Friday, March 19, 2004
De Latinae
Read this:
"I love it when Catholic laypeople without any obvious training or understanding of what the Church teaches nevertheless get up on a public soapbox to preach to the rest of us about what it really means to be Catholic. It’s especially interesting when they’re politicians. Case in point: The vice-mayor of Mesa, Arizona, writes an op-ed today complaining that the new bishop of Phoenix is going to allow Latin Masses."
Wrote this:
"Hello,
My name is David XXXXXXXX from Pelham, NY and I'm commenting on
http://www.azcentral.com/specials/pluggedin/articles/0317kavanaugh0317.html
I would just like to respond to Mr. Kavanaugh when he states
"There was a reason that the Second Vatican Council called for services to be held in the vernacular. Greater understanding and participation by lay members led to a renaissance of the Catholic Church in the 60's and 70's. Sadly, some in the church today would prefer to reverse many of the Vatican II reforms."
If I may quote the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium) 36.1, "Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites." The rest of section 36 goes on to permit wider use of the vernacular for the understanding of the people and reserves the right to determine how much of the vernacular is used to the "competant territorial ecclesiastical authority" and the Holy See. Other interesting points would be II.54, which allows Masses with more vernacular, but states "Nevertheless steps should be taken so that the faithful may also be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them."
It seems to me that the complete disappearance of Latin from the sacraments is in fact a misreading of Sacrosanctum Concilium, which does call for Latin to be preserved. The bishop is only carying out what the Council said, not what people think the Council said. Certainly the wider use of the vernacular has been immensely helpful over the past fourty years, but the loss of Latin has, I think, led to a loss of the universal, timeless sense of the Church and led some to believe that it is "our", rather than "His", church.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
David XXXXXXXX"
Now hopefully I haven't said anything too stoopid or messed up my grammer or anything like that, and we'll see what happens. And i'm not even upset because he didn't say anything too stupid in the newspaper article! Good times.
"I love it when Catholic laypeople without any obvious training or understanding of what the Church teaches nevertheless get up on a public soapbox to preach to the rest of us about what it really means to be Catholic. It’s especially interesting when they’re politicians. Case in point: The vice-mayor of Mesa, Arizona, writes an op-ed today complaining that the new bishop of Phoenix is going to allow Latin Masses."
Wrote this:
"Hello,
My name is David XXXXXXXX from Pelham, NY and I'm commenting on
http://www.azcentral.com/specials/pluggedin/articles/0317kavanaugh0317.html
I would just like to respond to Mr. Kavanaugh when he states
"There was a reason that the Second Vatican Council called for services to be held in the vernacular. Greater understanding and participation by lay members led to a renaissance of the Catholic Church in the 60's and 70's. Sadly, some in the church today would prefer to reverse many of the Vatican II reforms."
If I may quote the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium) 36.1, "Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites." The rest of section 36 goes on to permit wider use of the vernacular for the understanding of the people and reserves the right to determine how much of the vernacular is used to the "competant territorial ecclesiastical authority" and the Holy See. Other interesting points would be II.54, which allows Masses with more vernacular, but states "Nevertheless steps should be taken so that the faithful may also be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them."
It seems to me that the complete disappearance of Latin from the sacraments is in fact a misreading of Sacrosanctum Concilium, which does call for Latin to be preserved. The bishop is only carying out what the Council said, not what people think the Council said. Certainly the wider use of the vernacular has been immensely helpful over the past fourty years, but the loss of Latin has, I think, led to a loss of the universal, timeless sense of the Church and led some to believe that it is "our", rather than "His", church.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
David XXXXXXXX"
Now hopefully I haven't said anything too stoopid or messed up my grammer or anything like that, and we'll see what happens. And i'm not even upset because he didn't say anything too stupid in the newspaper article! Good times.
