Will Learning Latin Make Me More Catholic?

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Learning Latin will make you more knowledgeable about Latin. You will better understand English and Latin based languages.
 
As St Teresa of Avila essentially stated, God speaks to us best in the depth of our souls where no words are necessary.
 
Well, I’m probably getting another infraction, which all it takes is for someone to report that they are offended by my post.

So, I’m backing out of this
 
The caricature you paint of our ancestors in the faith is both insulting and unbelievable based on the evidence all around us. Yes people responded to the prayers by rite, but to say their faith was simply a fear of mortal sin and he’ll us absurd. I have letters of my grandparents, a book if poems of my great aunt, a worn missal of my grandfather’s, and all of the accomplishments I mentioned above.

I am a big fan of bother John XXIIII and the the Second Vatican Council. The Church had to address modernity once and for all. You seem to hate the Church of our ancestors almost.
 
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Wow, I must be in the same boat with @JimR-OCDS. :roll_eyes:
Your experience may be different, but certainly not typical.
And what Jim is relating is not just his experience, but also mine, and that of many, many people including priests, Bishops and religious who were in the trenches at the time.
 
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CilladeRoma said:
It is not when they are relating their own experiences.
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Yes because its not your experience so you can’t verify its accuracy. Textbook definition of hearsay and gossip.
Not to mention its attacking Catholics even if was your experience.
 
Wow, just wow.
You have some very stange notions.
I am done here. Good day.
 
Aquinas11 said:
No, Saint Pope John XXIII asserted it is required for a universal Church.
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Unfortunately most never heard of Veterum Sapientia, much less read it. It was only translated into two languages. Almost the first thing argued at Vatican 2 was Latin in the Mass. Vernacular won out and ICEL was born. Or vice versa.
 
HvonB said:
Those were therefore the three languages understood by followers of Jesus.
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The did speak some sort of Aramaic language, but the written languages understood are exactly what you list. Those three are the sacred languages, because Jesus spoke at least two of them, if not all three, and Peter and Paul certainly spoke Latin.
 
Yes, well you are likely my age or a little older. Our generation has no credibility as to our memories or our immediate parents’ memories with regards to the pre- council Church.

We are the first generation to fail to pass the faith on to our children, who failed to encourage vocations to our children, who abandoned the rosary, Eucharistic Adoration, Benidiction for 20 years, who let the great education and hospital system built by our ancestors fall into financial disrepair, who whole-heartedly rejected Humane Vitae.

If I compare what our ancestors did relative to us, there is no comparison. As a generation, we failed. So we must look at other evidence besides our own memories, as we cannot be trusted. An honest look at the accomplishments and the correspondence of our ancestors paints a completely different picture.

Now, I don’t go to the EF mass, so don’t accuse me of being a blind traditionalist. I have no doubt altar boys recited responses by rote memory. I have no doubt the average TLM mass in the 50s was not always perfectly offferred. But I believe a higher percentage of people in those days understood the mass, understood our faith, etc.

The idea that generations of Catholics simply lived in fear of hell and mortal sin, and were some type of simplistic automon that the clergy could manipulate and control is laughable.

ETA: And we are the generation who ignored the documents of the Second Vatican Council for much of our adult life.
 
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God doesn’t have a language or need a language. But when the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity became incarnate and took on our flesh, the language He spoke day-to-day was Aramaic (although He most probably prayed the prayers of the Synagogue in Hebrew and, because of where He lived, may have also spoken some Greek).

Personally, I think the language of heaven is Irish Gaelic. If you’ve never been to Mass in Irish Gaelic, you’re definitely going to want to experience that before you die. 😄
 
UGCC said:
I read an awful lot of groundless, subjective and shallow nonsense about Church Latin not being 'special ’ or extraordinary in any way - that utterly contradicts the saints, Fathers of the Church and ancient tradition. Latin is one of the three sacred languages; Greek and Hebrew being the other two. This is due to the titulus placed upon the cross above Christ’s head at the crucifixion.
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It is actually highly plausible that John 19:20 was referring to Aramaic rather than Hebrew, which is why translations split on whether it is Hebrew or Aramaic. But beyond that, how does their usage here make the languages “sacred”? The languages weren’t chosen by Christians to be put on the sign. Why is Pilate apparently so qualified that he gets to decide what is a sacred language?
See any exegetical work on the Gospels by any of the Church Fathers, and this will explain and confirm it.
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By any? Okay, let’s look at a few.

John Chrysostom, in commenting on the applicable passage in John, states:

“And this he [Pilate] made manifest not in a single tongue, but in three languages; for since it was likely that there would be a mixed multitude among the Jews on account of the Feast, in order that none might be ignorant of the defense, he publicly recorded the madness of the Jews, in all the languages.”

In other words, the languages were chosen in order to communicate with the maximum number of people. John Chrysostom makes no indication there was anything sacred about the languages due to this.

Augustine makes no connection to them being sacred either in his commentary on John. His comment is: “For these three languages were conspicuous in that place beyond all others: the Hebrew on account of the Jews, who gloried in the law of God; the Greek, because of the wise men among the Gentiles; and the Latin, on account of the Romans, who at that very time were exercising sovereign power over many and almost all countries.” Again, he sees nothing sacred about the languages as a result of this. He merely notes that it was used in multiple languages for communication purposes.

So that’s two church fathers who say nothing about the languages being sacred in their commentary on the passage that supposedly makes them sacred. Their only comment is that the languages were chosen because it would communicate with more people. Which, quite frankly, is almost certainly why they got chosen; not due to any supposed sacredness, but for the same reason a lot of signs in the US have their message repeated in Spanish. Now, perhaps other church fathers say otherwise (you didn’t name any), but this certainly appears to contradict the claim that “any” church father would say such a thing.
 
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I never said Our Blessed Lord was an Aramaic-only simpleton - cf. my previous post.

But even if he did only speak Aramaic, that wouldn’t make Him a simpleton. I grew up on a farm around tons of devout Catholics who were mono-linguistic and anything but simpletons. My own mother only had a high-school diploma, only spoke English, and was a very wise woman in her own way.
 
There are treasures of the Catholic Church that are your heritage as a Catholic that you will understand better, if you understand Latin. That doesn’t make you “more Catholic” any more than understanding the Declaration of Independence makes you “more American” if you’re a citizen of the United States. Those things don’t even automatically make you a better citizen. The knowledge clearly can inspire in that direction, though.
 
Did the devil hate it when the Romans used it, like Nero and Caligula?
 
I don’t think it will make you a better Catholic, but it’s a fascinating language to learn and there is a lot of literature to read in Latin.

@Aquinas11 All this about the power of Latin over the devil sounds like superstition.
 
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