SSPX talks draw near an end. It does not look good

[catharina]

The Church grew spectacularly in Africa and the Americas when all the sacraments were dispensed in Latin. Within 2 generations, Mexico had not only scholae that would blow away most choirs now, they had composers in the high polyphonic style.

We’re not talking “taste and see” here. They mastered the good stuff.

Within two lifetimes of eating each other.

Plus, Islam is growing apace, and everyone has to learn some Arabic to read the Koran. They don’t even get the divided missal.

If it is presented properly, as it was for centuries, people will want to learn Latin. Latin belongs to the culture of the convert in Asia and Africa just as much as it is ours.

I’m sorry but what are you saying with this strange concept?

“We’re not talking “taste and see” here. They mastered the good stuff.
Within two lifetimes of eating each other.”

Pardon me???

 

[ConstantineTG]

We need to be careful when considering the use of Latin/vernacular.

On the one hand, one could argue that the use of vernacular in the east impeded the dispersion of the faith, confining it to the ethnic groups who spoke the language. One could also argue it contributed to the fracturing of unity between the eastern churches.

What hindered the East from spreading is the growth of the Roman Church in the West, and the fast spread of Islam in the East. The Eastern faith has reached China long before Roman Catholicism made it there. Sadly it did not take root.

The fracture is not caused by language but by Theology. Read up on Nestorianism and Monohystism which caused the Oriental and the Assyrian Church to go into schism.

Also, the model of establishing Churches in the East is different to the West. Its more political than theological. The Bishop of Rome want to use a Cosmopolitan system where everything is absorbed into one religious and moral culture. The East saw that each Church established in an area should be one Church, and the others are separate Churches.

On the other hand, one could point to Islam, which has insisted on a single language even more rigourously than the Roman Catholic Church ever did, and does so to this very day. Given its appeal to hundreds of millions of people, many of whom have little schooling, it is difficult to maintain that a sufficient amount of a foreign language cannot be imparted to the faithful to enable them to follow their services.

You need not argue the benefits of the vernacular, because I am not opposing them. I bring up the criticisms only to show that there are two sides to the coin, so to speak.

As you say. I keep bringing them up to keep the balance on such discussions.

Far more beneficial, to my thinking, to discuss what we want to achieve, namely continuity, orthodoxy, and tradition, not to mention beauty and the appropriateness of high art to public worship, all of which Latin best serves.

We also want to make worship comprehensible, or “user friendly” as they say these days.

The obvious solution is the solution that is taking place at present, namely, that two rites are being celebrated throughout the Latin world. There is nothing at all wrong with that modus operandi, except that the Tridentine concept of uniformity must be suspended.

Ironic that of Trent, Vatican II chose to attempt to enforce most strongly that concept!

In a way I’m not quite sure the present is the best solution. While the Eastern Rites do use multiple forms of Liturgy, none of them has different forms of Liturgy that are distinctively used from one another. Longer forms of Liturgy are used for special Feast Days while shorter forms are used for most other times. Maybe we’re just in a phase where the Church will figure out a solution thats somewhere in between the TLM and the Pauline Mass.

 

[ChadS]

The Church grew spectacularly in Africa and the Americas when all the sacraments were dispensed in Latin. Within 2 generations, Mexico had not only scholae that would blow away most choirs now, they had composers in the high polyphonic style.

We’re not talking “taste and see” here. They mastered the good stuff.

Within two lifetimes of eating each other.

Plus, Islam is growing apace, and everyone has to learn some Arabic to read the Koran. They don’t even get the divided missal.

If it is presented properly, as it was for centuries, people will want to learn Latin. Latin belongs to the culture of the convert in Asia and Africa just as much as it is ours.

Eamon Duffy in his book “Voices of Morebath” talks about how the parish records for the various guilds and altar societies were kept in a sort of pidgin Latin, where it was mostly English with Latin words and phrases interspersed liberally throughout. In these examples it wasn’t a priest doing the writing but laymen. He argues that it shows a rudimentary understanding of Latin and that writing ability were somewhat wider spread than previously believed. I think we do a great disservice to our ancestors when we just assume they didn’t understand anything in Latin or that they were completely illiterate. They certainly weren’t literate in 21st century understanding, but it seems they knew enough. I think maybe we need to rethink the assumptions of the past and realize that maybe these people really did have a clue about what was going on and give them a little credit.

ChadS

 

[ConstantineTG]

I took Latin in high school owing to my love for history, and specifically of the Roman Empire. I went for the secondary context of the life and culture of the Romans, and the Latin speaking world. To my surprise, I began to enjoy this class because it opened up for me my own language, English, owing to so many words borrowed and roots taken from that language, now used in English. So I have trouble believing that even a rudimentary understanding of Latin wouldn’t consequently improve SAT scores. For entirely secular reasons (I was not Catholic, and this was public school) I promoted Latin and its study. It makes perfect sense to me that Latin would improve test scores in a broad variety of subjects.

