Understanding Catholic newspeak

[Racer_X]

What modernists mean when they say…
(I got these from a Traditionalist website but have only included what I hope are the uncontroversial ones. )

ACTIVE PARTICIPATION
often involving dancing, singing, hand-clapping, waving arms around, being disruptive, picking up musical instruments and putting on a show for everyone, “active participation,” as modernists see it, is the busy-ness of engaging in behaviors that are “fun,” not rooted in our liturgical purposes and heritage, and, especially, which usurp the priest’s role and detract from the Mystery of Faith. It’s what goes on in liturgy for the MTV generation with its 5-second attention span.

True active participation is understanding the Mass – its supernatural reality and purpose – and praying it along with the Angels and Saints in Heaven. It is offering ourselves up to Christ, uniting our joys and sufferings with His as He pours out His life for us and becomes truly present in the Eucharist. If you don’t get an “emotional high” from that in a well-celebrated traditional Mass (which is not the purpose of the Mass, anyway!), the problem is you, not the Mass.

CHRIST
a sort of, um, consciousness, man, or perfection of energy…or something. “It’s” the “spirit among us” – exemplified by that super-tolerant guy Jesus (among others), who was assassinated for being a radical – that becomes crystallized when we “gather” in the “worship space” to “share bread and wine” from the “table.”

HALLELUJAH
This is less a “Modernist” issue than a Protestant one, but I mention it because it bugs me: the proper Western Christian transcription of the word is “allelúia,” not “hallelujah”; the latter is an English Protestant “Reformation” use based on the Masoretic texts. And what does this glorious word mean? “All hail to Him Who is!”

INTOLERANCE
the stubborn insistence on the reality of objective Truth and God’s Will.

ISLAM
“Islam means peace,” some would have us believe. To those of us who know better, “Islam” means “Submission.”

PENANCE
the quaint, “pre-Vatican II” act, now held to be ridiculous, of making amends for offending God. Doing penance for things you should not need to do penance for (Crusades, Inqusition, patriarchy, order, Passion Plays, certain Mel Gibson movies, etc.) is fine, though.

SATAN
the “spirit of man’s intolerance to differences.” Otherwise, an outmoded cartoonish figure whom the Church “used to believe” exists.

SEPARATED BRETHREN
Those who used to be known as heretics, schismatics and infidels.

SOCIAL JUSTICE
the true purpose of the Church, as opposed to helping people to repent and turn to Christ and offering the Sacraments.

SONGS
what used to be known as hymns, psalms and canticles.

 

[Racer_X]

… And while I’m on this sort of topic:

· We end prayers with “Ah-men,” not “Ay-men.” And definitely not “Ay-men AND Ay-men!”

· The name of the man who wrote “City of God” is pronounced “Au-GUS-tin,” with the accent on the second syllable, not “AH-gus-TEEN.”

· The last Book of the Bible (which has 73 Books, not 66) is “Apocalypse,” not “Revelation” – and those 7 Books the Protestants tore out are the “Deuterocanonical Books,” not “the Apocrypha.”

· “Supernatural” refers to God, not just any spooky thing that happens. Phenomena pertaining to the good angels, the demonic, extra-sensory perception, etc., are referred to as “preternatural.”

· We use “A.D.” and “B.C.” when writing dates. “C.E.” and “B.C.E.” are for atheists, Jews, pagans, apostates, and sell-outs. (By the way, “A.D.” comes before the date; “B.C.” comes after.)

· “Going medieval on someone” would be a very good thing to do. To use the word “medieval” as a synonym for “barbaric,” “stupid,” or “unenlightened” shows an ignorance of History and an exposure to anti-Catholic propaganda.

· Yes, we actually pray TO Saints. Some neo-Catholics are afraid to say this, mistakenly thinking that “to pray” means “to worship” (or are afraid that Protestants think that). All they need is a dictionary to find that “to pray” means “to ask.” Now, pray tell, was that so hard to figure out?

