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khym_chanur
2007-07-19 02:06 am UTC (link)

I've never understood the point of giving recitals on how you should live your life, the nature of good and evil, and metaphysics in a language that the listeners can't understand. Now, if the parishioners were taught to understand Latin because things would be lost in translation, I could see the point, or if these were supposedly the exact words that Jesus had spoken and thus had some sort of supernatural weight behind them, but neither of those is the case.

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missdaisy
2007-07-19 02:18 am UTC (link)

Now, if the parishioners were taught to understand Latin because things would be lost in translation.

The ones who go/went to Catholic school are. We learned Latin and the translations of the Latin Mass. At the school my daughters go to they are introduced to basic Latin in third grade and are taught some prayers in Latin.

_{Argh, I've fallen into the pit of unfunny anecdotes. Send help!}

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	rachel_pi 2007-07-22 02:37 am UTC (link)
	Only if you go to a really, really good Catholic school, though. I went to Catholic grade school and we only learned the Agnus Dei. They couldn't even find CCD teachers who had read the Catechism and knew that CATHOLICS AREN'T FREAKING CREATIONISTS. (Reply to this)(Parent)

lcsbanana
2007-07-19 02:43 am UTC (link)

eh, i'm an interested jew/into classical music and i have a reasonably good idea of what the latin means. i expect people who paid attention and went to sunday school (or whatever the catholic version is...catechism class?) would know it better. it's like people who get the chinese symbol for HOPE or STAR or whatever tattooed on their bodies--it's just prettier that way! (well, minus the retardo cultural imperialism part, generally.)

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snarkivist
2007-07-19 02:43 am UTC (link)

The parts of the Mass that parishoners can actually learn anything from (the readings, the sermon) are in English. What's in Latin are the prayers, which for the most part are the same every week. Where they vary, it's printed in the missal, and most people zone out when those are in English, too.

My priest chants the readings in Latin, then reads them in English later on in the service.

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	seiberwing 2007-07-19 03:03 am UTC (link)
	Er...hello, Jews? I mean, most of us have the translation on the opposite page and they're not really nature of good and evil most of the time, but the Hebrew's there. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	soupspooks 2007-07-19 03:58 am UTC (link)
	Um, well, I know I tried to learn latin on my own. I know enough to not need to ask what medical terms mean. Mum took latin in high school and loved it. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	agent_hyatt 2007-07-19 04:29 am UTC (link)
	Latin sounds pretty. Especially sung. (Reply to this)(Parent)

wrongly_amused
2007-07-19 06:38 am UTC (link)

I'm assuming it's a holdover from when Latin was a regular language of religious and philosophical discourse. Supremely powerful institutions tend to cling to those traditions. Though to be fair, a significant number of Catholic churches have started restricting the use of Latin. My mother was comparing copies of her prayer book to the old-fashioned ones that still had the old language in it. :-) It was kind of cool.

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	sharps 2007-07-19 10:27 am UTC (link)
	I've never been to a Catholic mass in Latin (well, I haven't actually been to more than one non-Catholic mass). Just ones in English and in German. It sounds better in German. Probably because I can flip off my "Understanding Spoken German" switch and spend the time thinking "Hey, when are they going to sing a bit more of Schubert's Mass again?" (Reply to this)(Parent)

mael
2007-07-19 11:53 am UTC (link)

My mother, who barely got through third grade before her father sent her to work in a silk factory, understands the Latin mass perfectly. She, in fact, will still quote Latin at me occasionally.

As indoctrination for the masses, it works perfectly. People feel like they're part of a speshul club. Even now that Sunday mass is Latin lite (some of the prayers are still in Latin, or were, when I was still practicing), the older members of the congregation bemoan the loss of the beautiful Latin high mass.

So the Pope is pandering to his home base, which is a ridiculous, ridiculous move, and is clearly making John Paul II do the hula in his grave.

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	snarkivist 2007-07-19 01:57 pm UTC (link)
	Um. Actually, John Paul II gave permission in 1988 for people to celebrate the Latin Mass if their bishop is cool with it. This recent change by Benedict is because some bishops were being dicks and not letting people do it. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

mael
2007-07-19 03:35 pm UTC (link)

Fair enough. I hear the news filtered through my extremely religious Italian family, and they seem to be siding with the "Benedict is less progressive/open/forward thinking" than JPII was. Some of my relatives are happy with that, some of them are not, and frankly I'm just glad I'm not living in Italy any longer, considering the surge of political influence the Vatican is trying to overpower the Italian government with; issues of same sex marriage and reproductive choices in primis.

Of course, from over here in bonny Massachusetts the whole howling controversy seems backwards and remote, but I do notice a distinct and marked difference in tone between this papacy and the last. Which is why I believe JPII to be entirely unhappy with the new and improved roll back to a pre-Vatican II standard of preaching.

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doc_lydgate
2007-07-21 03:44 am UTC (link)

Well, somebody--can't remember who; might have been somebody of a Campbellian sort of persuasion--made the point that Latin in a mass functions not just as a random mystery meat language, but as a ritual language. S/he had a point: You have a whole tongue, one with a particular feel to it in your mouth, on reserve for the purpose of prayer, one you don't use to scream profanity at the fatherfucking bastard who just cut you off while passing illegally on the right.

Also, when setting Latin texts to music, you can get away with a lot more. "Cre-eee-eeee-eeeeeeeee-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-do" over eight measures of Bach fioratura just doesn't sound as funny as "I be-lieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeve!" You know what credo means, you know it immediately, without having to stop and consult your inner Latin-English dictionary, but it still doesn't hit your ears the same way as the equivalent you hear every day. You hear option A, and you expect something that makes no conversational sense. You hear option B, and you expect it to be followed by "I can fly."

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