Pax Christi,
Tim

Coincidentally, Asians are better at school because of home discipline. I was watching Stephen Colbert interview the author of “Tiger Mom,” and it reminded me of my upbringing. Can I argue that Chinese makes kids better at school? Although I’m not Chinese.

 

[catharina]

The Church grew spectacularly in Africa and the Americas when all the sacraments were dispensed in Latin. Within 2 generations, Mexico had not only scholae that would blow away most choirs now, they had composers in the high polyphonic style.

We’re not talking “taste and see” here. They mastered the good stuff. Within two lifetimes of eating each other.

Plus, Islam is growing apace, and everyone has to learn some Arabic to read the Koran. They don’t even get the divided missal.

If it is presented properly, as it was for centuries, people will want to learn Latin. Latin belongs to the culture of the convert in Asia and Africa just as much as it is ours.

Again, what does the bolded-above MEAN?
You said it - now what does it mean?

 

[pnewton]

Plus, Islam is growing apace, and everyone has to learn some Arabic to read the Koran. They don’t even get the divided missal.

If it is presented properly, as it was for centuries, people will want to learn Latin. Latin belongs to the culture of the convert in Asia and Africa just as much as it is ours.

I think we can all agree that Islam is not being guided by the Holy Spirit. The Catholic Church however does have such a charism. Why would one desert a path with a sure guide to follow some others that are being led by a blind man, even if the other way seemed better?

 

[ProVobis]

Mind you that while you will get many people on this forum to agree with more Latin, a greater majority of practicing Catholics would prefer to have the entire Liturgy in the vernacular.

So what? Most people prefer calculators and elevators too. Want to waste your time doing those polls too?

Vernacular is just another modern convenience. The Reformers knew this well. Requires no effort. Where’s the prayer in that? If you haven’t done so, please read Veterum Sapientia. This is not Pope John’s opinion, this is fact. Also check this out:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=7566071#post7566071

You continue to bash the sacred language of not only the Church but the cross itself. The inscriptions on the cross were written in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, and all three languages are represented in the Traditional Latin Mass. (Sometimes in the OF too, but rarely.)

All’s I can say is thank God Latin is NOT a national language.

 

[Timothy17]

Despite your disparagement of the term “Latin Catholic” or “Latin Church,” it would be useful to consider the usage of the Vatican, such as in the Code of Canon Lawr the later Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches

I understand that Canon Law makes use of the term for its purposes in differentiating between the various rites subject to it.

While I’m not an expert, it is also my understanding that the phrase “Roman Catholic” is essentially a feature of English usage, as Catholics were perjoratively labeled “Roman” during the English Reformation, and that in other countries the preferred term is simply “Catholic.”

I am also aware of the soure of Roman Catholic ; however, you emphasize the Roman in Roman Catholic. Some interesting history again :

Before the Reformation, “Christian,” “schismatic” or “heretic” sufficed to identify what manner of Christian you were. Many reformers, owing to the praise of the name Catholic in the history, did not want to abandon this name. Hence, as St. Augustine (I believe it was him) says, “all heretics wish to be styled catholic.” The Anglicans, to this day, like to style themselves “catholic.” Regardless, in English usage, a Roman Catholic is always someone who belongs to the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, because there were no other Catholics in the British Isles. It specifically identifies someone loyal to the Holy See, which loyalty was the cause of suspicion, hatred or contempt among the English Protestants.

Many Saints were made Martyrs exactly because they were Roman Catholics.

Pax Christi,
Tim

 

[revert_jen]

I understand the Roman Catholic Church is the determinate and supreme Church, the “Mother of all Churches,” who alone determines their catholicity. The Church of Rome is the one with which all others must agree, and that this Church is now being called the Latin Church, whereas Latin is not even the important or relevant characteristic today, and even when it was, it was scarce heard to be called the Latin Church, esp. by Catholic Christians. The proper name today, “Roman Catholic Church,” in my opinion, emphasizes its primacy of place, and I think it is scandalous to even imply that it is “but one of many” or that it shares anything like an equality of status with the others. That cannot be so, as it is all others that must be in agreement with her.

Actually no.

The Pope has two main “jobs.” The one that he exercises most often is as the person with the authority of discipline over the Latin Church. He also has the authority of dogma (subject to Sacred Tradition of course) over all of the Churches in communion with Rome, this including the Latin Church and all of the other Churches.

