Posted on 06/19/2005 9:33:26 PM PDT by Lady In Blue
Pope set to return to traditional liturgy:-
VATICAN CITY | June 19, 2005 5:11:27 AM IST
Pope Benedict XVI wants to restore the traditional ceremonial Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, with Latin instead of the vernacular and Gregorian chants.
Vatican expert Sandro Magister reported in his weekly newsletter Saturday that the pope is expected to replace Archbishop Pietro Marini, his predecessor Pope John Paul II's master of liturgical ceremonies.
Whoever follows Marini will have orders to restore the traditional style and choreography of papal ceremonies in St. Peter's.
Out will go the international Masses so dear to Pope John Paul II's heart, with such innovations as Latin American and African rhythms and even dancing, multi-lingual readings and children in national costumes bringing gifts to the altar.
Pope Benedict wants to return to the Sistine Chapel choirs singing Gregorian chant and the church music of such composers as Claudio Monteverdi from the 17th century. He also wants to revive the Latin Mass.
Archbishop Marini always planned the ceremonies with television in mind, Magister said, and that emphasis will remain. A decade ago the Vatican set up a system for transmitting papal ceremonies world wide via multiple satellites.
(UPI)
Great idea!!
So we'd lose the Gospel and homily but the rest would be straight foward. We could just bring our own Bible.
No offense, but I'm sure this is confusing to people from Kansas (except for white Catholics in Kansas City in need of a Mass and wander into a Spanish Mass.)
As a practical matter, they would only have to learn the Mass in Latin. I seem to recall reading of foreign movie actors who managed to learn a leading part in English (I'm not a movie buff, so I can't be specific here; but someone might know).
Church Latin is rather simpler than classical -- the sentence structure is more like that of the modern languages, and there is more use of prepositions with less dependence on case alone carrying the meaning.
Without addressing your other points (I have no quarrel), I just think learning the Latin Mass is rather a small obstacle, as obstacles go.
When I was about 7 or 8, an elderly neighbor moved and gave my mother a bunch of stuff (for lack of a more exact description -- LOL!). In one of the boxes was an older Missal. I was looking at the hymns in the back, and one was "Hark! What Mean Those Awful Voices?" I was shocked, shocked, I tell you! (My mother explained.)
As you note, however, the problem is they don't know any grammar. When my sister taught beginning French (as a grad student to undergrads), she found she had to explain -- in English -- the very concept of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, clauses, etc. before she could explain the French grammer.
Catholic seminaries are teaching Biblical Greek and Hebrew? To people who know no grammar? New one on me!
My wife is a convert with no training in Latin whatever. When we go to Latin Mass, we take Missals and she reads along in English while the priest reads the Latin. By this point, she knows exactly where the priest is in the passage, and she can usually piece together the sense of it even without a translation. We give all the responses we are supposed to give, and we know what every single one of them mean.
I might also point out that in Latin Masses, the priest reads the Gospel and Epistle a second time during the homily--and this time in English. The only people who are "in the dark" about the Gospel are the ones who aren't paying attention.
Having a non-vernacular liturgical language is not as obscurantist as some would have you believe. It is as old as the Greek and Aramaic speaking Jews using Hebrew.
You know what--you're right. :)
But suppose some of us *choose* to worship in Latin? Do you think that people who prefer a non-vernacular liturgical language should be excluded from worshiping that way?
You're giving a very bad account of yourself on this thread. All I see from you is ignorance, pride, and a wish to give offense. You are criticising things of which you have no understanding.
yep, this is really prideful and trying to offend:
"Hmm....interesting perspective. You do have a good point there."
Well, let's not forget that the East uses Coptic (extinct), Syriac (I think that's extinct too). Old Church Slavonic can really no longer be called a vernacular--it's become a strictly liturgical language at this point. And I would doubt if the Greek liturgies were completely in the koine Greek of today. There's an intrinsic linguistic conservatism to liturgy which is well to keep in mind.
