I'm always hearing Traditionalist Catholics complain that Vatican II actually called for the continued use of Latin, and that this was ignored in the liturgical reforms. And when I mean "always", I really do mean "always". I could retreat to a cave in the Himalayas, I could shun all computers and radios and telephones, and I think some young chap in a blazer and a St. Christopher's medal would still clamber into my hideaway to complain about St. Paul VI.
So I was intrigued in this passage from a book about an Irish-American priest who died in the nineteen-twenties:
The liturgy had once been a great educational force and he believed that it should retain this function. He pointed out that in the early days of Christianity the liturgy, even more than schools, had been the great instructor in Christian doctrine. The educational function of the liturgy had declined largely due to the loss of the vernacular. And when the Council of Trent reformed so much, it failed here because the use of the vernacular was associated in the minds of the Council Fathers with the Protestant denial of the Sacrament of Holy Orders and the Sacrament of the Mass. Even so the decree which ordered the retention of Latin insisted on proper instruction of the things that are read in the Mass. Fr. Slattery dryly remarked that this injunction is honoured more in the breach than the observance.
Interesting, eh? Eh? The pendulum swings from age to age.
No comments:
Post a Comment