There have been some really good posts on all Latin, some Latin, no Latin and what was intended at Vatican II re Latin! As to the question at hand:Is Latin superior to other languages? NOT AT ALL ! What bothers me as to the form of the O.F of the Mass is our ACTIONS foster our beliefs.Stripping our Church’s, replacing our altars with tables, having the priest face us speaking in a loud tone (as if it were a stage play) with all of us now enclosed in a circle taking part in a meal RATHER THEN SACRIFICE with the priest and people all facing the same way (symbol) toward God, not calling attention to the priest but to God.It is changing the basic beliefs in the Church that bothers me. Martin Luther could not have done better himself! The big “smokescreen” used for creating this present form of the Mass was, THE ACTIVE PARTICIPATION called for by Vatican II.If that were case, Why was the Mass in the Tridentine form LEFT ALONE but said “in the language of the people” ?? I feel the “modernists” then and now were trying to change the whole Catholic belief system (not the intent of Vatican II ). So now Vatican II has become a “bad” word among traditional Catholics. I’m a trad Catholic and feel that Vatican II was NOT a bad thing. What was, is the so called "spirit of Vatican II that these NEW MARTIN LUTHERS used to give us a new hybrid Catholic Protestant church! Forgive me, but I am tired of using language and “active participation” as an excuse for these modernists to give us a whole new church and look down on Trad Catholics that are trying to keep the faith of our Fathers!
There are two sides to what you’re saying. Both need to be heard and treated with respect. There is a group of people that wants the Church to go faster and further than what the Church wants to go. This particular group has certainly messed up a lot of what Vatican II had in mind. It has done things that should never happen in liturgy. It destroyed beautiful works of art and architecture. It has treated with pride and condescension those who disagree with them, promoted things that are contrary to Church law, morals and doctrine, failed to develop a program of catechesis that is doctrinally and pedagogically sound., and other failures.
There is also a group of Traditionalists that lacks historical information. They only see what affects the average lay person in a parish run by diocesan priests. They make statements that are inacurate and offend many traditions within the Church.
They say that there was never such thing as: CITH, vernacular in the liturgy, priests facing the congregation, focus on the meal, churches without communion rails, communion standing, female altar servers, and only priests could touch the Eucharist. They add that all of this stuff, if it’s not sin, at the very least, it takes away from the faith. They quote Aquinas, but forget that the Church did not adopt everything that Aquinas said. He was The Theological genius of all time, but he was not right on every thing. He made some mistakes.
The truth is that there have been millions of men and women religious since the third century and we have been doing all of this. Some communities had CITH, others had no rails, others had females serving (they were monasteries of nuns), others had vernacular in the mass, some rejected Gregorian chant (St. Francis) and all of these families have made a contribution to the Church, grown in great holiness, produced many saints and several doctors, even a few popes and bishops. Hundreds of years later, we’re still here. To hear that something that is part of our way of life for hundreds of years is not part of Catholic tradition is disconcerting. We, the religious life, is an essential part of Catholic tradition. This is a doctrine of the Church.
Many practices have been borrowed and introduced into the local parish, but they came from us, not from the Protestants. The Protestants took a great deal from religious life and incorporated it into their liturgical life. They took a great deal and over the years it adjusted, tweaked and edited to fit their people.
After Vatican II, the diocesan clergy borrowed a great deal from the religious houses of monks and friars and from parishes that were fun by brothers and adopted it to their parishes. Some of the adaptations were well done. Others were not and they need to be done again.
I always say, if you’re going to imitate what I do, please get it right. Otherwise, it’s not flattery.
I believe that the solution is not to push the Church to go further and faster than what she wants to do and to become more familiar with the whole Latin Catholic tradition. Find out what the religious families do. You may find that what you thought was a Modernist novelty is actually very old and well grounded in Catholicism.
It’s the call of the bishops’ conferences to determine which vernaculars to allow and to what extent. If Vatican II is the teaching of the Magisterium then this statement holds:
- §1. Linguae latinae usus, salvo particulari iure, in Ritibus latinis servetur**.**
- Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites**.**
NOTA BENE: There is a period at the end.
I just wanted to point out that the term “particular law” is often used to mean several other legal documents that take precedence over the document being presented. That can be the laws of a diocese, which have been approved by the Holy See, the laws for a particular country, also approved by the Holy See or the rules and constitutions of religious communities, which have the approval of the Holy See and which cannot be easily changed.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
