Is Latin superior than other languages?

[Tsuwano]

This may be the nub of it.

The proposal is that the many benefits of Latin do not outweigh the wish for (some of) the congregation to understand the texts of the mass.

This, despite the vernacular encouraging local invention.
And the fact that the Mass is not, in its purpose, a performance directed towards the congregation.

It’s a poor trade.

Well, let’s be honest here. The change from Latin to the venacular in the liturgy did not originate with some people in some congregations wishing to understand the texts of the mass. It originated with the Bishops and numerous theologians, liturgists, and pastors in the Vatican and throughout the Church. It was the Vatican and the Bishops who felt the benefits of Latin did not outweigh the desire of the faithful to understand the liturgy. Of course, venacular languages may encourage innovation in the liturgy, but innovation was not unknown when the mass was in Latin either. Also, it is true that the liturgy is not a performance directed towards the congregation, which is a major reason that congregations often feel the need to understand the litugy and the prayers they are offering as a community. They are participants in the liturgy, not observers, and participants have a right to understand what they are participating in. Whether or not it was a poor trade is a matter of opinion.

 

[ConstantineTG]

This may be the nub of it.

The proposal is that the many benefits of Latin do not outweigh the wish for (some of) the congregation to understand the texts of the mass.

This, despite the vernacular encouraging local invention.
And the fact that the Mass is not, in its purpose, a performance directed towards the congregation.

It’s a poor trade.

Not meaning to sound offensive, but why say that there are “some of” the congregation who wishes for the vernacular? The fact that attendants of vernacular Masses vs Latin Masses are what? 1000-to-1? Fact is, a great majority of Catholics today want their Liturgy in a language that is easy for them to understand.

 

[InquisitorMax]

Not meaning to sound offensive, but why say that there are “some of” the congregation who wishes for the vernacular? The fact that attendants of vernacular Masses vs Latin Masses are what? 1000-to-1? Fact is, a great majority of Catholics today want their Liturgy in a language that is easy for them to understand.

Lay Catholics had no choice over the change to vernacular in the first place. They can exercise some pressure to set up and attend an old rite Mass today, but it’s a job of work.

I doubt that 1 in 1000 Catholics today knows much about the old rite or could grasp what they’re seeing and hearing if they were introduced to it, cold. That it’s not primarily addressed towards them might be shock. Western culture currently breeds a ridiculous level of entitlement in children and younger adults.

Now, if it were mandated throughout all Roman Catholic Christendom that all had to attend sung Latin Masses for three months, with missals or missalettes provided, it would be interesting to see whether they’d wish to return to the new rite, afterwards.

That the laity must participate outwardly more or that they couldn’t understand a Latin mass are wrong propositions. The first is a mistake about what lay participation means, and its limits, and the second is a slur on the intelligence of the average Roman Catholic.

Here’s the nuclear scenario: liberal dioceses continue to veer away from the rubrics, getting more sentimental and politically correct, slowly shedding congregations and vocations.

Orders saying the old rite, preaching the hard bits of our religion and encouraging the old devotions end up being able to pick and choose which diocese they set up in, purely as there’s no competition.

The old revolutionaries die off and a new, ignorant generation, seeking holiness, are drawn to those who exemplify it; priests and religious who negate their own personalities in the old rite and who are genuinely ascetic and fervent. Or those who just ‘Say the Black and Do the Red’.

I vividly recall a celebrity priest coming to a convent hall near where I lived. He was met by one of the sterner nuns. I thought she was, wait for it, being a little judgemental in her attitude.

Turned out this chap later blotted his copybook in a big way.

It’s an emblem in my mind of how the Church has veered away from boring old asceticism, humility and a consciousness of one’s sinfulness into something like the Protestant idea of ‘Once Saved, Always Saved’ (hurray, we’re fine!).

In short, ‘it ain’t all about you’.

 

[SnakeMauler]

I’ve heard many said the reason why Catholic Churches have Mass in Latin is because Latin is the Sacred language. But if God did indeed created man equal to one another, why would He made one language superior than the other? Wouldn’t this seperate us from our Eastern bretherens or our Middle Eastern bretherens?

No language is superior to another. Anyone can speak any language if they put their mind to it, its just harder as you get older.

 

[ProVobis]

No language is superior to another.

No national language is superior to another. That would imply national or cultural superiority. There are languages such as Hebrew, Sanskrit, etc. and even mathematics, science, and computer code, which serve purposes other than politics and everyday conversions.

Anyone can speak any language if they put their mind to it, its just harder as you get older.

There’s some truth to that. That’s why you have to start young and have incentive to keep at it. Trying to relearn something 30 years after you learn it in a couple of years in high school, only to be mocked and scorned later for it, does take its toll on the human mind.

 

[ConstantineTG]

Lay Catholics had no choice over the change to vernacular in the first place. They can exercise some pressure to set up and attend an old rite Mass today, but it’s a job of work.

