Significance of Latin in traditional Catholicism?

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Phillip_Rolfes said:
In order to do serious graduate study in theology one is required to know both Greek and Latin.
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Studying both Greek and Latin was a requirement of seminarians prior to Vatican II. In the same Veterum Sapientia Pope XXIII writes:
The Church has ever held the literary evidences of this wisdom in the highest esteem. She values especially the Greek and Latin languages in which wisdom itself is cloaked, as it were, in a vesture of gold. She has likewise welcomed the use of other venerable languages, which flourished in the East. For these too have had no little influence on the progress of humanity and civilization. By their use in sacred liturgies and in versions of Holy Scripture, they have remained in force in certain regions even to the present day, bearing constant witness to the living voice of antiquity.
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I see we are in agreement, at least as far as the importance of Latin, Greek, etc. goes. 👍
 
Latin has been the Official Language of the RCC for centuries…and of course it does not matter if you are black,white or brindle…as a Catholic you can/could follow the Mass wherever you lived.
 
Zacdecat said:
Latin has been the Official Language of the RCC for centuries…and of course it does not matter if you are black,white or brindle…as a Catholic you can/could follow the Mass wherever you lived.
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As a ROMAN Catholic you could follow Mass wherever you lived. I reiterate, Latin is only the official language of the Latin speaking Western Church(es). The Christian East (both Catholic and Orthodox) has never had a tradition of Latin. It is not our language and cannot be forced upon us. Do I think the West needs to return to a greater use of her traditional language, emphatically YES! 😃 Do I think the West should use Latin to the exclusion of the vernacular languages, NO. 🙂

I must once again point out that the Catholic Church is not the Roman Catholic Church that happens to have several Eastern “rites” attached to it as so many (undesirable) appendeges. The Catholic Church is a communion of 20+ particular churches. Eastern Christians have their own theology, spirituality, discipline, etc. that are traditional to them and must be respected. Our heritage (liturgical, theological, spiritual, etc.) is equal in dignity and antiquity to the Latin heritage, as Vatican II and many popes prior and post have pointed out. If you want to be truly traditional then embrace the fulness of Tradition and allow yourself to be “illumined by the light of the East” as well as that of the West as the late John Paul II requested of all ROMAN Catholics. Catholicism is not equivalent to Roman Catholicism. 🙂
 
Phillip_Rolfes said:
Do I think the West needs to return to a greater use of her traditional language, emphatically YES! 😃 Do I think the West should use Latin to the exclusion of the vernacular languages, NO. 🙂
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The vernacular is not the issue, really. Everyone wants to be told something in terms of what they understand. Human nature. Normal. You can sell anything that way. The issue is a changing liturgy, a changing theology, a changing set of idioms, a changing set of cultures, a changing set of customs, etc. Granted I don’t know much about the East, but I have yet to see any evidence where they have suffered as much as the West in being slapped with their many changes since Vatican II.

As far as Latin goes, I’ll be happy to go to a Latin or Greek traditional liturgy and will take that over a changing liturgy anytime. And that’s exactly what you have when you translate and paraphrase and reword your texts. There’s where you run into problems.
 
littlequestion said:
I won’t try to argue the historical significance because I am not qualified to do that and several posters have already touched on the practical significance of having a universal language that is separate from worldly languages. We can easily appreciate that as Catholics when the Mass was always in Latin there was always someplace we could go, no matter where we were in the world, where something would connect with our soul in a familiar way even if we were in a foreign land completely unable to communicate and having culture-shock. It also helped us have a unique sense of solidarity among different ethnic groups and economic classes of catholics when facing the hostility of non-catholics who based their own solidarity on being only one race, ethnicity, or economic class.

Here is something else. Recently I was in a discussion about the significance of the phrase in English “world without end” which bothered me. I felt it was wrong, that it went to some external sense of raising the “world” which is not our focus to the level of “eternity”, but I could not articulate it and others argued that it was ok because it was actually the translation of “saecula saeculorum”…

Then someone went further and said that the actual translation is not “world without end” but more like “age of ages” and it does not exactly mean what “world without end” suggests. So, I was right! LOL without understanding it, somehow I stumbled across it…

Now this is a problem since I feel a “coup d’esprit” (really a “coup du Saint Esprit”) that I should not pray “world without end” and yet the prayer does appear over and over in Catholic prayer ritual. Well, Latin is the solution. I am training myself to pray “saecula saeculorum, amen” everytime the English would call for “world without end, amen” and so I am avoiding the spiritual confusion that I personally feel sensitive about, without having to defy even one word of Catholic prayer language.

That is why I love Latin! It really has become God’s own language for our souls.
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yes, i have the same problem too. the same occurs with the Our Father, the Credo. i cringe when i hear the words: He descended into hell… it is not hell, it is called a place of the dead. Jesus did not go to hell.
 
Phillip_Rolfes said:
As a ROMAN Catholic you could follow Mass wherever you lived.
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Hello Phillip,

I have a few comments on some other points, but rather than go too far afield here, take a look at the [thread=429764]Eastern Catholicsm[/thread] forum.
 
