Several points to consider:
The Church had likely been engaged in active participation and more (like Communion in the hand) during its early years. The vernacular was also used. Even songs probably resembled simple ones known by peasants, etc. Likely the vernacular was used because people used languages that they understood.
The Church allowed the use of the vernacular in various regions across centuries because according to missionaries it’s what natives understood. At the same time, it incorporated various practices found in these regions.
Later, the Church allowed the use of the vernacular for Scriptures for the same reason, but it discouraged lay people from reading Scriptures unless supervised by clergy.
During the nineteenth century, together with calls for liturgical reform, it called for more Bible scholarship, more accurate translations, etc.
Finally, after several centuries, it called for changes to the liturgy, which resembled those of the early Church, encouraged more laypersons to study the Bible independently, incorporated a large part of it in readings for liturgies, continued to call for more accurate translations and more vernacular translations so that more people could read it, made substantial reforms in order to address major changes taking place worldwide and that did not exist decades earlier, etc.
Given such, what is the path forward? It means addressing those changes, including the point that the Church itself may soon by dominated by people from Asia and from Africa:
It’s even possible that there will be more clergy from these regions. One article pointed out that in Vatican I most participants were from Europe and North America. By Vatican II, large numbers came from Central and South America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
In many parts of the Catholic world, there is a lack of clergy, Churches, Bibles, etc., as well as schools to teach basic education and at least catechism.