Another misconception. The FSSP Parish in Vancouer is right in the middle of the city, where its no more than a 30 minute drive from over a dozen OF-only parishes. So if people will really gravitate towards the EF when its available, why isn’t it happening in this city? The EF is accessible, has its own parish, the Bishops is 100% supportive of the FSSP and the Traditional parish. And yet this scenario of “if lay Catholics have a choice” doesn’t coincide with your claim.

The reality speaks for itself. More people if given a choice still want a vernacular Mass, or at least in a language they can easily understand be it in an older form of their vernacular or a second or third language the population is familiar with.

 

[InquisitorMax]

Another misconception. The FSSP Parish in Vancouer is right in the middle of the city, where its no more than a 30 minute drive from over a dozen OF-only parishes. So if people will really gravitate towards the EF when its available, why isn’t it happening in this city?

Because Catholics have no idea about what that Mass is. The instruction was going out of the schools when I was a teenager and it’s well gone now.
Because Mass is a social as much as a religious obligation for a lot of Catholics; it’s a brave priest who changes a mass time. Never mind uprooting yourself and going to a Mass 30 minutes away with a different ‘crowd’.
Because it requires a bit of effort to get into.
Because religion is not now seen as an urgent matter by many Catholics.

Also: Who is promoting this Mass and how are they doing it? It’s easy enough to promote a specialist Mass for animals or teenagers, in the new rite. That has novelty value. Promoting the old rite with its depersonalising of participants and the quietness of it is trickier.

I guess the people and priests involved will just have to see to their own sanctification and then others seeking sanctification will be drawn to them. I’m beginning to think that’s how it works.

 

[laszlo]

And the fact that the Mass is not, in its purpose, a performance directed towards the congregation.

Our Lord died in the cross facing he remnant of His congregation, and that was quite a performance. Those who were not inebriated by their pride, that they are the depository of the truth, (the tief and the centurion) at the end acknowledged the He is the One.

Was it a poor trade for the reverence and sanctity?

 

[InquisitorMax]

Our Lord died in the cross facing he remnant of His congregation, and that was quite a performance. Those who were not inebriated by their pride, that they are the depository of the truth, (the tief and the centurion) at the end acknowledged the He is the One.

Was it a poor trade for the reverence and sanctity?

Dear Lazlo,

I find this response not pertinent to the matter of how a priest, acting in persona Christi, should offer sacrifice to the Lord God and to how a mass should be said.

A Mass is full of symbolic acts, which have meaning. Change the acts and you change the meaning. Then you have to tie yourself in knots explaining how it’s still the same meaning as the old one.

It should be simple: Do as you believe. Then even an ignoramus, just by following the action, in a Church likewise filled with symbols, can get a good idea of What We Believe.

Result: a mass which can convert and keep souls just by how it’s said.

 

[JKirkLVNV]

Result: a mass which can convert and keep souls just by how it’s said.

And many a vernacular Mass has done just that. It did it for me, and I was a High Church Anglican at the time. There is simply something different about the Catholic Mass.

 

[Timothysis]

It’s easy enough to promote a specialist Mass for animals…in the new rite.

You find it necessary to denigrate the Mass because you don’t like it’s current form? Is this the hallmark of a “serious” Catholic or a partisan?

 

[laszlo]

I find this response not pertinent to the matter of how a priest, acting in persona Christi, should offer sacrifice to the Lord God and to how a mass should be said.

A Mass is full of symbolic acts, which have meaning. Change the acts and you change the meaning. Then you have to tie yourself in knots explaining how it’s still the same meaning as the old one.

It should be simple: Do as you believe. Then even an ignoramus, just by following the action, in a Church likewise filled with symbols, can get a good idea of What We Believe.

Result: a mass which can convert and keep souls just by how it’s said.

1./ The Church is the judge not you or me

2./ The symbol connects the the humans to the eternal mystery. Since the human side is changeable and changed , the symbols have to be change too. The elephant is the same, regardless if blind people touch it at the rail, side, leg, ear, whatever. We are partial, imperfect beings, only the Adversary tempts us to believe that like God we are able to comprehend the fullness of the TRUTH.

3./ The Church with capital is the one which ordered the change. Her power is eternal The buildings, the churches are built and destroyed, subject to time.

4./ Count please the priests and people around the forms, and you will understand why the Church ordered the change

 

[odile53]

Maybe I’ll post a poll or maybe one has already been posted: How many people on this site actually studied Latin?

How much Latin did you study? A couple of years’ worth in high school (typical of those who went to Catholic high schools in the 1960’s and 1970’s?) A major in classical languages in college? And how much of this Latin that you studied do you actually recall now, enough to be able to use it fluently?

I doubt that anyone reading this, save a few people with degrees in classical language, or perhaps some clergy and religious with advanced study of the language, would be able to buy themselves a sandwich using only Latin (no pantomime,) if they were suddenly time-transported to the marketplace of ancient Rome!

I love the EF of Mass, but that is only because I have an English translation running alongside of it right there in the missal. I’d be totally lost without that translation, or without some frame of reference (such as being able to recognize the Confietior from the Consecration just by having attended an OF of Mass for years!)

