The venacular would be easier to follow than the Latin, but I never had a priest, nun or parent tell me the being a Catholic was supposed to be easy. In fact we should suffer and offer it up.
At the same time, nobody said that the Mass should be made deliberately difficult to understand and that Christianity requires that everyone should learn the Latin language.
But that’s additionally an interesting point. If being a Catholic is not easy because of the use of Latin – perhaps the idea is that everyone should do the difficult work to learn how to speak, read, write and understand Latin fluently.
But this also is not promoted in the most ardent traditionalist groups. A simple proof of this – prior to Vatican II, all priestly training was taught in the Latin language (save this point for later). Seminarians would be taught by a professor who spoke Latin to them exclusively. Interestingly, this is one part of “The Tradition” that the SSPX, for example, has not desired to restore. Why not?
Also, as far as the TLM in the vernacular, that is not a good idea at all. The Latin stands as a barrier from any heresy entering into the Sacred Liturgy.
I can’t see how that is possible. How does the Latin language prevent heresy? I think the idea is that “since Latin is not a vernacular” then no heresy can enter (since nobody understands it). But as I pointed out before, Latin was used in the seminaries before Vatican II so it was, indeed, a vernacular. But if we insist that Latin should be a Dead Language to prevent heresy from entering into the Church – then **nobody should learn how to speak Latin ** because to learn to speak, read, write and understand Latin risks having the language become a vernacular.
Again, this doesn’t make any sense.
The Latin words never change and it also shows a unity of the entire Latin Rite- with you being able to go to Mass in any country and have the words be the same everywhere.
I would agree that some part of the Mass should be retained in Latin. I would prefer it to be primarily in the vernacular for reasons given. But beyond that, it doesn’t make sense either to say that “the Latin words never change”. Certainly, the words themselves can be the same at Mass, but the translations of those words can be quite different. Additionally, with the addition of new prayers to Mass for feast days of saints, new Latin terms would need to be created. So the words at Mass would, indeed change even if entirely in Latin.
I will mention another major point – and that is that normally nobody can hear most of the Latin words at Mass anyway. So what difference does it make? The priest could be saying the Mass in any langauge for those parts.
There is no way that a person who is not highly skilled in Latin to understand the propers of Mass just by listening (even when you could hear them which is rare).
That’s why the priest reads the Epistle (facing the altar) in Latin, but then has to repeat it in the vernacular.
So, large parts of the Mass are unintelligible without a vernacular Missal. The sermon and readings are in vernacular – because it is wisely known that people wouldn’t get anything out of the readings or sermon if they were given in Latin.
This point alone makes it clear (to me) that the vernacular should be used for all of the parts of Mass that are directed to the people (sermon, readings and propers directed to the congregation).
The liturgical reform hoped to introduce some vernacular, while retaining prayers in Latin. To my way of thinking, that would be best. There’s no reason to have the Mass entirely in Latin.
It was originally changed from Greek to Latin because Latin was the vernacular anyway.
