Could you please ask the question in Latin?

I get the idea I'm not being taken seriously.

Isn't it possible, counter-intuitive though it may be, that use of the vernacular thwarts understanding?

I don't care how many times I hear this argument --- and it is made a lot 'round the section of the internet I inhabit --- I still find it extraordinary.*



---
*cf. Lawyer's definition

I was being quite serious, although at a meta level, as it were.

I would say that the introduction of the vernacular into regular usage in the liturgy is precisely what can support the use of Latin in the people's parts of the Ordo. Because they are familiar with the vernacular renderings from frequent exposure, the issue of lack of understanding of the Latin when they encounter it is diminished in salience.

(Btw, if one thinks the answer to this is simply to have hand missals, one is in that answer conceding that understanding the vernacular meaning of the Latin retains salience...)

A couple of years ago we were on holiday in Germany. My husband speaks the language, I don't. When we went to Mass I felt completely out of things; there was an opening hymn that I couldn't join in with, the priest's chatty remarks, appreciated by all the congregation also passed me by. Then they struck up with Missa de Angelis, and it was ok, I felt included. For the Ordinary anyhow.

The disciples approached Jesus and said,
Why do you speak to the crowd in parables?”“
He said to them in reply,
“Because knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven
has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.
To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich;
from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
This is why I speak to them in parables, because
they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.
Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says:

You shall indeed hear but not understand,
you shall indeed look but never see.
Gross is the heart of this people,
they will hardly hear with their ears,
they have closed their eyes,
lest they see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and understand with their hearts and be converted
and I heal them.

“But blessed are your eyes, because they see,
and your ears, because they hear.
Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people
longed to see what you see but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”

From today's Gospel lesson.

Most in the pews don't know what Alleluia or Hosanna means, possibly not even Amen. These we keep because they're entrenched.

I can probably sing Cantonese with enough practice. But I'll never be able to sing it while being simultaneously conscious of the meaning of the words I'm singing. At least for English-speakers and more so for Romance-speakers, Latin bears some resembles to the respective vernacular. For the Chinese, it might as well be in German.

Are we really going to structure the Mass for the benefit of the occasional foreign visitor? This is really just a tangential benefit of Latin. We could make English the language of the Mass worldwide. That would accomplish the same feeling of inclusion with the added benefit of better comprehension.

In the end, I think to defend the use of Latin, comprehension has to take a backseat to fidelity to tradition. That's a defensible position. After all, why do we recite any part of the Ordinary at all? We can construct new more readily comprehensible prayers.

Are you familiar with the lawyer's definition of "extraordinary"?

I am surprised that no one has mentioned a reason for using Latin is the music. We have had a number of essays in the adaptation of Gregorian chant to English, and some good progress has been made. Still, these pale beside the authentic chants sung in Latin. The Latin chants convey a beauty and solemnity that the others do not yet achieve. There is another point. The comprehension of the texts is not insignificant, but more important is the sacredness and beauty of the liturgy itself, which necessarily includes the music, the vestments, the actions, as well as the texts, in a synthesis. There has been a kind of rationalistic iconoclasm that places such an emphasis upon the words rules out the synthesis that a beautifully celebrated liturgy offers. The role of beauty in the liturgy was eloquently described by Fr. Jonathan Robinson at the Colloquium this Summer; his address will soon appear in Sacred Music.

That's pretty thin gruel for a foundational argument against the use of the vernacular.

Dr Mahrt's argument is cogent, and, perhaps, the most sensible of those offered thus far. It is sensible in several senses, namely, relating to the aesthetic senses, which is the beauty of which he speaks; and relating to the intellectually sensible, namely apprehensive to the mental senses.

I also like that he has not shut the door on vernacular, and, perhaps, recognises that the vernacular, when raised to an hieratic category, can also be beautiful - and sensible. We certainly know this in the Anglican tradition, which has been affirmed, inherently commended, by Good Pope Benedict. One notices that Dr Mahrt says '...a solemnity and beauty that {vernaculars] do not yet achieve'. Here is an open mind. There is chant in English that is quite beautiful. There is a great body of motets and anthems in English that are as beautiful as any from the Latin repertory. The essence of Dr Mahrt's argument is the expression of beauty, solemnity, a sacral ethos. To deny that English is capable of this is extremely myopic and deliberately blind to things other than preconceived biases.

All the above arguers for the unique sacral nature of Latin rather blithely overlook that when the mass was put into Latin from Greek (which first happened in North Africa, not Italy) it was not uniformly well received because of the historic aura of Greek, which people were coming less and less to understand. Educated and 'sensitive' people were horrified at the use of the vulgar tongue in the sacred rites. And, of course, this very same Latin which we yet use had, at that time, no mystical, uniquely sacral ethos about it. It was adopted because it was the language people spoke in Italy, just as the mass elsewhere in the world was celebrated in the local vernacular, be it Syriac, Greek, Slovanic, or whatever. Only in the west have we elevated a language, fourth century Latin, to iconic, uniquely sacral status. It has been part and parcel of the extreme clericalism whereby the mass became almost the sole act of a clerical caste which the people just observed and were duly in awe of whilst doing private 'devotions'. (The utter absence of liturgia.)

This is not, really, an argument against Latin. I hope that people learn the mass in Latin, as the recent council intended for them to. I am the very last person who would want to see our treasury of sacred music in jeopardy. There is every reason that we can have both/and. This was the intent of the council. There is not a whit less (possibly more) beauty, solemnity, awe, and sacrality in solemn high mass at Walsingham than there is in a mass, Latin or English, elsewhere. Let us treasure our Latin heritage, but not attribute to it a unique spritual essence that, objectively, does not exist.