I took Latin for three years in high school but that was a long time ago, and I really only recall such things as various sayings in Latin, a good part of the Ordinary of the Mass (the peoples’ responses, anyways,) and some medical terminology. I doubt I’d be able to recall the specifics of conjugating a verb, or decline a noun correctly nowadays. And in my above example of getting a sandwich in the marketplace in Rome (or whatever “fast food” Romans ate!) I couldn’t recall the Latin noun for “marketplace.” I wanted to say “agricola” but recall that as meaning “farmer.”

So my take on it? What little I understand of it, Latin is a beautiful language, and much English derives from Latin as well as the Germanic languages of the barbarians. But it is a really tough language to master.

And I occasionally have a nightmare of being forced to speak only Latin in purgatory as I get to drink cold coffee with curdled milk in it as a “refreshment!” (Just my own private devotion here, guys–LOL!)

 

[ProVobis]

The reality speaks for itself. More people if given a choice still want a vernacular Mass, or at least in a language they can easily understand be it in an older form of their vernacular or a second or third language the population is familiar with.

So how do you explain why Catholics were leaving in droves when they started removing the solemnity of the Latin from the Mass in the 60’s? I believe many had already started leaving when they heard about possible forthcoming changes.

 

[laszlo]

So how do you explain why Catholics were leaving in droves when they started removing the solemnity of the Latin from the Mass in the 60’s? I believe many had already started leaving when they heard about possible forthcoming changes.

This (people left in drowes for removing solemnity) is not true.

• until the Ordinary Form there was only One solemn Mass (missa cantata) in each week, the majority of the people attended low masses
• the diminishing of the Church attendance is the result of the consumerism (malls, TV on Sunday morning) not the change in the language.

You must understand the the vernacular was and is optional, and unless you accuse almost all the priests that they wanted malevolently diminish the church attendance, you cannot blame the vernacular for the diminishing number of churchgoers. Priests changed to vernacular in hope to keep more people, as a matter of fact much more priest celebrates, and much more people attend vernacular masses, that traditional Latin masses. The traditional masses are half empty and rare. You had to face the reality.

 

[malphono]

• until the Ordinary Form there was only One solemn Mass (missa cantata) in each week, the majority of the people attended low masses

That’s not exactly accurate. True, the principal Mass in a parish was normally either Solemn or Sung, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that same was limited to one time per week.

• the diminishing of the Church attendance is the result of the consumerism (malls, TV on Sunday morning) not the change in the language.

Priests changed to vernacular in hope to keep more people, as a matter of fact much more priest celebrates, and much more people attend vernacular masses … You had to face the reality

Which one is it?

You must understand the the vernacular was and is optional,

It wasn’t “optional” before 1965, but starting then, and certainly with the Novus Ordo, that’s technically true. In current practice, however, it most definitely is not. The Novus Ordo in its “reform of the reform” mode (in Latin, ad orientem, etc) is at least as rare as the EF.

 

[ProVobis]

• until the Ordinary Form there was only One solemn Mass (missa cantata) in each week, the majority of the people attended low masses

When the crowd is quiet, you should be able to hear the solemnity of the Latin at the Low Masses as well.

 

[laszlo]

When the crowd is quiet, you should be able to hear the solemnity of the Latin at the Low Masses as well.

In the pedestrian world where I lived I did not hear that. I saw people walking the station of cross, lining up for confession, walking around the church from side altar to side altar to find a mass which is before the offertory (so can be there to fulfill obligation), saying the rosary, reading their books, sleeping, singing vernacular hymns.

This changed somewhat in the late fifties when the interpreted dialog masses started, at least for me, because I was the interpreter, and tries to get the attention for as many people as possible.

In neither case was the Latin heard from the lips of the priest or the servers, except for the few words to be spoken loudly.

The Mass was considered to be the personal affair between Christ and the priest, a closed circle around the altar. Being there without gathering, present only without learning (except the Gospel and the sermon which was vernacular), no offering, and for the majority no meal. The language became important only, when after 1964 the Canon was read loudly.

 

[ProVobis]

• until the Ordinary Form there was only One solemn Mass (missa cantata) in each week, the majority of the people attended low masses

In a quiet setting (which we seldom get in church anymore), even the solemnity of the Latin in the Low Mass can be experienced.

• the diminishing of the Church attendance is the result of the consumerism (malls, TV on Sunday morning) not the change in the language.

I refuse to believe this. I’m sure somewhere in the 1600 years of the Mass, there had been periods of “consumerism” which had not led people away from the Church.

What else changed inside the Church that resulted in people leaving in droves? We were already told back in 1962 to expect the vernacular, although no one imagined the whole Mass would be. Stats showed the decline in the U.S. had already been underway in 1964. Let’s face it, people dislike changes.

 

[ProVobis]

The FSSP Parish in Vancouer is right in the middle of the city, where its no more than a 30 minute drive from over a dozen OF-only parishes. So if people will really gravitate towards the EF when its available, why isn’t it happening in this city?

Really? I could easily name you some parishes which would otherwise been closed had not the Latin Mass been restored.