What is the point of using Latin?

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Yes, sure, someone did something wrong. But is that justification enough to say that to prevent mistakes, better keep everything the same exact way it was for the last hundreds of years? At the risk of becoming irrelevant? The reason we introduce new bits is to keep it relevant, but keeping the foundation of the tradition the same. Introducing new things doesn’t mean destroying the old completely. Incorporation is the key to relevance, not replacement.
And around and around we go … I’m getting dizzy. :hypno: Time for me to get off this carousel.
 
And around and around we go … I’m getting dizzy. :hypno: Time for me to get off this carousel.
The problem here is that you can only see two things, either we retain everything as is, or we destroy everything in the past. You have to get past that fact that its only two choices and realize that we can move forward with a third choice.
 
Exorcisms are effectively done in Latin.
And in vernacular - I’ve never heard of any exorcist saying they’ve been unable to exorcise in the vernacular.
If only the prefaces and cannons are said in Latin, with the Gospel and sermon being said in the vernacular…then, what is the big deal with returning to the fullness of our beautiful and glorious tradition?
Because to many people having prayers that they are used to hearing in their own language, and comprehending, being said in a dead language that they don’t know is neither beautiful nor glorious.
Truly I must be a simpleton…'cause I just don’t see how any other language (other than Hebrew or Greek) could’ve been chosen by our Lord to be the sacred language of the Catholic Church.
Our Lord chose it? That’s news to me, and would be to the Pope I daresay.Our Lord is never recorded as having spoken or understood a single word of Latin, or Greek for that matter.

Nor were the scriptures in which His closest disciples chose to record His words and teachings written in Latin (even though one suspects that Paul, being very educated and a Roman citizen, would’ve surely bothered to used it, at least when writing TO the Church in Rome, if it was so all-fired important).

In fact the whole point of the Church’s shift from the original Greek was because classic GREEK, the language of educated people, was going out of use, and Latin, at the time a living vernacular vulgar tongue, widely used as a second language as English or Arabic might be today, enabled better comprehension by the unwashed masses.
It is the language of our origins as the Church Universal!!!

Katolikos…not English nor any other “popular” language today.
‘Katolikos’? Isn’t that the Greek rendition? Wouldn’t ‘Catholicus’ be the Latin??? :rolleyes:
 
Mercy, waattsa maata wit you peeps ?

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The problem here is that you can only see two things, either we retain everything as is, or we destroy everything in the past. You have to get past that fact that its only two choices and realize that we can move forward with a third choice.
Believe what you wish. I could come back with a variety of comments, but will not. It’s absolutely not worth my time
 
Believe what you wish. I could come back with a variety of comments, but will not. It’s absolutely not worth my time
He is correct. You were presenting a false dichotomy…The truth is that even with the limited amount of Latin in liturgy, the language is still being preserved as the official language of the Church. I think the problem with those who insist that the TLM is objectively superior to the point of refusal to attend an OF Mass is that they are truly only accepting GOd on their terms. Read The Spirit of the Liturgy and you will understand what I mean.
 
And in vernacular - I’ve never heard of any exorcist saying they’ve been unable to exorcise in the vernacular.
I haven’t heard where it worked either.
Because to many people having prayers that they are used to hearing in their own language, and comprehending, being said in a dead language that they don’t know is neither beautiful nor glorious.
I hate to introduce sarcasm here but many people aren’t going to be too comfortable with the new translations either, even though it’s in a language that they “understand.” As for being beautiful or glorious, we’d have to take a poll on that. Personally, I’ll take the beauty of Polish or Spanish over English. At least the people come out for those Masses.
Our Lord chose it?
The Church did. And what’s wrong with a language which worked and spread for 1600 years as opposed to one which couldn’t work for more than 40 years? If it doesn’t spread the faith, what good does it do to keep pouring out more money for more translations? And do you really think the new translation will finally put to rest all requests to change the Mass again? I have my doubts.
‘Katolikos’? Isn’t that the Greek rendition?
Nothing wrong with Greek or Hebrew either. They are both maintained in the Latin Mass.
 
