Posted on 04/28/2005 1:09:30 PM PDT by NYer
WASHINGTON - Pope Benedict XVI loves to chant the mass in Latin and occasionally preach in this language that had long been sidelined even in the Roman Catholic Church.
Now scholars such as David Jones, chairman of the classics department at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Mich., wonder: "Is this pontiff riding a trend -- or pushing it?"
That Latin and Greek are en vogue again seems to be an international phenomenon.
"I think, therefore I do Latin," runs an axiom popular among the brighter variety of British secondary school students. It is a play on French philosopher Réné Descartes' famous dictum, "I think, therefore I am."
In some cities, such as Leeds, they band together for after-school classes in Latin to boost their analytical skills, according to the BBC.
The lack of Latin teachers resulting from the neglect of the classics in the postmodern pedagogy of the 1970s and 1980s does not seem to hamper the enthusiasm of today's high school students. These days college students are doubling as instructors. Moreover, the classics have gone high-tech. To make up for the woeful shortage of teachers, the Cambridge Online Latin Project provides digital resources including an "e-tutor."
Students can send their homework. For a fee of approximately $18, the e-tutor will mark and annotate the papers.
In Germany, once a great bastion of the classics, Internet help for Latin learners has even triggered legal battles.
A 15-year old boy has caused the ire of textbook publishers by placing his own translations of the Latin classics online to be downloaded by others.
For while Cesar's De Bellum Gallicum clearly does not benefit from copyright protection, abbreviated schoolbook versions of such texts do. And so one publisher is suing him for copyright infringements and causing his company severe economic harm.
Moreover, the publisher accused him of "advanced criminal energy" -- and threatened to have him dragged before a criminal court.
Meanwhile in the United States, the revival of Latin and Greek proceeds along more genteel lines. Christian schools, which are rapidly growing in numbers, strongly emphasize instruction in these languages said Robert Benne, director of the Center for Religion and society in Salem, Va., who serves on the board of one of these institutions.
But secular schools, too, are taken a renewed interest in Latin, according to Hillsdale's Jones, who is impressed by the skills of some of their graduates in that language.
Gone are the days when nobody in the academy wanted to hear anything about the ancient world, says Jones, who attributes the new fascination with Latin and Greek to the conservative renewal of the last 20 years.
This interest has accelerated at such a rate over the last decade that "we at Hillsdale are teaching double and triple overloads to meet the need." Every year some 100 freshmen -- more than a quarter of the first-year students -- take Latin, and some Greek as well.
The situation is similar at many other small liberal arts schools, such as St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., where professors observe a growing awareness among students that classics are essential for critical analysis.
Many Hillsdale graduates with a facility to read Latin and Greek move on to pursue advanced degrees in the German or French classical traditions, or to enter seminary, Jones says.
Others immerse themselves in these languages for the same reasons their forebears did -- simply to obtain a well-rounded education.
Meanwhile back in Rome, the new German pope will doubtless continue to promote Latin as part of "a reform of the reform," as he said when he was just plain Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, meaning that he will endeavor to reverse the triviality to which the mass had descended after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.
As his predecessor, John Paul II, had written, "Sacred liturgy is the highest expression of the mysterious reality" and the "culminating point toward which the action of the Church is directed and at the same time the source from which all her strength is derived."
Vatican II bungled the liturgical reform, states the Rev. john McCloskey, a Catholic priest with the Faith and Reason Institute in Chicago.
Since presiding at the first funeral Mass for John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, has shown to the world the luxuriant beauty of the old mass that has inspired some of history's greatest composers. And that mass is sung and spoken in the language kids on both sides of the Atlantic have come to appreciate once again -- Latin.
Incredibly cool. Gratia!
Frank
That's neat...both my hubby and I like to listen to that....
My latin is very rusty...I have a study book coming in from Amazon. I was once very good at doing it...but wasn't Catholic when I studied it last...now I have much more motivation to bring it up to snuff...
I think the ORIGINAL Evil empire would probably be Messopatamian (Tower of Babel) or Babylonian ;). Even Carthage was at it's height before Rome.
If you haven't discovered this page, you must check it out:
http://www.music.indiana.edu/tml/start.html
Thesarus Musicarum Latinarum
(I wouldn't have looked these things up if you hadn't started posting links!)
The "old Mass" in less than all its glory was usually something less than glorious. It wass not until mid-century that the dialogue mass caught on. Until that time any dialogue was largely between the priest and the altar boys. Meanwhile the congregation said their beads or read private devotional books. And as for Palesttrina, forget that. We heard mostly old Victorian saws or the kind of Italian operatic pieces that Pius X so hated.
Thank you for posting this!! It is my recollection from childhood. There was no air conditioning. The church in summer was hot, packed with sweaty bodies, the priest mumbled, the altar boys responded, the nuns used their clickers to let us know when to stand or kneel, the choir sang and we were nothing more than observers. As you pointed out, many in the congregation applied themselves to praying the rosary because it was nearly impossible to follow along with the mass. Now that it has practically faded into history, memories of those who miss it fixate on certain elements, like the Litany of the Saints.
Those who were never coffered into these cramped churches, romanticize what they imagine the mass must have been. They point to 'church attendance' as an indicator of how excellent it was. Nonsense! The churches were packed from fear of eternal damnation, which is what we were guaranteed if we missed Sunday Mass.
I am no fan of the new liturgy, and totally disdain the novelties introduced in the US that have robbed the Mass of its reverence, but it irks me immensely when I read the fantacies of those who never experienced the 'real' