Is Latin superior than other languages?

[Omnomnomz3]

It isn’t that Latin is superior, it’s that it’s a dead language. Our language is perverted and always changing. Latin, because it’s a dead language, never changes. It’s one of the most respectful ways to pray to God.

 

[InquisitorMax]

Common english is becomingly increasingly vulgar e.g. sexual connotations of words.
Using Latin takes you out of your everyday frame of mind.

 

[Tsuwano]

Common english is becomingly increasingly vulgar e.g. sexual connotations of words.
Using Latin takes you out of your everyday frame of mind.

So does using Chinese, if you’re not Chinese. If Latin was mandated as the only language in which the liturgy could be said and if it became commonly understood by all the faithful, would it then have the same power to take you out of your everyday frame of mind? This argument seems to be saying that we should use Latin in the liturgy precisely because most people don’t understand it. And yet, in previous posts many supporters of the Latin liturgy have maintained that the faithful would come to understand it and so our present inability to understand it has no bearing on whether we should use it.
I would also add that it is not Latin which transports us out of our everyday frame of mind, but prayer itself which does this. Proper prayer can transport us out of our everyday frame of mind no matter which language we choose to pray in.

 

[Tsuwano]

It isn’t that Latin is superior, it’s that it’s a dead language. Our language is perverted and always changing. Latin, because it’s a dead language, never changes. It’s one of the most respectful ways to pray to God.

You haven’t been reading the thread. Most supporters of Latin in the liturgy have maintained that Latin is not a dead language. They maintain it is very much alive and continues to influence the developement of language today and this is one reason we should continue its use in the liturgy. In addition to this, I would add that a language which never changes to reflect the historical, religious and cultural development of the people, is not a language that can properly reflect the prayer of the people. If Latin is a dead language, and I, for one, do not believe it is, then I do not think it is a respectful way to pray to God at all. Our God, after all, has told us that he is the God of the living and not of the dead.

 

[InquisitorMax]

So does using Chinese, if you’re not Chinese. If Latin was mandated as the only language in which the liturgy could be said and if it became commonly understood by all the faithful, would it then have the same power to take you out of your everyday frame of mind?

Sure. Because Latin is a dead language, yet simple, sonorous and musical. We don’t have over 1500 years of Chinese Catholic liturgy. We do have a Latin one. Chinese has no bearing on European culture. Latin does. A very significant one.

Really, it’s funny. A church decides to bin 1500 years of culture and start from year 0. As a result of an initial massive change and some loosely worded documents, the idea gets about that lay people, never mind priests, can be creative too with the central, sacred rite.

Then conservatives start complaining about irregularities while liberals say “Well, it’s still technically within the rules”.

I think the dancing at Mass I’ve seen online has done it for me. And the local variations I see in my area.

If priests and lay people think that the Mass is about them and what they want, the result will be banality, irregularity and occasional infamy.

Mass should not be a reflection of local interests. It should transcend them.

 

[StTommyMore]

Sure. Because Latin is a dead language, yet simple, sonorous and musical. We don’t have over 1500 years of Chinese Catholic liturgy. We do have a Latin one. Chinese has no bearing on European culture. Latin does. A very significant one.

Really, it’s funny. A church decides to bin 1500 years of culture and start from year 0. As a result of an initial massive change and some loosely worded documents, the idea gets about that lay people, never mind priests, can be creative too with the central, sacred rite.

Then conservatives start complaining about irregularities while liberals say “Well, it’s still technically within the rules”.

I think the dancing at Mass I’ve seen online has done it for me. And the local variations I see in my area.

If priests and lay people think that the Mass is about them and what they want, the result will be banality, irregularity and occasional infamy.

Mass should not be a reflection of local interests. It should transcend them.

Ethnocentric much?

 

[odile53]

Retired ballet dancer here. What I’ve seen in the liturgy I wouldn’t call dancing. Never thought that technically good dancing would be appropriate in any worship setting, in any JudeoChristian setting, let alone the Mass.

 

[At_Trent]

Why Latin ?

youtube.com/watch?v=YAHmYkMHslw

 

[Tsuwano]

Sure. Because Latin is a dead language, yet simple, sonorous and musical. We don’t have over 1500 years of Chinese Catholic liturgy. We do have a Latin one. Chinese has no bearing on European culture. Latin does. A very significant one.

Really, it’s funny. A church decides to bin 1500 years of culture and start from year 0. As a result of an initial massive change and some loosely worded documents, the idea gets about that lay people, never mind priests, can be creative too with the central, sacred rite.

Then conservatives start complaining about irregularities while liberals say “Well, it’s still technically within the rules”.

I think the dancing at Mass I’ve seen online has done it for me. And the local variations I see in my area.

If priests and lay people think that the Mass is about them and what they want, the result will be banality, irregularity and occasional infamy.

Mass should not be a reflection of local interests. It should transcend them.

Many languages are sonorous and beautiful and able to transport us out of our everyday world. Latin, as beautiful as it may be, does not have a monopoly on beauty. You’re right that Chinese has little bearing on European culture, almost as little as Latin has had on Chinese culture, and yet you advocate that the Church in China and the Chinese people worship God in a language that is not their own. That strikes me as absurd and contradicts the Catholic belief that our faith is universal. It is not a European faith, but a Catholic faith; a universal faith. St. Paul taught us long ago that the Church is called to be a missionary Church and to go beyond the local limits we set for ourselves, even if it requires a painful break from the comfort and familiarity of what we know. It is ridiculous to claim that the Church has dumped 1,500 years of culture to start from year 0 with the advent of venacular languages in the liturgy. It simply isn’t the case. Has the Church opened itself to new influences and cultures? Yes, thank God. But the center of our faith has always been that which was handed to us from Jesus through the apostles. That 2000 year old tradition continues and expands in lands and among people the diciples of Jesus didn’t even know existed. The use of Latin in the liturgy does not lie at the heart of our faith, no matter how beautiful it is. The liturgy should both reflect our local concerns as well as transcend them. Simply because the Mass is said in a local language does not mean the liturgy is incapable of transcending local culture and language to form a union with the worldwide communion of the Church. It is not language which forges this communion. It is our common faith in the ministry, passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

 

[InquisitorMax]

Many languages are sonorous and beautiful and able to transport us out of our everyday world. Latin, as beautiful as it may be, does not have a monopoly on beauty.

Good grief.

1. It’s the language of the Roman Catholic Church;
2. It’s simple;
3. Many words end in ‘ee’, ‘ay’ and ‘oom’ sounds: excellent for singing;
4. It’s got the history: over 1000 years of beautiful hymns and prayers;
5. It’s dead, so can’t now attract vulgar connotations;
6. Many people unconsiously come into contact with it still, in Western culture;
7. It would help unite our Church; a facility corporate executives would kill for: ‘Everyone on-message’;
8. It’s the language spoken by Christ’s executioners. Now look who’s sitting on a throne in their capital city. As the hymn goes: “Christus vincit! Christus regnat! Christus imperat!”

Name another language that has these qualities.

[sarcasm]But yeah, keep trying to chase after De Peeple with banal, local, fashionable modifications to the rite. Another 40 years of that and the New Springtime will surely be upon us![/sarcasm]

 

[Tsuwano]

Good grief.

1. It’s the language of the Roman Catholic Church;
2. It’s simple;
3. Many words end in ‘ee’, ‘ay’ and ‘oom’ sounds: excellent for singing;
4. It’s got the history: over 1000 years of beautiful hymns and prayers;
5. It’s dead, so can’t now attract vulgar connotations;
6. Many people unconsiously come into contact with it still, in Western culture;
7. It would help unite our Church; a facility corporate executives would kill for: ‘Everyone on-message’;
8. It’s the language spoken by Christ’s executioners. Now look who’s sitting on a throne in their capital city. As the hymn goes: “Christus vincit! Christus regnat! Christus imperat!”

Name another language that has these qualities.

[sarcasm]But yeah, keep trying to chase after De Peeple with banal, local, fashionable modifications to the rite. Another 40 years of that and the New Springtime will surely be upon us![/sarcasm]

Good grief!

1. It is not the language of the Roman Catholic Church! It is the language of theVatican. Every language in which the liturgy of the Lord is celebrated is the language of the Church.
2. It can’t be that simple. As many supporters of Latin attest, it was used exclusively in the liturgy for 1,500 years or so, and yet, when it finally gave way to the use of venacular languages many people were extrememly pleased because they could finally understand the liturgy and the prayers they were offering.
3. The fact that many Latin words end in “ee” or “ay” or “oom” and the language is good for singing is not a good enough reason for the Catholic in Accra or Nagasaki or Macau or Bloomington to give up singing songs of praise to God in his own native language. God understands their language and finds the melody of their music just as beautiful.
4. See number 3 above.
5. Many supporters of the exclusive use of Latin in the liturgy claim it is not a dead language and that is why we should continue using it in the liturgy. Whether you agree with this or not, there is no guarantee that Latin will not attract vulgar connotations in usage if it becomes more widely spread.
6. The Church is more than just western culture and it should not be imprisoned or constrained by European history or culture.
7. The Church is not a corporation. It is a community of believers. Secondly, I would rather have our brand, to continue the metaphor, defined by the life, passion and resurrection of our Lord rather than the Latin language. Our unity is in him, the living Lord, not in some “dead” language. Thirdly, the common use of language in previous eras of Church history did not unite the Church. In fact, many scholars would say that the exclusive use of Latin helped lead to the break up of the Church into Catholic and Protestant divisions. Why do you think Latin would serve to unite the Church in our day and age when it failed to do so in previous eras?
8. Latin is the language of the executioners of Christ . . . Quid. Semper. (Latin for What Ever). The language of the executioners of Christ has nothing to do with whether Latin should be the exclusive language used for the liturgy of the Church in the modern age.

The fact that Latin is no longer the exclusive language of the liturgy is not a detriment to the millions of Catholics around the world who will be offering praise to God this Easter in their own language. I’m sure God will find the chorus of human languages, in their wonderful diversity, just as pleasing to his ears as Latin.

 

[thirddec]

While I see nothing intrinsically wrong with people wanting to go to Latin Mass ; but I’m fairly sure the first christians were not speaking Latin at their services. Aslo the first manifestation of the Holy Spirit after Christ assended into heaven was to have the word of God spoken and everyone heard it in their own Tongue. I for one want to be able to understand every word of what is being said and would like those less able to memorise or learn latin to do so as well. I believe that God does not want to be a MYSTERY to us and he sent his SON among us so he would be known to us through CHRIST who also did not speak latin. Our religion should be as natural to us as breathing and anything that places a barrier between us and God should be avoided.

I’m glad that you folks can be spiritually lifted by Mass but don’t believe that the unlearned masses don’t get the same lift in regular services. I for one dont need the creation of some other wordly environment in order to feel Christ in action in the Mass.

I was lazy, I just posted this in another thread but I think it applies here to. And as far as there being a Sacred language if there was one surley it would be what Christ spoke if one existed as of course every word of his must be sacred as he was and is GOD. The only other folks im aware of that may have sacred languages would be magicians abbracadabra.

Are we going to go back and put the Bible back into Latin too so only the Scholarly can read it and the ordinary salt of the earth will need to have someone explain it for them when they try to read it at home.

 

[poker10]

This is an old argument of the Reformers.

Cardinal Arinze paints the true picture here.

"It is a remarkable phenomenon that many religions of the world, or major branches of them, hold on to a language as dear to them. We cannot think of the Jewish religion without Hebrew. Islam holds Arabic as sacred to the Qur’an. Classical Hinduism considers Sanskrit its official language. Buddhism has its sacred texts in Pali.

It would be superficial to dismiss this tendency as esoteric, or strange, or outmoded, old or medieval. That would be to ignore a fine element of human psychology. In religious matters, people tend to hold on to what they received from the beginning, how their earliest predecessors articulated their religion and prayed. Words and formulae used by earlier generations are dear to those who today inherit from them. While a religion is of course not identified with a language, how it understands itself can have an affective link with a particular linguistic expression in its classical period of growth."

Then I take it you are for Classical Greek being the official language of the Church since that’s what the New Testament was originally written in and was the dominant language of the early church until about the 3rd or 4th century?

 

[InquisitorMax]

Good grief!

1. It is not the language of the Roman Catholic Church! It is the language of theVatican. Every language in which the liturgy of the Lord is celebrated is the language of the Church.

Factually wrong. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastical_Latin

1. It can’t be that simple. As many supporters of Latin attest, it was used exclusively in the liturgy for 1,500 years or so, and yet, when it finally gave way to the use of venacular languages many people were extrememly pleased because they could finally understand the liturgy and the prayers they were offering.

The mass is not primarily about pleasing ‘The People’. Priests of the Roman Rite have been desperately trying to please ‘The People’ 40 years, yet vocations are way down and churches closing. We understand it very well now. Every word. But the mystery that Latin helped impart is gone. Result: casual behaviour at Mass. Partly because of the vernacular: the common language. The everyday language: Common = boring.

1. The fact that many Latin words end in “ee” or “ay” or “oom” and the language is good for singing is not a good enough reason for the Catholic in Accra or Nagasaki or Macau or Bloomington to give up singing songs of praise to God in his own native language. God understands their language and finds the melody of their music just as beautiful.

[Sarcasm] Sure, ‘Bind Us Together’ and ‘On Eagle’s Wings’. Sung in that enervating liturgical, quavering tone.[/sarcasm]

How do you know what God finds pleasing? I could argue that the state of the Roman Catholic Church at the moment is a better indicator of what God finds pleasing.

The Catholic in Accra or Nagasaki or Macau should consider the greater needs of the Church: to survive and pass on the faith intact, codified in a sacred language.

1. Many supporters of the exclusive use of Latin in the liturgy claim it is not a dead language and that is why we should continue using it in the liturgy. Whether you agree with this or not, there is no guarantee that Latin will not attract vulgar connotations in usage if it becomes more widely spread.

Now, you’re reaching. ‘Dead language’ has a technical meaning. answers.com/topic/extinct-language I don’t know who these ‘many supporters’ are who you speak of; what you/they have said they state is factually wrong.

There is no guarantee that the sun will rise tomorrow, also. But it probably will. English is currently getting coarser. Words which were previously innocent now cause sniggers amongst certain company at certain times.

To vulgarise Latin you have to work a lot harder.

1. The Church is more than just western culture and it should not be imprisoned or constrained by European history or culture.

Ah, this is the ‘We must look after the Eastern Catholics / Protestants / Third World by destroying our Roman Catholic identity’ argument.

Let’s see what another 40 years of ‘inculturation’ does when the then Pope tries to get nationalistic Catholic churches to do something the local bishops don’t like.

1. The Church is not a corporation.

Again, wrong. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_of_Christ The root of the word corporation is the Latin word Corpus, meaning, ‘Body’.

The rest of your post is just stuff you made up. I detect another trend on this forum: “Jesus is Love, more important than the rules, so let’s just let slide innovation in how we practically work our rites”.

i.e. the emotive argument. What we feeeeellll is more important than having consistency in how a sacred rite is performed.

The worst I could wish on English-speaking proponents of the vernacular is that they might have 40 years of attending Novus Ordo masses said exclusively in German, by a priest who’s quite keen on encouraging ethnicity in his rites: German ethnicity.

 

[thirddec]

Gotta love ProVobis

If he had his way the Bible would be back in Latin too; the reason for all the Splits in the Church has been because it was translated so the masses could read it. Let him find a split that was not started by someone intelligent enough to have learnt latin anyway.

Another lovely one seems to be suggesting every other religion has a sacred language so so should we. Since when did the Catholic church look to everyone else for what it should do.

Get real guys the last supper was not spoken in latin.

Less ritual and more spirit please

 

[StTommyMore]

Gotta love ProVobis

If he had his way the Bible would be back in Latin too; the reason for all the Splits in the Church has been because it was translated so the masses could read it. Let him find a split that was not started by someone intelligent enough to have learnt latin anyway.

Another lovely one seems to be suggesting every other religion has a sacred language so so should we. Since when did the Catholic church look to everyone else for what it should do.

Get real guys the last supper was not spoken in latin.

Less ritual and more spirit please

I am just tired of seeing the assertion that St. Thomas More condemned the idea of a Bible in the vernacular. Quite the opposite is true. In fact he called for diligent translation into the vernacular by “learned Catholic men.” There are those that can be listed as in opposition to the translation of the Scriptures into Vernacular, but St. Thomas More was not among them. I also find it humorous that they also forget that the purpose of the liturgy and Scriptures to be in Latin to begin with was to place them in the language of the people.

 

[Hesychios]

… I also find it humorous that they also forget that the purpose of the liturgy and Scriptures to be in Latin to begin with was to place them in the language of the people.

Quite so!

When most of the Catholics in Rome spoke Greek as a first language, the liturgy was in Greek.

When those generations had passed away and most Catholics in the city of Rome spoke Latin as a first language the pressure was on, to make a liturgy in the vernacular.

I think that a lot of priests in Rome used a lot of Latin in the Mass before the change was made officially. But there is no way to research and prove that, I suppose.

 

[laszlo]

The mass is not primarily about pleasing ‘The People’. Priests of the Roman Rite have been desperately trying to please ‘The People’ 40 years, yet vocations are way down and churches closing.

The traditionalist kept the Latin as exclusive language for the Liturgy and have less that 2000 priests worldwide.

The Catholic Church did not kept the Latin as exclusive and has 400,000 priest worldwide, the same number as was when in 1964 when the primacy of the Latin was abandoned.

This is shortage of priest, because since that time the population tripled. but how can you connect this shortage with the fact that the Liturgy get closer to the people, - seeing the number of traditionalist priests and faithful?

 

[InquisitorMax]

Get real guys the last supper was not spoken in latin.

Less ritual and more spirit please

Ah, the appeal to false tradition. And feeeeelings. Currently, the idea is that if we could get back to what they did at the Last Supper, we could have a better Mass.

Fact: we don’t really know what was done then, practically, or for the first few hundred years of the Church, or so I’ve read on this forum. It’s all conjecture based on documents from the year 800(?) onwards.

Predicated also upon this idea is that somehow the Latin Rite was deficient up until the 1960s. The problem when they changed it: it encouraged bishops, priests and laity to assume that change is acceptable and normal, even desirable.

Also: which ‘spirit’ are you referring to and how will we know it’s Godly? ‘Spirit’ can mean whatever the speaker wants.

 

[InquisitorMax]

The traditionalist kept the Latin as exclusive language for the Liturgy and have less that 2000 priests worldwide.

The Catholic Church did not kept the Latin as exclusive and has 400,000 priest worldwide, the same number as was when in 1964 when the primacy of the Latin was abandoned.

This is shortage of priest, because since that time the population tripled. but how can you connect this shortage with the fact that the Liturgy get closer to the people, - seeing the number of traditionalist priests and faithful?

[sacrasm] Ummm … could this be that for the past 40 years and even now, it’s a brave priest who decides to say the old rite?

Could it be because, for the past 40 years, Catholics had no knowledge of the old rite and those that did, apart from a few conoisseurs, thought that it was forbidden?[/sarcasm]