and Wales, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Scotland, South Africa, and the United States of America. Another 15 are associate members: those of the Antilles, Bangladesh, CEPAC (Pacific islands), Gambia - Liberia - Sierra Leone, Ghana, Kenya, Malaysia - Singapore, Malawi, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The eleven member bishops are assisted by the ICEL secretariat in Washington, which coordinates the work of specialists throughout the world who work on preparing translations.