Sorry for jumping into this thread so late, but there were a few things I thought I could add.
God doesnāt need the Mass at all. We need it. Thatās my point.
Why did the Church change from Greek? I donāt know. Iām guessing that politically it was a smart move to change to the language of the Roman Empire. Thus, in time, Christās Vicar sat on a throne in the capital of His executioners. As he does today.
I am going to say something that is going to shock some people here, but the Church never had a formal moment when it switched to Latin.
I am not sure, but I suspect that there were always Masses said in Latin from the late first century when Christianity started reaching the Western Half of the Roman Empire where Latin was the common tongue. By the late 4th and 5th centuries, even the educated classes started forgetting Greek in the Western Empire and so Latin became more and more common at the expense of Greek. But the important point is that even then, it was only the language used for the Mass for the Western Church and only then because it was the common tongue. It is only after the fall of the Western Empire, as the Church expanded beyond the borders of the Old Empire and when spoken latin started evolving into modern Romance languages that the Latin Mass became something other than a vernacular mass.
Of course Greek remained the language of the Mass in the Eastern Empire and there were even regions in the Near East where people who were Aramaic and other languages were used for the Mass. After the Islamic Conquests, and the Great Schism, only a relatively small number of non-Latin Parishes remained in the Western Church though they persist to this day.
When did that happen? In the infancy of the Church, Iād guess. 1500+ years later, things are very different. People are literate, for one. We are now called the Roman (Latin) Catholic Church. **Dumping Latin is a wheeze a bad marketing exec might do in a big company: āLetās meddle with the brand!ā. **
Being called Roman Catholic is something that every good Catholic should oppose since it is usually used by Protestants and others to denigrate the fact that we are the Catholic Church. If we want to refer to the part of the Catholic Church where Latin used to be the normal language of worship, we should probably refer to ourselves as the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.
We have also had a hateful dumbing-down in Western society and Iām sorry to say the Church has gone along with it.
A small example: the British Daily Mail newspaper printed an exam paper from the Edwardian era. For 12 year olds. Most adults with third-level education could barely get a pass mark in it now. Including me.
**People can certainly understand every word of the Mass now. Itās on their level. Thus, whatās special about it?
Hence, casual behaviour at Mass. **
The dumbing down of society is highly exaggerated. I havenāt seen the exam you are referring to, but I would suspect that it probably was not an exam that a working class student would have been given. It certainly wasnāt the standard of education that was common in Ireland or the United States at the time.
In addition, lets remember that even 12 year olds now understand things that an Edwardian 12 year old couldnāt have even imagined. When I was a twelve year old, I knew about Galaxies, the Big Bang and Relativityā¦ even a scientist with a PhD didnāt know about those things at the turn of the 20th century.
I donāt know. Iām just going by what I see. Itās on my list of things to do; a line-by-line comparison. When I look at a side-by-side comparison of the old vs. the new rite, I feel cheated. If you want the vernacular, thatās one thing, but cut sections out and change the text? Makes no sense to me.
If an offering is being made then why is the priest facing towards us when he does it?
The question there is who is the priest offering too? The offering is to Godā¦ not to the people, but also not to the wall.
One thing I noticed when I visited Rome was that the high Altar is usually right behind the crypt. At least the way it is now, if the priest tried to use the altar facing away from the congregation, he would fall into the crypt. Does anyone know if they changed the position of the Altars in the Major Basilicas following Vatican II?
ā
Bill
rolleyes