The Latin Church has come to be called the Roman Catholic Church in the West, because it is by far the most numerous. It is NOT because this church has primacy of place over the other Churches. It does in fact share equality of status with all of the Churches. The agreement with Rome that has to take place is with the Bishop of Rome in his “dogma hat,” not with the Latin Church itself. The fact that the head of our Church is also the authority that Jesus left on Earth to assure the unity of the Church does not say anything about our Church, just that the Pope has two functions. In other Churches, the Pope still serves the same “dogma” function, but they have their own Partriarchs to perform the “discipline” function.

However, the Roman Catholic Church term is a confusing one, if you understand the Church structure. All of the different Churches in communion with Rome (including the Latin Church, the Maronites, the Greek-Mekites, etc.) could reasonably be called “Roman Catholic,” but a lot of people would equate that with the Latin Church as well, so it is a term with two possible meanings, which may be why some people prefer to use different terms.

The fact that most people use the term Roman Catholic Church to refer to the Western, Latin, Church, doesn’t make it the correct term to use. I know I was in my 30s before I heard a hint of the existence of the other Churches in communion with Rome. Before that, I would certainly have erroneously equated “Catholic” with “Latin Church.” It wouldn’t have made me correct, that lots of other people did the same.

I am not an expert, and I welcome correction on details, but I am sure that it is not the Latin Church (whatever you call it) that has to be agreed with, but the Bishop of Rome, and that the Patriarchs have authority over their own Churches in matters of discipline (which includes, of course, the language of the liturgy).

–Jen

 

[Warrenton]

I’m sorry but what are you saying with this strange concept?

“We’re not talking “taste and see” here. They mastered the good stuff.
Within two lifetimes of eating each other.”

Pardon me???

I will attempt to clarify. You asked whether Africans and Asians should have to master Latin in order to be fully integrated into the Roman Catholic Church.

By contrasting your education with African and Asians, you implied that they would have difficulty mastering Latin because of educational differences or deficiencies.

In answer to the question whether Africans and Asians should master Latin, the answer is yes.

In support of this answer, I point to historical precedent. Latin spread quickly in the New World in the 1500s. Within several generations, native Americans were not only singing polyphonic services, they were composing their own polyphonic settings in the style of Palestrina. The Aztecs of 1550 were a lot more different from the Spanish missionaries in terms of culture than Africans and Asians are from Europeans and North Americans today, but the cultural divide was bridged.

People can be taught Latin, just as easily as they can be taught the Bible or the rubrics of the mass. It has been done before, and it can, and should, be done again.

Alles klar?

 

[catharina]

I’m sorry but what are you saying with this strange concept?

“We’re not talking “taste and see” here. They mastered the good stuff.
Within two lifetimes of eating each other.”
Pardon me???

Again, clarify.

 

[Warrenton]

I’m sorry but what are you saying with this strange concept?

"We’re not talking “taste and see” here. They mastered the good stuff.
Pardon me???

“Taste and See” is a particularly grating musical composition that makes its appearance with depressing regularity at the N.O. mass in the parish to which I belong.

It is a combination of college drinking song, Methodist hymn of the particularly saccharine variety (think “He Walks With Me, He Talks With Me”), and early 1960’s folk song, something like one of Judy Collins more lugubrious ditties (I realize they were all lugubrious).

Sometimes this depressing concatenation is accompanied by full choir and organ (the effect of Judy Collins and an organ simply must be experiened to be fully appreciated), while other times, it is accompanied by several guitars a la The Kingston Trio.

If you haven’t heard it, then, like Alec Guinness says at the end of Dr Zhivago, “It’s a gift.”

Cheers!

 

[catharina]

I will attempt to clarify. You asked whether Africans and Asians should have to master Latin in order to be fully integrated into the Roman Catholic Church.

By contrasting your education with African and Asians, you implied that they would have difficulty mastering Latin because of educational differences or deficiencies.

No. I never said or implied any such thing.
You are mistaken in your assumption.

In answer to the question whether Africans and Asians should master Latin, the answer is yes.

In support of this answer, I point to historical precedent. Latin spread quickly in the New World in the 1500s. Within several generations, native Americans were not only singing polyphonic services, they were composing their own polyphonic settings in the style of Palestrina. The Aztecs of 1550 were a lot more different from the Spanish missionaries in terms of culture than Africans and Asians are from Europeans and North Americans today, but the cultural divide was bridged.

People can be taught Latin, just as easily as they can be taught the Bible or the rubrics of the mass. It has been done before, and it can, and should, be done again.

Alles klar?

 

[catharina]

“Taste and See” is a particularly grating musical composition that makes its appearance with depressing regularity at the N.O. mass in the parish to which I belong.

