Ignorance? I’m just wondering why Latin when there were three other perfectly good Biblical languages to choose from. So far I see some warm-fuzzy rationalizations, but none exuding a basis in Scripture. The simple fact that Paul spoke Hebrew, Aramaic and/or Greek, yet someone down the line changed the “official” language to something not of that set puzzles me as to how it can be justified by Tradition when it was put into effect as a matter of contemporary communication, yet to make the same relevant change today is somehow a heresy against Tradition (which Christ Himself spoke against).
It’s because the Catholic Church isn’t Protestant and it isn’t Sola Scriptura! Latin has been used in the liturgy in the West for most of the Church’s history.
Jesus taught His ministry in Aramaic. He instructed His disciple Peter to establish His Church. The center of the known world at the time was Rome, the official language of the universal empire was Latin. Both SS Peter and Paul wound up in the center of the known world and founded the Catholic Church whose official language was the universal lingua franca of the empire, Latin.
For two thousand years the Church promoted education, the arts, the sciences, and advanced education and universities. Latin was the basis of all advanced fields including law and medicine as well as philosophy and theology.
Is there any question my friend, that the Church has been in state of decline since Latin was abandoned or that the state of our public education has also been in a state of decline since our public schools abandoned Latin as well?
As we conservatives wander in the wildnerness, it is now time to reconnect with our roots and traditions particularly those things which worked so well for many centuries.
Latin was the language of the Roman Empire. If you look at a map of the Empire you will see that it stretched from England to mid-Europe, over to Turkey, and around the coast of the Mediterranean. As Christianity spread, it spread throughout the Empire. Everyone spoke it (only the elites learned Greek). It’s really that simple.