Ratzinger, Liturgy and England

[contrabordun]

don't want to have to translate the words – I want to understand them.

An interesting and very valid distinction. But if you're belting out Credo III, and get to (random eg) "Et Unam, Sanctam Catholicam <pause> Et Apostolicam Ecclesiam", do you not "know" what you're singing? I'm not trying to be funny or anything - it's a question I've been grappling with recently: I'm moving back to England today (bags packed and waiting for the taxi) after 2 years in Spain, during which I've had the opportunity to learn the language - from scratch, although schoolboy French and Latin helped a lot. After a while you get to the following rather wierd situation.

If you listen to something on the radio, or read a newspaper, the meaning goes in - you feel you've understood it. If asked in Spanish what was said, or to comment on it, or guess what happened next, you have no trouble answering. - in Spanish. If asked in English to discuss it in English, it's harder: you have to pause and almost translate what was said before you can think about it. Now the fact that you can do it in Spanish shows you did understand what was going on, but the fact that it takes effort to discuss it in English shows that that understanding wasn't due to a hyperquick automatic translation - it's going in in Spanish and staying as it.

Merseysider's right - we don't want people standing there thinking "Confiteor acknowledge - looks passive, but deponent so active - I acknowledge - unum - one - baptisma - must be baptism, can't be anything else - (wonder why unUM baptismA? can never remember past the second declension - look it up when I get home) in remissionem - in remission, that's easy enough - isn't that what cancer does? - peccatorum. Peccatorum? Genitive plural - orum stands out like a sorum thumb - but what's a Peccatus? Pectorals? Male or female? Remission of ? ...well there's one of the alto...oh right, sorry, where was I? Oh, they've reached the Amen.

For something like the Agnus Dei, short, repeated lines, I can't see a problem. But the trouble with the Creed and the Gloria (incidentally, does anybody sing the Creed in English? or is it just when we're 'doing Latin'?) is that their length makes it much harder for people to carry a sense of what the words mean. And it's well nigh impossible to sing one language and read, or cross reference, another. You have to 'understand' it 'natively'. How reasonable is this?

Twelve months ago, listening to a Spanish radio program, I would hear a babble of noise, I couldn't even separate out individual words - most of which I would probably have known, had I seen them written down. But it was just undifferentiated gobbledegook. Now, the words are distinct and the meaning goes in, without being translated at any point. Where on that spectrum are most people? Do we just assume they know what they're singing?

Has anybody actually done any research into this, into what actually goes on, what people actually do think, and understand? I'm fond of the Latin, but my experiences of the last couple of years have made me uneasy about it.

[Merseysider]

And I also want to ask :Why?"

If you're singing in Latin because you love it... well, each to their own. But if you're doing it because it's the official language of the Church... er... and? why?

[sidvicius]

"We used to mime".

Funniest thing I've ever read on the forum! - even if it wasn't meant to be. I was eating liquorice laces and all I can say is it was a good thing I was holding the other end or there would have been black goo all over the place!

Oh, they've reached the Amen.

I think we've all been there a few times too!

[Hare]

But if you're doing it because it's the official language of the Church... er... and? why?

Err..are you saying "why is it the official language of the Church"?

[Merseysider]

No – I'm asking if that's the reason some people sing in Latin

[VML]

Why do we sing in Latin? Probably for the same reason as an Italian pilot flying a German plane over France will be communicating with control towers in English.

Where now English is a very common second language worldwide, so that if a Romanian meets a Thai they are more likely to have Engish in common than either of their own native languages; so the Church has historically used Latin, and so much of our music dates back to when Latin was the language of educated Europe.

I know I am privileged, (i.e. old,) I learnt a little Latin at school, and grew up with the Latin Mass. But some of my children too have had teachers who thought it important to teach them some prayers in Latin, as well as it happens, occasional bits of other languages.

I am sure I was not alone in feeling included in the singing of the old litany of the saints as the body of JPII was carried across to St Peter's.

Incidentally, I have also recently had to think about using language that I do not understand, teaching children African songs of which we know the outline meaning but not the word for word translation. Anyone remember Asikatali?

[Hare]

No – I'm asking if that's the reason some people sing in Latin

Is that not a good enough reason?

[Merseysider]

No it isn't. Aiding people in worship would be a good reason. If it helps to explain the liturgy, to teach, to catechise, if it helps people in prayers – either individually or collectively – all of these would be (IMHO) good reasons for using Latin in the liturgy. Being the official prayer of the Church might be a good reason for using it in Canon Law and Encyclicals.

[mcb]

How about this: singing in Latin sometimes is a symbolic, sacramental tie between the worshipping community I'm standing among, and the rest of the Church around the world and throughout time, and in and out of time. It's a reminder that the Church isn't just us, and that we words we sing don't just come from within us.

So why don't we always sing in Latin? I don't think it's primarily about understanding the meaning, but again about sacramental symbolism: if we use our own language we are communicating authentically, both revealing what is inside each of us (using the language we use inside ourselves) and establishing ourselves as a united community (by using the language we use to speak to each other).

For my money the arguments for the vernacular are more compelling than the arguments for Latin, because the vernacular is alive and Latin is dead. The more you sing/say in Latin the more you say: what we believe has ceased to grow; it's all been given to us, we simply absorb and regurgitate. There's a kind of idolatry of fixed formulas, because they are a quick and easy way of allowing oneself to feel that our version of the truth must be the right one, because we've pinned it down.

So as for vernacular versus Latin, there's room for a bit of both, I'd say.

