Latin and You. Wherein Fr. Z Rants

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CRV said:
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yankeesouth:
If you are without Latin, you are someone else’s puppet when it comes to all the Church’s liturgical texts and the Church’s law and the Church’s doctrine. For your Cult, Code and Creed, you are enslaved to translations, which do not provide the riches of the original content.
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That part is true - you’re relying on someone elses’ translation - which may or may not be accurate. So unless you yourself are fluent in the language, you have to trust that the translation is accurate. Assuming one isn’t fluent, then in that sense you are at the mercy of the translation, which as Fr Z points out do not always correspond accurately in all the nuances of the orginal text .
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Such is the nature of translation. I’m sure Saints Cyril and Methodius struggled with this as well. The same goes for reading the scriptures. Saint Augustine struggled with this because of his lack of fluency in Greek.

It is interesting that nobody complains that the Greek Catholic churches (Melkite, Ukrainian, Ruthenian, etc.) ought to abandon vernacular and return to Greek. Some advocate a return to Slavonic or Arabic, but it is mostly about aesthetics and sentimentalism/nostalgia. The lack of Greek in our liturgy does not affect our identity as Greek Catholics, though it does confuse many who do not understand that “Greek Catholics” refers to those who follow the Rite of Constantinople, not to those who speak Greek.
 
I have to say that I think people either skimmed the article, are just responding to posts, or whatever, but the main thrust of the matter was that Catholic priests in the Latin rite, who outright vow (i.e. swear to) being ‘fluent in Latin’ when they take their vows or professions, are NOT fluent and are in danger thereby of losing a very important dimension and part of their patrimony. And this affects not just them, but the rest of us as well.
 
What’s really not healthy is to get inordinately attached to preferences. Even legitimate preferences, even preferences considered sacred. Attachments to things that are not essential are not good.
 
AngelusDomini said:
Going to be unpopular probably saying this but Fr Z would be better off getting from behind his computer and Amazon wish list and finding somewhere he can actually minister to people (and not just those who want to go back to pre VII days).
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Couldn’t agree more. Apparently Fr. Z. has a more complete version of the Gospel of Matthew, wherein Jesus says “Go forth and teach all nations… LATIN.”
 
And the idea that you can only have Mass with 100% of the prayers/readings in the vernacular, with tambourines and guitars being played (poorly) during distribution of Holy Communion, is something straight out of the 1970s.
 
stpurl said:
the main thrust of the matter was that Catholic priests in the Latin rite, who outright vow (i.e. swear to) being ‘fluent in Latin’ when they take their vows or professions, are NOT fluent and are in danger thereby of losing a very important dimension and part of their patrimony. And this affects not just them, but the rest of us as well.
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This is a problem. Father Z is right. Something many do not realize or do not want to realize but being Latin is a “dead” language the meaning and definition of words are not changing with time and fad or someone’s own interpretation. Compared to what we see happening with our vernacular languages, Latin will protect the faith and the faithful.
 
You mean, Mass celebrated more closely to like the 1st century Christians did. 😃

Jim
 
Is he saying that Jesus was able to speak Latin (which he may have been, at least it’s not an unreasonable guess), or that Jesus spoke Latin as a daily language?
 
stpurl said:
As I pointed out earlier, a lot of people who didn’t bother to read the entire article seem to think Father Z is ignorant of the history of the Church,
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It might be that a lot of people are tired of reading his articles because its the same thing over and over again…if someone tells me the subject of his rants, I often don’t have to read them anymore to figure out which rabbit hole he will try to take us down.
 
He honestly believes that Latin is “Jesus’s language” and “the Language of God”.
 
It’s closer, in that it’s in the vernacular with a free standing altar and the laity can participate in serving as EMHC’s and Lectors.

Do you think they sang Gregorian Chant back in the first century of Christianity ?

Jim
 
When I see Fr Z and Rants in the headline, I can only manage to skim over his article.

He comes across as an angry person.

Jim
 
Latin was the language of the Roman military among other things. (No doubt the many coins of that period as well.) The inscription above the cross identified Christ in three languages, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. (INRI is Latin.) It is quite possible that Christ understood at least a few words in Latin.
 
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They likely chanted though - perhaps closer to the Jewish temple style.
 
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