Phillip_Rolfes said:
Latin is not sufficient for theology. John Paul II urged all Roman Catholics to be “illumined by the light of the East” in his encyclical letter “Orientale Lumen”. In order to do serious graduate study in theology one is required to know both Greek and Latin. Greek is also necessary if one wishes to read the majority of the Early Church Fathers as well as the first Ecumenical Councils of the Church. Many people complain that much of the Latin nuances were lost when the Mass was translated into English. We could say the same about the translation of Scripture from Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek into Latin.
I don’t mean this to be a commentary on which tradition is better, Eastern or Western. I merely wish to point out that Latin is not the universal language of the Church, it is simply the language of one particular Church. If one wants to have a better grasp of the entire catholic (yes I use the little “c” deliberately) Tradition then one has to study the theology of the East and Orient as well. The Catholic Church is not the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is a communion of 20 + particular churches, of which the Roman happens to be the largest. :o
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CradleCath said:
This is unacceptable to Roman Catholics who embrace the fact that the Pope is infallible in matters of faith & morals. This infalliblity was defined during the 1st Vatican Council. I say “defined” because the infallibility of the Pope is a belief that has been held since the early days of the Church.
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Though there is now, admittedly, a certain amount of overlap, “Papal Infallibility” (which has formally existed only since it was defined some 150 years ago) is not quite the same as “Papal (aka Petrine) Primacy” which has been around since the beginning.
 
malphono said:
Though there is now, admittedly, a certain amount of overlap, “Papal Infallibility” (which has formally existed only since it was defined some 150 years ago) is not quite the same as “Papal (aka Petrine) Primacy” which has been around since the beginning.
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Well, we could turn this into an argument over semantics, but that’s not what I intend to do. You believe that he is “first among equals”. We define him as the Vicar of Christ on earth. The reasons for disagreement on the nature of Petrine Primacy are complex, hinging upon matters of doctrine, history, and politics

You believe that the Pope is primary among Bishops. We believe that the Pope is the successor of Peter…the rock upon which the Church was built. We believe that God has given our Pope, whomever he may be, the charism of infallibility in matters of faith & morals. That belief, though defined as I said at Vat. I, is a teaching that can be traced back to the early Church Fathers:

St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage writing about 256 A.D. said, “Would the heretics dare to come to the very seat of Peter whence apostolic faith is derived and whither no errors can come?”

Augustine reflected this same Tradition when he said, “Rome has spoken; the cause is concluded.” I

n 433 A.D. Pope Sixtus III declared that assenting to the Bishop of Rome’s decision on matters of faith and morals was as assent to Peter, “who lives in his successors and whose faith does not fail.”
 
CradleCath said:
Well, we could turn this into an argument over semantics, but that’s not what I intend to do. You believe that he is “first among equals”. We define him as the Vicar of Christ on earth. The reasons for disagreement on the nature of Petrine Primacy are complex, hinging upon matters of doctrine, history, and politics
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And, despite the fact that “semantics” has nothing to do with it, I have (and had) no intention of turning this into an argument about anything.

One thing point, though: Please don’t tell me what it is that I believe. You are most definitely not qualified to do that.
 
Regarding the Significance of Latin in the Tridentine Latin Mass

At Mass We are offering the Holy Sacrifice of Jesus Christ - the same Sacrifice perpetually. The Real Presence. Now the Latin in the Missal is what the Priest USES in addressing Almighty GOD on our behalf. He is offering the Sacrifice to GOD in Latin and we with him and through him by our assistance at Mass to GOD. That is why the Priest faces the Altar - not us. I have come to the conclusion that many who have been away from the Latin Mass for some time have forgotten that at the Tridentine Latin Mass - the Priest isnt there to speak to each of us in Latin. He isnt facing us. He is offering the Sacrifice to GOD for us and we with him in Latin. We offfer the Sacrifice in Propitiation for Our Sins and the Sins of the entire world - for Attonement - in Petition for his Blessings and Grace - and for Thanksgiving for same.

So it isnt necessary for each of us to be fluent in Latin but instead to follow along in unison with the Priest as he offers it for us by use of a Missal. The Mass is Vertical - not Horizontal.

Hope this helps clear up some of the misconceptions I am coming across here.

pax
 
wisdomseeker said:
yes, i have the same problem too. the same occurs with the Our Father, the Credo. i cringe when i hear the words: He descended into hell… it is not hell, it is called a place of the dead. Jesus did not go to hell.
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A simple translation doesn’t work and, in fact, is obvious heresy. Jesus did not go to hell but they say it all the time in the OF Apostles Creed. From Wikipedia,
The Greek wording in the Apostles’ Creed is κατελθόντα εἰς τὰ κατώτατα, (“katelthonta eis ta katôtata”), and in Latin descendit ad inferos. The Greek τὰ κατώτατα (“the lowest”) and the Latin inferos (“those below”) may also be translated as “underworld”, “netherworld”, or as “abode of the dead”. Thus, sometimes this phrase is translated as “descended to the dead.” The first use of the English harrowing in this context is in homilies of Aelfric, ca. 1000. Harrow is a by-form of harry, a military term meaning to “make predatory raids or incursions”[2]. The term Harrowing of Hell refers not merely to the idea that Christ descended into Hell, as in the Creed, but to the rich tradition that developed later, asserting that he triumphed over inferos, releasing Hell’s captives, particularly Adam and Eve, and the righteous men and women of Old Testament times.
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The possibility of erroneous translations in any vernacular is probably why the Apostles Creed is not used in the Traditional Latin Mass. But this is my guess only.
 