· In the same way, we actually do “worship Mary” – but not with the sort of worship that is due to God alone (latria) which has become the modern Protestant sense of the word (this is why Catholics, using this modern definition, insist we don’t “worship Mary”; we most definitely don’t believe she is God! We do not “worship Mary” in any sense that Protestants accuse us of, i.e., we don’t “worship Mary” in the modern, Protestant sense of the word!). “To worship” does not necessarily mean treating someone or something as God. The British call their magistrates and mayors “Your Worship,” and I don’t think any of them mistakenly consider Mayor So-and-So to be the Father Almighty. The point for Protestants reading this is this: if you come across an old Catholic text referring to “Mary worship” in a good light, don’t freak out.

· “Celibacy” refers to the unmarried state; it doesn’t refer to abstaining from sex. Priests in the Roman Church, in other words, are expected to be both celibate and chaste (all people, married or not, are expected to be chaste).

· Catholics don’t “take” Communion, we “receive” Communion

· Having a “personal relationship with Jesus” is what we call having faith, repenting, receiving the Sacraments, and living a virtuous life

· “Born again” is what you get when you’re baptized

· “Saved” is what you get when you die in a state of grace

 

[RSiscoe]

Aymen!.. I mean… Ahmen!

 

[DaveBj]

Racer X:

HALLELUJAH
This is less a “Modernist” issue than a Protestant one, but I mention it because it bugs me: the proper Western Christian transcription of the word is “allelúia,” not “hallelujah”; the latter is an English Protestant “Reformation” use based on the Masoretic texts. And what does this glorious word mean? “All hail to Him Who is!”

So sorry, but you’re wrong. The word is originally Hebrew, starting with the letter “He,” which has the sound of the English “h”. The word is a compound word, “hallel-u-yah,” meaning literally “praise-you (plural)-Yahweh.” It is the Latin transliteration that is in error.

DaveBj

 

[Pug]

Wow. I’d always figured St. AUG-us-steen, was some other guy I had no idea about. How silly of me not to have guessed.

Dave, maybe the alleluia spelling is not a mistake or error by the Latin guys, but is rather based on the Greek spelling (transliteration) of the thing to be consistent between the testaments. I don’t know how to make this browser show greek letters, but the word starts with alpha, which is an “A”. The LXX also seems to use the transliteration with the alpha first.

So, I’m saying the transliteration into Greek from of old perhaps started with alpha, so when put into Latin, they just kept it up and started it with A.

 

[DaveBj]

Pug:

Dave, maybe the alleluia spelling is not a mistake or error by the Latin guys, but is rather based on the Greek spelling (transliteration) of the thing to be consistent between the testaments. I don’t know how to make this browser show greek letters, but the word starts with alpha, which is an “A”. The LXX also seems to use the transliteration with the alpha first.

So, I’m saying the transliteration into Greek from of old perhaps started with alpha, so when put into Latin, they just kept it up and started it with A.

Yeah, the Greek starts with alpha, but it has a rough-breathing mark (a reverse comma over the letter), which means the “h” sound is included. The Latins should have picked up on that.

DaveBj (local language constable)

 

[Pug]

DaveBj:

Yeah, the Greek starts with alpha, but it has a rough-breathing mark (a reverse comma over the letter), which means the “h” sound is included. The Latins should have picked up on that.

DaveBj (local language constable)

Yes, constable sir! Actually I do know about the comma thingy, but offhand (foolishly) I just assumed it must be that a non-letter like that was routinely not rendered as a letter by Latins when transliterating from the Greek. Do they do other words with an H? The only one I could think of was hamartia, which made it to the English in modern times with an H there (but maybe it is a modern word only).

I mean, surely they knew how to pronounce the word?

 

[asteroid]

If we’re going to be perfectionists in our pronunciation and transliteration of Greek and Hebrew words we could also tell ourselves off for talking about “Jesus” so frequently. After all, the letter “J” is a late invention and the sound isn’t seen in the word in a Greek Bible.

There are people who complain about these things. They frequent chat rooms and cause chaos. I am not one of them. Nor do I complain that we don’t pronounce Paris like the French do.