The problem here is that you can only see two things, either we retain everything as is, or we destroy everything in the past. You have to get past that fact that its only two choices and realize that we can move forward with a third choice.
Seeing that there still aren’t any Latin mandates in the OF, besides Veterum Sapientia and Vatican II, what is the third choice?
 
I haven’t heard where it worked either.
Well I’d imagine not everyone who exorcises or is exorcised publicises details of every occasion on which they’ve done so, including which language they use. Jesus isn’t ever recorded as using Latin against Satan or the demons, and it seems he was well able to vanquish them in his vulgar tongue of Aramaic.
I hate to introduce sarcasm here but many people aren’t going to be too comfortable with the new translations either, even though it’s in a language that they “understand.” As for being beautiful or glorious, we’d have to take a poll on that. Personally, I’ll take the beauty of Polish or Spanish over English. At least the people come out for those Masses.
Beauty and glory are all well and good, but without comprehension the whole exercise seems to me to veer uncomfortably close to St Paul’s banging cymbals and noisy gongs.
The Church did. And what’s wrong with a language which worked and spread for 1600 years as opposed to one which couldn’t work for more than 40 years? If it doesn’t spread the faith, what good does it do to keep pouring out more money for more translations? And do you really think the new translation will finally put to rest all requests to change the Mass again? I have my doubts.
And Greek was used for hundreds of years before Latin. I’d imagine every single argument you’ve mentioned could’ve been raised against changing to Latin at the time (and 300 years doens’t make Greek less estimable than 1600 years of Latin)

Certainly the translation of scripture and the form and prayers of the Liturgy took some time to be set in the form we know them afterwards. Over a millenium in the case of the Mass! There was plenty of tinkering, doubtless including some changes in translation from the Greek at the beginning, before the products you are familiar with came out.

You think none of those changes resulted from exactly the same type of requests to ‘change the Mass again’ that we see today? You think peoples’ noses weren’t put out of joint when St Pius V suppressed certain forms that had been in use for nearly two centuries? That they didn’t find the change difficult? I’m sure they did.
Nothing wrong with Greek or Hebrew either. They are both maintained in the Latin Mass.
How much of the original was maintained? Three words or so of Greek ('kyrie eleison, Christe eleison") out of a whole LITURGY that had originally been ENTIRELY in Greek? Three or four words of Hebrew (“sabaoth”, “amen” “alleluia” and “hosanna”) when most or all of the Last Supper, the ORIGINAL Mass, must have been in Hebrew?

Yeah, our liturgy hugely maintains its link to its Hebrew and Greek origins all right. :rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
Oh dear, this is really very depressing. I asked a simple enough question, and it has descended into a massive battle of ego! What an epic struggle of uncharitable attacks. 😦

I can see the merits of both Vernacular and Latin usage. In accordance with Vatican II, tradition, charity, and good will, I think there should be a mix of the two. Look at the most simple prayers which any person can remember. You may have a vernacular Psalm, Epistle, and Gospel so the Holy Word can be immediately understood by the laity, but then you might have the shorter Ordinaries in Latin, at least at first! 🙂

Look at the Kyrie and Agnus Dei, the simplest of all prayers in the entire Liturgy: both consist of three short lines. Why not keep our ancient roots of Greek and Latin, respectively, by using those in their original languages? They establish a link to our martyred ancestors (who take solace in our continuance of that which they died for) while also allowing us to understand things in our own tongue. A prayer that addresses God, with no mention of “we” or “I”, for example, might be in Greek or Latin, whereas a prayer that involves a person confessing something literally (Our Father, the Creed, etc.) might be in vernacular. 🤷

Whatever seems most sensible, holy, and praiseworthy in addressing God, can we at least have some charity? Sour grapes and stoic frigidity seem to have become quite common in this thread from both sides. Satan, leave us alone and go to the Cross to receive your judgment.
 
whereas a prayer that involves a person confessing something literally (Our Father, the Creed, etc.) might be in vernacular. 🤷
I apologize if any of my posts made you feel uncomfortable. But to this I would ask you what if your only way of fulfilling the obligation is at a French or Italian Mass, for example? Wouldn’t it be better to have a common language among all the people who attended in which you all can respond together?