(It is not too widely appreciated that, at the time of the Reformation, at Trent, there were numerous catholic bishops and theologians who favoured putting the mass into the vernaculars of the day. This was dis-allowed solely on the grounds that the Protestants had done it, not that Latin had, sui generis, a unique holiness about it. Perhaps if this had been done at that time we would have had some far superior vernaculars than what we got in the late XXth century. It was a far more literary age!)

(And, while I'm at it: it doesn't really matter whether the mass is in hieratic Latin, Greek, English, or Urdu - but, please, pick just one. Multilingual masses (yes, even English-Latin ones) are an aesthetical pastiche; they are, in a word and with a nod to Adam, extraordinary!)

For what it's worth 'liturgical Latin' was once 'vulgar Latin'. That was one of my points.

I think the people should learn the mass in both Latin and English. Unfortunately, they often don't know either.

All other languages are considered vulgar.

Vernacular language liturgies lead to national churches. What were the first steps of Luther and Henry VIII?

Politics led to national churches. In the east, it was often rivalries between patriarchs. In Germany, it was princes who wanted to be free of the Emperor in Austria. Luther supported them and the princes supported Luther. Henry VIII was led by greed and lust to break with Rome so he could loot the monasteries and marry soon-to-be headless Anne.

Cranmer wanted an all vernacular liturgy... it took a few centuries but he got his wish... are we the better for it? We have hundreds of years of our heritage in music (which is in Latin). What is wrong with that music?

Adam, classicist Christine Morhmann argued this right before Vatican II.

Vulgar Latin is a generic term for the nonstandard (as opposed to classical) sociolects of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. The word vulgar in this case refers to its original meaning of common or vernacular, and not the more pejorative usage, tasteless or indecent. WIKI

Scary.

Adam, it doesn't seem fair to demand a cite for "The Latin of the Church was from time immemorial a special hierarchic Latin," but not for, " 'liturgical Latin' was once 'vulgar Latin'".
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

vulgata: 1. common, ordinary; 2. conventional, well-known

versio vulgata: the commonly used translation

Vernacular language liturgies lead to national churches. What were the first steps of Luther and Henry VIII?

This syllogism may be faulty on a couple of grounds, Chris.
*Besides theological differences, would you declare that the Orthodox hung their albs upon their vernacular. Some deem them "The first protestants." Not for language.
*Henry VIII remained extremely reluctant to break with Rome until his hand was forced by many circumstances, some beyond succession. As francis noted, by the time Henry had to find the rationale that all monarchs were de facto ordained by God to rule, ergo meaning the "national" church as well, his efforts to create "The Church of England" did not exclude the hybrid use of Latin as well as English until Cranmer's BCP.
*Henry, in point of fact, despised Luther's movement once the monk was excommunicated. So, an intent to create a nationalist church was hardly Henry's issue. It is likely that when Luther let his discontent become public, he didn't have a "nationalistic" goal. There was no German nation, and the vernaculars of the region were legion. But once his stone got rolling, his monumental translation was a major pivot point in Christian history, not "German history."
*We also have to then account for counter-reformation indulgences from Rome that allowed 17/18th century composers to set the Psalter and create national office hymns in their vernaculars, particularly in "Germany" and "Poland." Allegiance to Rome never was at stake with such actions.

"I don't understand these things because they are incomprehensible."

That would be the precise phrasing. TA couldn't explain transubstantiation, and he was reportedly pretty handy with Latin. And Hebrew. And Greek. And Italian. And French.

Only in the west have we elevated a language, fourth century Latin, to iconic, uniquely sacral status.

So what?

It has been part and parcel of the extreme clericalism whereby the mass became almost the sole act of a clerical caste which the people just observed and were duly in awe of whilst doing private 'devotions'. (The utter absence of liturgia.)

In whose opinion? That of the "antiquarians"--of which John XXIII and Paul VI both warned?

Further, the fact that SOME people rattled their rosaries during Mass is not evidence that ALL people did, except in the minds of that Intellectualoid Bunch which also found it necessary to demolish graphic and plastic arts in churches.

IOW, the New Puritans. From them you take lessons?

Please.

I see a great benefit in retaining Latin for the common people's parts, primarily the ordinary of the mass: Kyrie (okay, that's Greek), Gloria, Sanctus, Pater Noster and Agnus Dei. I see benefit in the use of vernacular language for the proclamation of the readings and the Common Prayer or "Prayers of the Faithful."

For other parts such as the propers or hymns, Latin would be preferable for propers, vernacular would be preferable for hymns, but it could work well either way.

The question of people understanding the words isn't a precise point. People love to hear the "Ave Maria" despite not knowing Latin, but they know that it is the words to the "Hail Mary" and don't mind. I don't think anyone in the average congregation knows the words or translation of "Panis Angelicus" but either way they don't mind.

First and foremost I would promote the use of Latin Ordinaries. The benefit of this is that it helps unite the entire church in a common language, particularly for travellers and pilgrims.

In 2011 I went on Pilgrimmage to World Youth Day in Madrid. The only place which used Latin was Westminster Cathedral in London! The Cathedrals in Lyon and Avila used their respective vernacular tongues, and made it virtually impossible to participate in prayers at each mass, though I did always know what part of the mass we were up to.