On other matters -

Since the last book of the Bible does not name itself, does it really matter whether we call it by apocalypse or revelation, just so long as it is known what we’re talking about. And how modern does it have to be to be called “modernism”? I confess I don’t have any Bibles here printed earlier than 1850 but they all call the book by Revelation not Apocalypse. Perhaps because the book begins with the words “The Revelation of Jesus Christ…”

Christ - if any “modernist” describes Christ in the way described, and I haven’t hearn Him described like that in any church, then they are not modernists. They are preaching heresy and total falsehood.

I see the modernist interpretation of “active participation” includes “singing”. Oh what a horrible thing, participating in the mass with our voices. Catholics shouldn’t sing should they? (Yes, that isn’t a serious question). I quite agree with the traditional definition of active participation, but worshipping and praising God through dance, singing, clapping, musical instruments etc is something found in scripture. As long as they are totally for God, not for show, entertainment or self-glory, don’t distract from the focus of the Mass, and as long as they don’t distract or lead others from focussing on Christ, prayer and everything else, there can be nothing wrong with them. The trouble is that, yes, they are so often there for our enjoyment rather than, or in addition to, true worship. Hope I haven’t annoyed too many people with this paragraph.

I am glad to have been led to the Catholic Church. And to have left a church where, almost weekly, someone would say that David danced before the Lord so let’s dance more. Now that I’m here I’m finding, every day, that my own prayer, worship and life with and for God is incredibly weak and shallow. The church I was in does a lot of good things but they are missing out on so much.

Blessings

Asteroid

 

[Racer_X]

asteroid:

Since the last book of the Bible does not name itself, does it really matter whether we call it by apocalypse or revelation, just so long as it is known what we’re talking about. And how modern does it have to be to be called “modernism”? I confess I don’t have any Bibles here printed earlier than 1850 but they all call the book by Revelation not Apocalypse. Perhaps because the book begins with the words “The Revelation of Jesus Christ…”

This is a cultural thing. Prior to the King James version, it was always known as the Apocalypse, as in the Douai-Rheims version (and even in the near-Protestant Wyclif version and, I believe, the Tyndale version.) It wasn’t called Revelation in Catholic English Bibles until the 20th Century. Until then Revelation was “what Protestants call the Apocalypse.” But I’m with you. It isn’t a big deal.

I see the modernist interpretation of “active participation” includes “singing”. Oh what a horrible thing, participating in the mass with our voices. Catholics shouldn’t sing should they? (Yes, that isn’t a serious question). I quite agree with the traditional definition of active participation, but worshipping and praising God through dance, singing, clapping, musical instruments etc is something found in scripture. As long as they are totally for God, not for show, entertainment or self-glory, don’t distract from the focus of the Mass, and as long as they don’t distract or lead others from focussing on Christ, prayer and everything else, there can be nothing wrong with them. The trouble is that, yes, they are so often there for our enjoyment rather than, or in addition to, true worship. Hope I haven’t annoyed too many people with this paragraph.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with joyous fun praising of the Lord, singing, hand-clapping, tambourines, etc. But just not in the Holy Mass. There are two misunderstandings here. The first is with regard to the nature of the Mass. The second is the unspoken assumption that the Mass should be our only form of communal worship. I love the idea of having a musical worship session and have tried to organize one at my parish, but no one is interested in taking time out for something like that in addition to attending Mass.

 

[katherine2]

well, this thread has re-confirmed my belief in progressive Catholicism. What I see here are some false stereotypes of progressive Catholics but a real confirmation of the reservations we have about those of a more conservative bent – i.e. an excessive glorification of meaningless, non-theological distinctions between Christians (allelúia/hallelujah or which sylable to put the accent on in Augustine).

 

[DaveBj]

asteroid:

If we’re going to be perfectionists in our pronunciation and transliteration of Greek and Hebrew words we could also tell ourselves off for talking about “Jesus” so frequently. After all, the letter “J” is a late invention and the sound isn’t seen in the word in a Greek Bible.