A good case can be made for a Mass in English, but IMHO the best route to go there would be something akin to the Mass of the Anglican Use, rather than the present butcheries of ICEL.
As a man prays, so does he believe.
Sounds good to me!
The average Catholic Mass in the U.S. has had just about all of the "awe-inspiring atmosphere" drained out of it, unfortunately.
You don't need a language that could be a stumbling block.
Believe it or not, English is the language that has become the stumbling block for many of us, because the prayers of the Mass in their official English translations do not say what they are supposed to say.
(There's a priest who runs a column in a certain weekly Catholic newspapers called "What Does the Prayer Really Say," where he takes the Latin original, translates it exactly and literally, and then compares it against the officially approved translation. Sometimes the differences are so great it's actually humorous, in a dark sort of way. As I joke to my wife, "And suddenly, there were with the angels, a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying ..." becomes "And the they saw some angels, who said nice stuff to God ...".)
The problem is being fixed, albeit slowly. In the meantime (and maybe for good), I'd much rather hear Mass said with the correct prayers in Latin, and follow along in a book, than with distorted and dumbed-down prayers in English.
Is it necessary to attempt to start a flame war on every thread? Even though this thread has nothing whatsoever to do with the SSPX, you are the first to bring it up in your little editorial barb.
"And Pilate wrote a title also: and he put it upon the cross. And the writing was: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. This title therefore many of the Jews did read: because the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city. And it was written in Hebrew, in Greek, and in Latin." (St. John 19.19-20)
The Church has always used Aramaic (lingua franca of the Hebrews) in all of Asia, Greek in the Eastern Empire, and Latin in the Western Empire and Francia. Other Liturgical languages such as Slavonic, Coptic, and Armenian are daughters of this useage.
Where did you see filthy and dishonoring in the above quotations?
If you'd like to see an expansion of Sacral Languages in the Church, you can joins us to work for the reunion of the Anglo-Catholics and Nodic-Catholics from the Anglican and Lutheran folds.
Most major religions use dead languages.
Catholicism uses Ecclesiastical Latin, Roman Greek, Chuch Slavonic, Coptic, and Aramaic (among others)
Eastern Orthodoxy uses Roman Greek and Church Slavonic (not today's Greek)
Assyrian Catholicism (so-called Nestorianism) uses Aramaic
Oriental Orthodoxy uses Coptic, Aramaic, Ge'ez, and ancient Armenian
Judaism uses Hebrew
Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism uses Sanskrit
Islam uses classical Arabic
Shintoism uses ancient Japanese
Theravad Bus=ddhism uses Pali
Confucianism and Chinese Buddhism uses classical Chinese
Even some Protestant communities get this concept.
Anglicans use Elizabethan English
Amish use classic High German
Over half the Catholic Church speaks Latin derived Romance languages as their vernacular (Spanish, Italian, Portugese, French, Romanian, Romansch, Vlach, Ladino, etc.)
My wife is fluent in Spanish and passably able to speak some French and Italian. When I took her to the Latin Mass for the first time, she had no trouble at all follwoing along, and commented that except for the grammatical structure, different pronunciations and some strange words here or there, she understood much of it quite well.
Even myself speaking only English and German, it only took a couple of months of following along to pick up the gist of the meaning of much of the service simply from a knowledge of Latinisms and Francophone words in English.
I would imagine that most speakers of Romance languages understand quite a bit of the Latin Mass. It is only a true barrier for the Germanic peoples and Africans. And the Africans always welcomed Latin as a source of unity among their quarrelsome tribes.
Far better to abolish the Novus Ordo and allow the Tridentine Mass to be said either in Latin or the Vernacular. The people will then quickly sort out how many Latin Masses are really wanted by their attendance patterns, provided all Parishes offer at least one Latin Mass per weekend. Even Sinkspur, bless his Vatican II-ized heart, told me a Catholic such as himself could see the merit in this.
Instinct tells me that among the present generation, it will work out for now to 1/4 to 1/3 of all Masses in Latin.
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