latin mass

[johnnykins]

jbuck919:

Well, it’s my turn to disagree. The gap between the degree to which American priests (and even the hierarchy) had mastered Latin and that in Europe was vast. It was the European prelates like Suenens who argued in elegant Latin for a vernacular Mass while the US prelates like Cushing argued in broken Latin for the retention of Latin. American priests, and I blush to say it, were a working class phenomenon, while European priests were an aristocratic phenomenon. That is an overgeneralization, but basically true. Have you ever read Henry Morton Robinson’s The Cardinal ? Everything in it rings true except for one thing, and that’s the title character (originally a priest from working class suburban Boston) and his mentor Cardinal Glennon, whose sophistication was beyond the capacity of the American hierarchy at the time and a pure wishful fantasy of Robinson.

On the matter just of pronunciation, everyone who ever learned Latin properly knows perfectly well that classical pronunciation differs from ecclesiastical. This is not the issue. The issue is that American priests acted in general as if it didn’t deserve any pronunciation at all, just mouthing like so much gibberish. And in terms of comprehension, they might have, after years of expereience, been able to figure out the ordinary, but the proper and the readings? I imagine they had to go to the St. Joseph Missal, etc., just like everyone else. It was all phonetic, and badly so at that. If you walked up to the average US priest in 1955 and showed him a random passage in Latin and asked him for the meaning, he would not have a clue. I’m sure someone else here knows what I’m talking about and will back me up.

Anyone who has been involved with second language instruction knows that it is possible to have seven years of it and not know diddly squat more than you did to begin with. There was no motivation for a true mastery of Latin in most American seminaries. The motivation was to churn out priests with other priorities in mind. In fact, I would not be surprised if a true scholar seminarian who got into the Latin would not be made fun of by his good old boy classmates, especially at the minor seminary level.

We disagree and you do have afew facts early wrong - Cushing was all for the vernacular. Priests, both European and American, were “working class.” The Hierarchy in Europe was more “aristocratic.” The Cardinal was loosely based on Cardinal Spellman. Cardinals in Europe had the advantage of being able to travel with some frequency to Rome - where speaking Latin was possible - hardly in North America.

As to the Ordinary any literate Catholic knew it because it was on the right hand page of the missals - with the Latin on the left. School children knew the Ordinary. As to the Propers, I imagine there were priests who could not translate quickly, but I disagree that they were a large number - let alone the vast majority. Was there mumbling - sure, I mumbled as an altar boy - but knew the prayers and could say them accurately. I have no doubt the priests knew the Mass, and I believe it’s a post-Vatican II myth that the laity didn’t know what was going on. My folks sure did - and so did the vast majority of parishoners where I grew up.

 

[jbuck919]

johnnykins:

We disagree and you do have afew facts early wrong - Cushing was all for the vernacular. Priests, both European and American, were “working class.” The Hierarchy in Europe was more “aristocratic.” The Cardinal was loosely based on Cardinal Spellman. Cardinals in Europe had the advantage of being able to travel with some frequency to Rome - where speaking Latin was possible - hardly in North America.

As to the Ordinary any literate Catholic knew it because it was on the right hand page of the missals - with the Latin on the left. School children knew the Ordinary. As to the Propers, I imagine there were priests who could not translate quickly, but I disagree that they were a large number - let alone the vast majority. Was there mumbling - sure, I mumbled as an altar boy - but knew the prayers and could say them accurately. I have no doubt the priests knew the Mass, and I believe it’s a post-Vatican II myth that the laity didn’t know what was going on. My folks sure did - and so did the vast majority of parishoners where I grew up.

Maybe we don’t disagree with each other so much after all. I’ll take your word for it about Cushing, but it is still not a great reflection on him because he was in a no-win situation. Either he loved the Latin for sentimental reasons when he did not really know it (my assumption based on what I have heard about American cardinals at the time), or he wanted the vernacular as a relief from having to deal with Latin, again because he did not really know it.

I do not object to the idea of the congregation following along in a two-column missal as they used to. I do not object to a phonetic participation in the Mass with only minimal understanding of the meaning. Such compromises are certainly to be preferred to profane and appallling outrages upon the celebration of the Mass as happen almost every day almost everywhere in this day and age.

What I object to is the notion that less than an excellent understanding of Latin is fine with everyone around the altar as long as they get it approximately right. I happen to live in Germany right now and in the old days the German clergy were among the best educated in Europe. They would have been able to conduct a conversation in Latin with Pontius Pilate if necessary. That still includes Hans Kueng in spite of all his heterodoxies, and it certainly includes Josef Ratzinger. It is a qualitative difference of great magnitude and not an incidental thing, in my opinion, and it contributed directly to the vernacular liturgy. Name to me one modern US prelate who can take an arbitrary passage from scripture from the Vulgate even and translate it without having the English memorized already.

 

[johnnykins]

jbuck919:

Name to me one modern US prelate who can take an arbitrary passage from scripture from the Vulgate even and translate it without having the English memorized already.

The Cardinal Archbishop of New York - Egan - comes to mind. His job in Rome was to be a Latin translator.

 

[jbuck919]

johnnykins:

The Cardinal Archbishop of New York - Egan - comes to mind. His job in Rome was to be a Latin translator.

I’ll take your word for that. You probably know that the chief Latinist of the Vatican, a layman, who is responsible for all official documents being in correct Latin, is an American ( so, irrelevantly but interestingly, is the organist of St. Peter’s).

 

[johnnykins]

jbuck919:

I’ll take your word for that. You probably know that the chief Latinist of the Vatican, a layman, who is responsible for all official documents being in correct Latin, is an American ( so, irrelevantly but interestingly, is the organist of St. Peter’s).

There is a story about Egan when he came back to the US - Bridgeport, I think. He needed the word “condom” but came up with some circumlocution that everyone thought was weird. His explanation was that he thought in Latin and having spoken Latin for so long he couldn’t bring to mind the English word.

 

[srp643]

johnnykins:

There is a story about Egan when he came back to the US - Bridgeport, I think. He needed the word “condom” but came up with some circumlocution that everyone thought was weird. His explanation was that he thought in Latin and having spoken Latin for so long he couldn’t bring to mind the English word.

Hilarious. I serve for him at St. Patrick’s and I’ve been impressed with his grasp of so many languages (i think at least latin, spanish, french, and several others).

 

[Servus_Pio_XII]

I am aware of this, but the question was specifically about Ave Maria University, and no indult Mass is permitted there, not even for a visiting priest, hence my response.

What if the priest is, for instance, Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest or Fraternitas Sacerdotalis Sancti Petri? They have universal indult for the Tridentine Mass, could they not say it?

 

[Chatter163]

What if the priest is, for instance, Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest or Fraternitas Sacerdotalis Sancti Petri? They have universal indult for the Tridentine Mass, could they not say it?

No. My FSSP priest visited Ave Maria just last week and was told by the university that he could not celebrate the Tridentine Mass there.

 

[Marian_Carroll]

As the initial question of the thread has been answered and most of the posts have meandered elsewhere, it is now closed. Thanks to all who participated.