Read my previous post about the Black Nazarene and tell me if I’m crazy with my suggestion. I know you guys are not exposed to such practices because I don’t see it happen here in North America. But it does happen.
I see it, and that looks crazy, but I honestly cannot tell exactly what is happening. All that said, though, Iconoclasm was condemned as heresy. There’s no going back on that. We can’t take the icons away like the church withheld the precious blood. That is comparing apples and oranges. I don’t know what else to tell you. Proper catechises is important and the suppression of certain activities (like, perhaps, what is happening in that video) might be appropriate, but we can’t just take away the icons. It’s wrong.
Oh no, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we should destroy the 300-400 year old black statue of the Nazarene. But don’t you agree that people should be flocking to Adoration instead of killing each other over a statue?
Then what about the lack of exposure to the Latin Mass, or any Latin at all, for that matter? Isn’t that a bias against the EF? Of course I’m using a circular argument here but I think you understand my point. If not, what would you think of English if you’ve never heard it or if you haven’t heard it for 40 years?
No one claimed Latin was one of the main components in the growth of Eastern civilization.
Withholding the Precious Blood isn’t catechesis of any sort. I’m not saying it was the wrong thing to do, but it wasn’t catechesis. It was a disciplinary measure that was aimed at creating the possibility of catechesis. The catechesis was what occurred when the priests had to explain to the faithful why they could no longer drink from the cup. Without the explanation, removing the Precious Blood wouldn’t have made any sense. People would have thought they were just being punished.
The lack of exposure to Latin is a disservice to the faithful and an unfortunate event in our history, but there is no reason for me to think that it is anything other than a brief moment of absurdity. Latin is returning to the OF slowly, but steadily. And I’m not really sure where you’re going with any of this ProVobis, or how language in any way proves that there are “OF” and “EF” church buildings. And I assume that when you use the word church, you are talking about the physical edifice, because clearly there is only one Church.
The contention was Latin would have preserved the faith in the western world had we not introduced the vernacular. Christianity has triumphed many times without Latin, its false to assume that Latin would have done better than the vernacular. I just gave one concrete example.
In a sense it was reinforcement of Catechisis. It was done so that people would realize that in the accident of bread we are receiving the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. It also reinforces the Catechisis that Jesus is whole and cannot be divided, even in the Eucharist. So the half-a-wafer we receive is actually Jesus Christ whole. Even in one crumb.
That’s true, but still just removing the Cup from the people would not have constituted catechesis on its own. It wasn’t teaching anything. It went hand-in-hand with the teaching, but the action itself didn’t teach a lesson.
I’m not advocating removing statues and icons completely although we do acknowledge that they are not necessities for worship, except for the Crucifix. But churches, especially older ones in the Philippines have dozens of statues. And a lot of times this is where these near-idolatry practices happen.
Easier said than done. Bishops have clamored for it but they know not holding the parade will cause a riot. Its a huge celebration during its feast day which includes overnight vigils. I think overall its a good celebration of the faith, except for the part that too much emphasis is placed on the statue itself.
For Latin to “return” to the OF it would have had to have been prominent in the OF in the first place. Clearly, (with the possible exception of the Major Basilicas in Rome), that was never the case.
The Missal of Paul VI was first written and promulgated in Latin. It started in Latin. Hence, Latin can return to it regardless of how widespread it was initially. And to what degree is not an easy answer. That changes from place to place. Of course it will take some time. We cannot just suddenly have no vernacular. It would be destructive to the fabric of the church. We just saw exactly how destructive it is to change the language overnight. We cannot make that mistake again. The same goes with other parts of the reform of the reform. This is a movement that started in the congregation, not in the hierarchy, and it has been given blessing by the Holy Father. Certainly it is being met with resistance by the people in the Baby Boomer age group, but they are ageing and will be moving out of positions of power and even being sent to nursing homes and dying in the next two decades. Their influence over the church can only extend as far as they can pass these feelings to the next generation, and this is not as common as one might think, largely because many of the children of these liberal minds decided that religion wasn’t for them and left. Reform, though, is a matter of generations, not years. That in one generation we have already seen a positive shift is, I think, hopeful. Most of the people I encounter in my age group either left the church and don’t care or are clamouring for more tradition, not less, even at the local Catholic colleges where many of the clergy are still trying to push the Spirit of Vatican II and lamenting that the youth are just not interested in their reforms.
I fail to see your point. Vernacularize and you now control the theology, the philosophy, the culture, the law, and even the politics. The first thing the Reformers did was to vernacularize the liturgy and the rest of the conversion process into Protestantism was easy. Haven’t we learned that yet?
Surely you aren’t suggesting that the use of the vernacular is in some way going to lead us to Protestantism. The mass was originally in the vernacular. That’s why we had Latin in the first place and not in Greek or Aramaic or, most likely, Hebrew. The vernacular was used in the Eastern Churches regularly and they did not lapse into Protestantism. The use of the vernacular was even used in missionary zones in the Western Church. The Indian Use masses in America used the native Indian languages for the responses rather than Latin. They did not lapse into Protestantism.
Yes, I know. I still have an original editio typica given to me in 1970 (and of course it had never once been used).
Saying that it “started in Latin” is true in theory, but certainly not in practice (with the possible exception of the Major Basilicas in Rome noted earlier). Perhaps one might consider it semantics, but saying that Latin can “return” where it was never present in practice is a bit of a stretch.