In regards to the the Apostles Creed "He descended into Hell " There is nothing wrong with that English Translation. In fact - it is scriptural. Purgatory is a form of Hell but for purification. So when the Apostles Creed speaks of Christ decending into Hell - he didnt descend into the Hell of the damned but he did descend " being put to death indeed in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit, In which also coming he preached to those spirits that were in prison

That is what the sentence refers to.

THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. PETER THE APOSTLE

3:17. For it is better doing well (if such be the will of God) to suffer than doing ill.

3:18. Because Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust: that he might offer us to God, being put to death indeed in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit,

3:19. In which also coming he preached to those spirits that were in prison:

Spirits that were in prison… See here a proof of a third place, or middle state of souls: for these spirits in prison, to whom Christ went ot preach, after his death, were not in heaven; nor yet in the hell of the damned: because heaven is no prison: and Christ did not go to preach to the damned.

3:20. Which had been some time incredulous, when they waited for the patience of God in the days of Noe, when the ark was a building: wherein a few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water.

3:21. Whereunto baptism, being of the like form, now saveth you also: not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but, the examination of a good conscience towards God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Whereunto baptism, etc… Baptism is said to be of the like form with the water by which Noe was saved, because the one was a figure of the other. Not the putting away, etc… As much as to say, that baptism has not its efficacy, in order to salvation, from its washing away any bodily filth or dirt; but from its purging the conscience from sin, when accompanied with suitable dispositions in the party, to answer the interrogations made at that time, with relation to faith, the renouncing of Satan with all his works; and the obedience to God’s commandments.

3:22. Who is on the right hand of God, swallowing down death that we might be made heirs of life everlasting: being gone into heaven, the angels and powers and virtues being made subject to him.
 
Malleus_01 said:
In regards to the the Apostles Creed "He descended into Hell " There is nothing wrong with that English Translation. In fact - it is scriptural. Purgatory is a form of Hell but for purification. So when the Apostles Creed speaks of Christ decending into Hell - he didnt descend into the Hell of the damned but he did descend " being put to death indeed in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit, In which also coming he preached to those spirits that were in prison

That is what the sentence refers to.
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Agreed. there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that translation, but I doubt the rest. There’s an excellent [post=6333334]post[/post] on the exact same thing on another forum here.
 
<<<<Agreed. there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that translation, but I doubt the rest. There’s an excellent post on the exact same thing on another forum here. >>>>

Well I happen to share the view of St Thomas Aquinas in the Summa on the subject.

newadvent.org/summa/4052.htm
 
What does the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed say in the original Greek? Keep in mind that the Latin Creed itself is a translation. The Creed was originally written in Greek at the Council of Nicaea I and finalized at the Council of Constantinople I.
 
Purgatory is a form of Hell but for purification.

This idea is questionable and doesn’t really represent Catholic Tradition.
 
Re: Significance of Latin in traditional Catholicism?
Mal: Purgatory is a form of Hell but for purification.

Phillip Writes : This idea is questionable and doesn’t really represent Catholic Tradition.

Mal: It represents St Thomas Aquinas View of Purgatory

Entirely:

newadvent.org/summa/7001.htm

Specifically:

I answer that, Nothing is clearly stated in Scripture about the situation of Purgatory, nor is it possible to offer convincing arguments on this question. It is probable, however, and more in keeping with the statements of holy men and the revelations made to many, that there is a twofold place of Purgatory. One, according to the common law; and thus the place of Purgatory is situated below and in proximity to hell, so that it is the same fire which torments the damned in hell and cleanses the just in Purgatory; although the damned being lower in merit, are to be consigned to a lower place. Another place of Purgatory is according to dispensation: and thus sometimes, as we read, some are punished in various places, either that the living may learn, or that the dead may be succored, seeing that their punishment being made known to the living may be mitigated through the prayers of the Church.

Some say, however, that according to the common law the place of Purgatory is where man sins. This does not seem probable, since a man may be punished at the same time for sins committed in various places. And others say that according to the common law they are punished above us, because they are between us and God, as regards their state. But this is of no account, for they are not punished for being above us, but for that which is lowest in them, namely sin.

Note how St Thomas is of the opinion that it is the SAME FIRE which torments the damned and cleanses the just in Purgatory. So to clarify my statement - the form of Hell is FIRE and it is the same fire as Hell Fire. The Summa is most certainly Catholic.

Pax
 
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