M.

[Hare]

Lest it be thought that I advocate and use nothing but Latin, may I put the record straight by saying that in my parish we do probably and very roughly 80% vernacular / 20% Latin. PP would like far more Latin; a minority of the congregation would prefer none. I have to guide things along a knife edge. It is difficult to approach Sundays / Holydays with anything other than trepidation, for I know that on each and every occasion there will be gripes from one camp or the other. Interestingly, though, from within each camp I receive few if any gripes about the quality and/or choice of what is put on - just the language question. I do find though that the "no Latin" camp prefer happy-clappy hymns. As far as hymn choices go, I am always guided by themes and suitability for the occasion and/or forces available rather than any particular musical style.

[Merseysider]

That's really interesting, Hare.

I work with an assembly which is mostly 40 to 80-ish years old with a few children. They can't stand happy-clappy or Latin – they are very much middle-of-the-road: Farrell's "Unless a Grain of Wheat" and Walker's "Teach Me, O God" and IAPTS some of my own stuff. The only complaint I've had recently came last week: "Why don't we sing Soul of my Saviour anymore?" and that was satisfactorily answered when I showed the complainant, from the last year's music lists, that we'd actually sung it eight times over the year. "Oh," she said, "must have been the days I didn't come".

And the one the they love is the occasional post-communion schmaltz: eg "Be still and know I am with you" which we'll be singing tomorrow and next Sunday.

I've found that, as long as I plan well – ie, make sure there's a good old-fashioned singalong and something schmaltzy most weeks, then they really enjoy learning new stuff. "New", by the way, includes that radical, modernistic hymn, "Let all mortal flesh keep silence".

Over the last year, I think they've learned at least two new items a month – not bad for a congregation which hardly sang at all before. They now have a repertoire including four Holys (including two of mine) and numerous Farrell/Walker/Inwood/Walsh/Haughan items.

And I'm tempted to ask what is it about this fairly modern stuff that makes this assembly – with strong memories of regular Latin Gregorian chant – want to sing out and smile as they do? There's a thesis in there for someone.

[sidvicius]

Hardly a complete answer, but would it be reasonable to suggest that Latin is useful because it has stopped evolving in the way that other languages do. Thus the meanings of Latin words have much more strict interpretation. If you say something in Latin, it's meanings are much more specific than if you say something in other languages, especially modern English, which can be easily misinterpreted. Latin is much more rigorous in this respect, right?

But - we still need to be taught what it means before we use it, or else we end up mouthing along in mime school, like a shaved cactus.

[gwyn]

I suppose too that people are going to be comfortable and familiar, at-home even, with whatever is served up regularly. I suspect that in Hare's parish where Latin is used on an on-going week-by-week basis some punters-in-the-pew may not notice the switch. This has certainly been my experience when Latin or Welsh is used within the liturgy in my parish. I appreciate though that this won't have been everyone's experience.

That said, if a member of the assembly is particularly anti/pro Latin, he/she will be waiting for the switch.

This Sunday coming, the Feast of Pentecost. Shall we pray that our understanding transcends mere words?

[Merseysider]

We've been rehearsing a two-part version of Franck's Panis Angelicus for use sometime soon-ish. Admittedly, I chose it mostly because it's a good easy piece for a newly formed group who aren't used to singing in harmony.

Last night one of the choir mentioned it to the PP and, although he was joking when he said "You can sing it when I'm away", I knew he wasn't too happy about it.

There are two reasons for his unease:
1) He feels left out because he can't understand a word of it (neither can I)
2) He once asked me: "Why would you want to sing in Latin?" and, to be totally honest, I couldn't think of a single reason.

I'm talking about a lovely and loving PP here – there's no way he'll stop us singing it and I know he'll be thrilled to bits that such a small and new choir can sing something rather lovely in two parts. I also know that our very appreciative assembly will enjoy it but, even if our diction was perfect, would it matter if we were singing "O bread of angels" or "Roll me over in the clover", given that noone is likely to understand it.

The whole experiece has had me scratching my own head and asking myself: "Why?" I raised the question earlier on this thread and haven't had a single convincing reply.

[musicus]

I don't understand German, and I certainly can't read or speak it, but I have sung Bach's St John Passion on two occasions, once in German and once in English. I already knew the work well from Benjamin Britten's English recording, so I had a pretty good idea what was going on as I sang it in German. Both performances were powerful and moving, but singing it in Bach's original German was very special. It felt really 'authentic' (whatever that means). Bach's music was made for and in response to the German text. I suppose that's why recordings in English are very rare; most people prefer to hear foreign language works in the original (albeit aided by translations or subtitles).

I guess that a chamber choir that chose to perform Panis angelicus or any other non-English work (e.g. Byrd, Palestrina, Haydn, Janacek, Gorecki, etc) at a concert would sing it in the original language for the same musicological reasons.

Move those same works into church and into the liturgy and other factors come into play, including liturgical appropriateness, cultural expectations, historical battles won or lost, etc etc. For many people, these factors override the musicological ones - possibly in inverse proportion to people's musicality.

So perhaps it is not surprising that it is the musicians who tend to want to preserve the original authentic forms of the music they perform. And if their notions of liturgical appropriateness etc etc are pre-Vatican II, then this tendency can be strongly reinforced.

In short: the reasons we sing works in their original languages in concerts only partially explain why we do (or do not) do so in the liturgy. Perhaps the elusive answer is to be found in those factors that are exclusively in the sacred domain and not the secular.

Musicus