How do you know? “In the West, for example, in Italy, in Germany, in Spain, in France, in England, Latin was at all times the liturgical language.” (fn. #1 of
Gihr’s The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass “The Language Used in the Celebration of the Holy Mass”). Why would you say that after 19 years of being a pious Catholic, St. Joan of Arc "never spoke a word of it?"Maybe not in the form we know it today, but the mass she attended—if it was Catholic at all—was certainly in Latin.
Absolutely - there are at least some Catholics today who spent the first 19 years or more of their life attending Latin Mass who will freely admit that they didn’t understand the Latin prayers at the time and can’t remember them today.
So basically she could’ve attended a non-Catholic mass? Sure, anything’s possible, but considering she’s a saint, isn’t that very unlikely?
Someone needs a history lesson. When St Pius V promulgated the TLM, at the same time he ordered that various forms of Mass that had come into use in the 200 years prior to the Council of Trent be suppressed. Rites that were over 200 years old at the time of Trent, such as the Ambrosian, Bragan and Mozarabic, were allowed to continue alongside the TLM.
These variants that were suppressed by Pius were perfectly legitimate and valid Catholic Masses prior to his ban on them, forms of liturgy being (as I’ve said all along) a matter of discipline rather than dogma. So there’s nothing wrong all with St Joan having attended one, as she lived in the century prior to Trent. But they were nonetheless suppressed after Trent in the interests of greater (note not perfect) uniformity of liturgy.
Can you please give citations supporting that all these people (except perhaps Mother Mary) did not celebrate mass in Latin? St. Peter and St. Paul certainly knew Latin
I want to see your evidence that a humble fisherman from Galilee knew Latin. I’ve never heard so much as a hint that St Peter did, and the idea is much more far-fetched than the idea that he didn’t.
As for Paul, did he not write to the Romans in Greek? Why on earth would he do so, if he knew Latin? Again, where is your evidence that he knew Latin?
Not as baptized Catholics?
Does not the Body of Christ subsist in the Catholic Church? Since it does, it goes without saying.
Would you disagree with Pope John XXIII that Latin “proved to be a bond of unity for the Christian peoples of Europe”
No, I agree wholeheartedly. I agree especially with his use of the past tense - that it WAS, in times past, such a bond. In fact it was similarly a bond for the non-Christians - the atheists, the agnostics, the pagans. In fact for all European peoples.
And I note that he refers to Europe. Well, where does that leave non-European Catholics? My country is a former colony of England, a European power. We have all sorts of bonds with Europe. Latin is really not one of them, when the Brits colonised at the end of the 18th century Latin was already falling out of widespread use, even among scholars.
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Veterum Sapientia)? If not, then why, if promoted and taught, could Latin not be a bond of unity for us, too?
Not really. Linguists know all about attempts to force artifical unity via forced common language. One example being Esperanto (how many people even know the name, let alone what it represents and how comprehensively it has failed as an attempt at a unifying international language?).
Another being the experiment tried in my family’s country of origin, the artificially contructed language of Serbo-Croatian, which attempted to meld two quite distinct languages, Serbian and Croatian. It lasted as long as the artificially unified country, Yugoslavia, of which it was the official tongue, which has now broken into fragments.
Serbo-Croatian was pretty much hated by every Croatian schoolchild who was forced to learn it, and I daresay by every Serbian schoolchild as well. It was anything but a vehicle for unity.