Very true. All the J’s in Biblical names should be pronounced like Y’s (and all the C’s like K’s, and…and…and).

I personally don’t make a big deal about allelujah/hallelujah; I just pronounce it correctly every time it comes up. Nobody around me notices or cares, and that’s cool.

DaveBj

 

[DaveBj]

Pug:

Yes, constable sir! Actually I do know about the comma thingy, but offhand (foolishly) I just assumed it must be that a non-letter like that was routinely not rendered as a letter by Latins when transliterating from the Greek. Do they do other words with an H? The only one I could think of was hamartia, which made it to the English in modern times with an H there (but maybe it is a modern word only).

Hamartia is another good example. So are Hades, many words beginning with iota (like hilasmos = propitiation and himation = cloak), I think all words beginning with upsilon (like hudor = water), many words beginning with eta (hemera = day), and all words beginning with rho (rhema = spoken word is actually pronounced hrema).

There is a name for the reverse-comma-over-the-initial-letter, but I can’t find it right now.

DaveBj

 

[Joannes]

Hello all:

With regard to this Hallelujah~Alleluia business, it is not a question that one is “wrong” or “right”. We have to understand that these are transliterations from Hebrew into the language that received them, Greek, Latin, or English.

Now Hebrew had a “y” sound. The KJV people apparently saw fit to write that with a our letter “j”, which was legitimate. Over the years, however, “j” has come to be pronounced “dzh”, so we get barbarisms like the modern pronunciation of “Elijah”. Is the spelling wrong? No, it’s the modern interpretation of the spelling that is wrong. The pronunciation of the Greco-Latin form “Elias” that we had in older Catholic bibles better kept the Hebrew form of the word than does the pronunciation arising from the KJV.

Ancient Hebrew had some “h” sounds. Ancient Greek also had a rough breathing, which was a mark before a vowel, not a separate letter. I think though, that this Greek “h” ceased to be pronounced early in the Christian era, and coincidently, the Latin “h” sound also dropped out, though probably earlier than the Greek “h” did. This means that Hebrew words beginning with “h”, or for that matter even Greek words beginning with “h”, were heard by the Greeks and Latins as if they began with a vowel. Examples are the Hebrew “alleluia” and the Russian words “Ad” (<Hades), alliluja (hallelujah?), igumen" (<hegumenos), “jierej” (where “j” is a "y"sound, <hieros). Because Russia was converted from Constantinople it borrowed these words from Greek, and it must have borrowed them after they had lost the “h” sound. The loss of the “h” in our English “alleluia” might be traceable also to this change in Greek, but I think it more likely that it is traceable to the earlier loss of the “h” sound in Latin: the Latins did not hear the Greek “h”, and so transcribed the word as starting with its first vowel, “a”. English then borrowed the word directly from Latin, without any “h” sound, and that’s how the matter stood until the KJV translators decided to transliterate it directly from Greek.

Regards,
Joannes

 

[tkdnick]

Isn’t your argument about Amen and Hallelujiah really like whether tomato is pronounced tom -ay-to or tom-ah-to. And pot-ay-to vs pot-ah-to. What difference does it make? If I believe it to be what it is, why does it matter whether I say Ay-men or Ah-men???

 

[aridite]

katherine2:

well, this thread has re-confirmed my belief in progressive Catholicism. What I see here are some false stereotypes of progressive Catholics but a real confirmation of the reservations we have about those of a more conservative bent – i.e. an excessive glorification of meaningless, non-theological distinctions between Christians (allelúia/hallelujah or which sylable to put the accent on in Augustine).

Mightn’t this thread just be an unrepresentative sampling of those of “a more conservative bent” (perhaps even with deliberate irony)? To take some few posters as representative of any bent would lead, IMO, to further stereotyping. Take posts for what they are, opinions of individual posters.
Racer X:

SOCIAL JUSTICE
the true purpose of the Church, as opposed to helping people to repent and turn to Christ and offering the Sacraments.

· Having a “personal relationship with Jesus” is what we call having faith, repenting, receiving the Sacraments, and living a virtuous life.