My parish which happens to have Masses in English, Spanish, and Latin (EF) decided to have an EF on All Souls Day with the sermon half in Spanish and half in English and the place was packed, which was very unusual for a non-obligatory Mass. Will be trying this again for the feast of Immaculate Conception.
 
So everyone who loves a period exterior similarly loves a period interior?

Not me. And I suspect not a good percentage of people who’ve had to live in one. Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip hate Buck House, for starters. There’s only so much they’ve been able to do with it to make it comfortable.

I personally lived in an Edwardian (turn-of-the-1900s) house for a few years. Obviously the kitchen was entirely updated, but a lot of it, including much of the bathroom, was kept in period if not actually original. It was a very mixed blessing to say the least.

I loved the high decorative ceilings and the huge bathtub on the one hand. On the other, the (original) tiles in the bathroom were a very dingy colour scheme, but I had to put up with them because they would have been too costly to replace. The small windows and un-open-plan interior meant it didn’t get a heck of a lot of sun, even in the misnamed ‘sun-room’. Altogether there was more to dislike than like about trying to live a modern life in a house which wasn’t designed for one.
I wanted to comment on the ‘old house’ analogy that was discussed yesterday, but didn’t have time, so I’ll put my 2 cents in today.

I agree with what you’re saying in regards to updating an old house, which is often a challenge, and expensive. My home was built in 1916, and very little had been updated when we purchased it 24 years ago. The kitchen was original, except for a newer floor and fridge. The 1916 kitchen design was no doubt state-of-the-art for that period, which consisted of a good size room with stove and fridge, and a small skullery room with sink, small counter, open shelves, large flour bins, and a built-in ice box with natural air-conditioning vents to the outside. There was also a small closed in back porch. Well, I talked my husband into remodeling the kitchen, and opening up these three areas, so that they would become one big room.

Now, after 24 years, I hate my ‘modern’ kitchen, and want my husband to remodel it back to the 1916 version, with a few modern touches. Needless to say, he’s not thrilled about the idea.
Being more Franciscan now in my outlook, I now see the wisdom in that old design, which was more actually more energy efficient, and more conducive to home-cooking and to having less fancy electrical gadgetry, because there simply wasn’t room to store electrical appliances. Who knows, maybe we can start a trend.
 
A BULL OF POPE ST. PIUS V
QUO PRIMUM in 1570

Take a look at this Papal Bull in which it is written that the Missal used and rubrics etc…shall be …in perpetuity.

One must read the Bull in order to understand why Latin is used and one Mass is performed.

When the Mass was in one you could go from any country in the world into the church and attend Mass and understand it.

As for the Latin part and not understanding. Missals were printed with English on the right page, Latin on the left. When I went to school I and taken Latin for 3 years and it is not very hard to understand especially is you are immersed in it, such as some of the newer language learning programs.

Take the time to read the Latin and English versions of the Papal Bull by St Pope Pius V and it will shed a lot of light.
 
But read Pope St Pius V Papal Bull and that does mean exclusively.
The language in which a Mass is celebrated is not a matter of Faith or Morals, but one of practice. The Papal Bull should not be taken as an infallible statement. I find it sickening that people are continually attempting to use the celebration of the Eucharist as a point of division. Perhaps you should reflect on this a bit more and consider what you are implying with regards to the Mass celebrated in the vernacular.
 
Preserved doesn’t mean “use exclusively”
  1. § 1. Linguae latinae usus, salvo particulari iure, in Ritibus latinis servetur.
“Servetur” doesn’t mean “is to be removed completely” either.

Shouldn’t there at least be a reasonable balance, if for no other reason, for authenticity? Here many people thought the Vatican promulgated an English Mass, not realizing and apparently not caring that a lot of it was a mistranslation for 40 years. Seems as if much of this confusion and expense of fixing could have been avoided had they simply followed the instructions of SC.
 
Seeing that there still aren’t any Latin mandates in the OF, besides Veterum Sapientia and Vatican II, what is the third choice?
I would leave it to the Church to strike a perfect balance. What can I offer except my own opinion? What I was thinking it not forcing Latin into an all-vernacular Mass, nor not having any Latin Mass at all. I think what we have today with the celebration of the OF and EF side-by-side is close to that perfect balance.
 
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