Calum Cille wrote:Yes. Isn't that an ecclesiastical equivalent of why we learn a foreign language at school?
I thought we learned languages at school for business purposes. We might have to speak to a German or Spanish person in the course of our work. But we will never have to attend Mass in a foreign language – quite simply because Mass is available in our native language – so I'm not sure it's equivalent.
I think that you overstate the availabilty of mass in English. Within the last three months I have heard mass in Croatian, Slovenian and German. In only one case did I have an alternative, Italian rather than Croatian, but not English. You may take it from me that English mass is not widely available outside English speaking countries.
It is interesting that, while it is considered normal for muslim children to learn arabic, catholics have never felt it necessary to learn latin. I can only assume that the average catholic never felt any great need to understand mass, which is odd.
I favour catholics learning latin in order to enable a universal mass to be available, and in order that we can free ourselves from the caprices of translators. So far we have not had a translation of the mass in english which has satisfied everyone. There certainly isn't one I like. If people do their own translating, they can please themselves, for example whether "igitur" translates as "and so", "therefore" or just miss it out altogether. Even better, it will help to train their minds to understanding without translating, something english people, with their profoundly stubborn tendency towards monoglotism, need a push towards. As foreign languages go, Latin is not very complicated, and the vocabulary required for mass is fairly small.
Learning Latin will make the heritage of the churches writings available to you, will open the heritage of music and will enable you to better implement the stated wishes of the Second Vatican council. Why do you hesitate?
In pace, in idipsum, dormiam et requiescam. Si dedero somnum oculis meis, et palpebris meis dormitationem, dormiam et requiescam. Gloria Patri ................... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Any opinions expressed are my own, not those of the Archdiocese of Birmingham Liturgy Commission, Church Music Committee. Website
Nick Baty wrote:Are you suggesting we should all become conversant with Mass in Latin to make life easier for the few who might occasionally attend in foreign climes?
Calum Cille wrote:Yes. Isn't that an ecclesiastical equivalent of why we learn a foreign language at school?
Nick Baty wrote:I thought we learned languages at school for business purposes. ... – so I'm not sure it's equivalent.
No, we learn languages at school so we can communicate. Then we can use that communication for business purposes or any other purpose. How are businessmen supposed to buy and sell if they can't communicate with each other? So they learn each other's language so they can communicate. Isn't rather obvious that we don't buy and sell at mass? Likewise, it makes practical sense for people who speak different languages to have a common communicative language that they can all use for the liturgy so that they can pray it together una voce.
nazard wrote:I think that you overstate the availabilty of mass in English.... You may take it from me that English mass is not widely available outside English speaking countries.
But how often – if ever – will any of us find ourselves outside an English-speaking country? In fact, as parish musicians, who often will any of us ever find ourselves outside our own parish?
It is interesting that, while it is considered normal for muslim children to learn arabic, catholics have never felt it necessary to learn latin. I can only assume that the average catholic never felt any great need to understand mass, which is odd.
Learning Latin will make the heritage of the churches writings available to you, will open the heritage of music and will enable you to better implement the stated wishes of the Second Vatican council. Why do you hesitate?
If my understanding is correct, as no christian scripture was reavealed in latin there is no need to understand it. Mass is difficult enough to understand in english.
nazard wrote:I think that you overstate the availabilty of mass in English.... You may take it from me that English mass is not widely available outside English speaking countries.
But how often – if ever – will any of us find ourselves outside an English-speaking country? In fact, as parish musicians, who often will any of us ever find ourselves outside our own parish?
This is the poorest excuse for cultural intolerance, cultural disenfranchisement and the cultural disinheritance of Catholics by jettisoning, at parish level, centuries of international linguistic and musical culture as if it had never existed.
But, Dear CC, you're suggesting we learn a language we don't know and will never need. If your choir sings something in Latin, then add the translation to the service sheet.
You talk as if somehow Catholics will have to learn to converse fluently in Latin. This is a ridiculous argument. You say that Catholics don't need Latin just as others say that we don't need art or music, or that Gaelic speakers do not need Gaelic. These anti-cultural attitudes are a blight on humanity. Catholics do indeed need to (re-)learn the mass in Latin because they need access to part of their own religious culture and no one should have taken it away from them. We dress the words of the mass in culture.
Such logic as you are using insists that we shouldn't learn melodies for the prayers at mass as we don't know them and will never need them otherwise: the words suffice on their own as prayer. Such logic insists that priests shouldn't wear cassocks because they'll never use them otherwise, already possessing their own clothes belonging to their own culture. This is just an argument designed to reduce culture to an absolute minimum.
Last edited by Calum Cille on Sat Nov 05, 2011 1:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.
alan29 wrote:My catholic identity doesn't depend on my knowledge of Latin ....... thankfully.
And your point is? Nobody has mentioned identity, this is about culture, and your Catholic culture and heritage does include Latin. Whether you want that culture and heritage or not, you have no right to deprive other Catholics of it on the spurious argument that, in these days of mass sheets and booklets, they won't be able to follow it or pray it or, least of all, learn it off by heart.
Calum Cille wrote:You say that Catholics don't need Latin just as others say that we don't need art or music
Not at all. Liturgy wouldn't work without art and music. It does work without Latin.
Calum Cille wrote:Such logic as you are using insists that we shouldn't learn melodies for the prayers at mass as we don't know them will never need them:
Roughly correct as we rarely sing prayers. We do, however, need melodies for acclamations.
Calum Cille wrote:Such logic insists that priests shouldn't wear cassocks because they'll never use them, already possessing their own clothes belonging to their own culture.
Well, why do they need cassocks? And do you know a priest who wears one?
Calum Cille wrote:This is just an argument designed to reduce culture to an absolute minimum.
Quite the opposite. How does using a foreign language help in celebrating the liturgy? It's difficult enough in English!
I have no interest in depriving anyone of anything. In fact I am of the pre-Vat II generation, so Latin is a part of my background. Heritage? I suppose it is in the same sense and to the same degree that Fountains Abbey or the Corn Laws are.
