Veterum Sapientia, Vatican 2 and the modern Catholic Church

[Paul1998]

Hello dear friends!
I just finished reading Veterum Sapientia, and i was a bit surprised that Pope John XXIII encouraged everyone to continue using Latin in the church, but he also was the pope who started the council. My question is: did Paul VI wanted the mass to be celebrated in vernacular langues or did John XXIII changed his mind? Also, is the latin institute still in existence? And lastly, how do you think the document is applied in 2020?
God bless you all!

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

Vatican II was quite clear that Latin was to be given “pride of place” in the Roman Mass (doesn’t apply to the Eastern Catholic Churches, of course), but left it up to the local ordinaries (bishops and synods of bishops) to determine the extent to which the vernacular would be used.

After the reforms of Pope St. Paul VI (the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite is a result of Pope St. Paul’s reforms after the Council, not the Council itself), the Pope issued a document called Iubilate Deo that sets forth a minimum of Latin that ought to be maintained - IIRC the Kyrie (Greek), the Gloria, the Creed, the Sanctus, and the Agnus Dei.

 

[Dovekin]

The GIRM has a description of what has happened in the Church since Vatican II on hese issues:

Hence, the Second Vatican Council, having come together in order to accommodate the Church to the requirements of her proper apostolic office precisely in these times, considered thoroughly, as had the Council of Trent, the catechetical and pastoral character of the Sacred Liturgy. And since no Catholic would now deny a sacred rite celebrated in Latin to be legitimate and efficacious, the Council was also able to concede that “not rarely adopting the vernacular language may be of great usefulness for the people” and gave permission for it to be used. The eagerness with which this measure was everywhere received has certainly been so great that it has led, under the guidance of the Bishops and the Apostolic See itself, to permission for all liturgical celebrations in which the people participate to be in the vernacular, so that the people may more fully understand the mystery which is celebrated.

In this regard, although the use of the vernacular in the Sacred Liturgy is a means, admittedly of great importance, for expressing more clearly catechesis on the mystery, a catechesis inherent in the celebration itself, the Second Vatican Council ordered additionally that certain prescriptions of the Council of Trent that had not been followed everywhere be brought to fruition, such as the Homily to be given on Sundays and feast days and the faculty to interject certain explanations during the sacred rites themselves.
General Instruction of the Roman Missal 12-13