The irony of the first quote seems inconsistent with the sincerity of the second. We live a virtuous life by, among other things, working to correct the systematic injustice in society. Justice is a virtue (and all justice is between persons, so therefore, essentially social).

I don’t think extremists on either (any) side escape villifying their rivals. Stereotypes exist on both the right and the left, as the cafeteria line stretches in both directions.

Maybe people we disagree with aren’t monsters.

 

[Pug]

katherine2:

a real confirmation of the reservations we have about those of a more conservative bent – i.e. an excessive glorification of meaningless, non-theological distinctions between Christians (allelúia/hallelujah or which sylable to put the accent on in Augustine).

I don’t know if you are talking about me, but I did not intend to come off as making a distinction. I just love to think about language history and where words came from. Alphabets are interesting too. If people didn’t do things differently, then I would have no interesting history to think about! I don’t care whatsoever how anyone pronounces alleluia. But the history of spelling changes, that’s interesting.

I mean, look at Hebrew, it starts with Aleph, then Greek starts with Alpha, and we start with A. Too bad I don’t read Arabic, to see what letter it starts with.

The Augustine thing is just an expression of ignorance on my part. All these years I had heard the other word and never realized (an ah ha moment) that people were talking about the same guy. I wonder if it is a Brittish thing like doc-TRI-nal vrs doc-trin-al?

PS, I started a new thread to ask about the Unicals of the Greek and the breath marks in the scripture forum. Since it comes from this thread, at least maybe Dave might know the answer here

 

[debtera]

RacerX,

It’s always a pleasure to meet someone who speaks my own language. You are a worthy descendant of Racers I through IX.

I’d like to add that the Bible includes:

Josue (not Joshua)
four *Kings, *and no Samuels
two books *Paralipomenon *(not Chronicles)

and the names of the prophets are:

Isaias
Jeremias
Baruch
Ezechiel
Daniel
Osee
Joel
Amos
Abdias
Jonas
Micheas
Nahum (or Naom)
Habacuc
Sophonias
Aggaeus
Zacharias
Malachias
“Speak, that I might see thee.”

 

[OhioBob]

tkdnick:

Isn’t your argument about Amen and Hallelujiah really like whether tomato is pronounced tom -ay-to or tom-ah-to. And pot-ay-to vs pot-ah-to. What difference does it make? If I believe it to be what it is, why does it matter whether I say Ay-men or Ah-men???

Let’s call the whole thing off. Where’s Cole Porter when we need him?

 

[OhioBob]

debtera:

RacerX,

It’s always a pleasure to meet someone who speaks my own language. You are a worthy descendant of Racers I through IX.

I’d like to add that the Bible includes:

Josue (not Joshua)
four *Kings, *and no Samuels
two books *Paralipomenon *(not Chronicles)

and the names of the prophets are:

Isaias
Jeremias
Baruch
Ezechiel
Daniel
Osee
Joel
Amos
Abdias
Jonas
Micheas
Nahum (or Naom)
Habacuc
Sophonias
Aggaeus
Zacharias
Malachias
“Speak, that I might see thee.”

Good thing the Bible wasn’t written today. Future generations would have been stuck with the books of “Sam”, Steve", “Bruce” “Rocko” and “Percy”. Methinks it just wouldn’t have the same impact.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

Racer X:

What modernists mean when they say…
(I got these from a Traditionalist website but have only included what I hope are the uncontroversial ones. )

ACTIVE PARTICIPATION
often involving dancing, singing, hand-clapping, waving arms around, being disruptive, picking up musical instruments and putting on a show for everyone, “active participation,” as modernists see it, is the busy-ness of engaging in behaviors that are “fun,” not rooted in our liturgical purposes and heritage, and, especially, which usurp the priest’s role and detract from the Mystery of Faith. It’s what goes on in liturgy for the MTV generation with its 5-second attention span.

This is false, active participation is praying along, doing the responses, singing the Hymns.

The Trad Latin Mass was set up to be said for the people while the people prayed their own devotions in the pews.

Just another attack on the Church and what it teaches.