It is a combination of college drinking song, Methodist hymn of the particularly saccharine variety (think “He Walks With Me, He Talks With Me”), and early 1960’s folk song, something like one of Judy Collins more lugubrious ditties (I realize they were all lugubrious).

Sometimes this depressing concatenation is accompanied by full choir and organ (the effect of Judy Collins and an organ simply must be experiened to be fully appreciated), while other times, it is accompanied by several guitars a la The Kingston Trio.

If you haven’t heard it, then, like Alec Guinness says at the end of Dr Zhivago, “It’s a gift.”

Cheers!

Your musical tastes are fascinating, I’m sure, but irrelevant here.
The song is unknown to me. Again you ignore the qustion I’m presenting:

I’m sorry but what are you saying with this strange concept?

“We’re not talking “taste and see” here. They mastered the good stuff.
Within two lifetimes of eating each other.”

Pardon me???

 

[Warrenton]

Again, clarify.

The Aztecs, and some of the Caribe Indians, were cannibals when the Spanish arrived.

The Aztecs in particular had rituals that were bloodthirsty in the extreme, and countless victims were immolated to propitiate the rulers, or the rulers’ gods. Indeed, so horrific were the Aztec sacrfices, that many native peoples preferred the Spaniards to them. It explains why few Indians joined the Aztec attempt to resist colonization.

Perhaps I stretched the point about Aztec cannibalism, since, I think, they only ate some of the victim (some blood, maybe a heart) in some of the rituals, but suffice to say, they were very different people from the Spanish.

Yet, within two generations, say by the mid to third quarter of the 1500s, those Indians were singing mass settings and composing lovely mass settings that rival anything composed or performed in Europe. In Latin.

That is what I call progress.

 

[catharina]

The Aztecs, and some of the Caribe Indians, were cannibals when the Spanish arrived.

The Aztecs in particular had rituals that were bloodthirsty in the extreme, and countless victims were immolated to propitiate the rulers, or the rulers’ gods. Indeed, so horrific were the Aztec sacrfices, that many native peoples preferred the Spaniards to them. It explains why few Indians joined the Aztec attempt to resist colonization.

Perhaps I stretched the point about Aztec cannibalism, since, I think, they only ate some of the victim (some blood, maybe a heart) in some of the rituals, but suffice to say, they were very different people from the Spanish.

Yet, within two generations, say by the mid to third quarter of the 1500s, those Indians were singing mass settings and composing lovely mass settings that rival anything composed or performed in Europe. In Latin.

That is what I call progress.

What has that to do with the needs of African and Asian peoples today?
We were speaking of patterns of language - not of diet.

 

[Warrenton]

I think we can all agree that Islam is not being guided by the Holy Spirit. The Catholic Church however does have such a charism. Why would one desert a path with a sure guide to follow some others that are being led by a blind man, even if the other way seemed better?

Wait a second. Are you suggesting that Satan can teach people Arabic, but the Holy Ghost cannot teach people Latin?

That is hard to fathom, especially given the success in spreading the faith in the New World and coastal Africa when the mass, and virtually all of the sacraments, were in Latin.

On your “clear path,” my friend, the signposts were written in Latin for 1700 years.

 

[Not_Sure_1]

yeah, people seem to talk about Spanish atrocities in the new world, and how the marvelous Aztec culture was destroyed.

Sure they were advanced, but still primitive in nature. They sacrificed people on an altar, usually people of other tribes.

The Spanish, with the help of the Virgin Mary brought civilization to that region. Religion saved that area.

 

[Warrenton]

They certainly weren’t literate in 21st century understanding, but it seems they knew enough. I think maybe we need to rethink the assumptions of the past and realize that maybe these people really did have a clue about what was going on and give them a little credit.

ChadS

I agree with you 100%.

Interestingly, I read in the paper this weekend a statement by a University Professor, doing a study on university students. He said something like this. “We need to find out if university graduates know more than then when they were freshmen, or more than they did 20 years ago.”

Reading this gave me pause. Do we really need to know whether grads are smarter than when they were about three or four years old, or is the Prof. just “marginally literate?”

In either case, it bodes ill for the 21st century!!

 

[Warrenton]

What hindered the East from spreading is the growth of the Roman Church in the West

Maybe Latin was easier to learn than Greek?

But seriously…

I have been suggesting that an accord will be reached between SSPX and Rome. Moreover, I suggest that it is in the interest of both sides for dialogue to continue.

If you accept the right of Byzantines, Russians, Armeniens, Copts to have their own rites, it seems the notion of different rites is not offensive in itself.

Why, then, should we draw the line against different rites within a given Church? Especially when such tolerance fosters the “larger” unity that the Vatican II documents speak about?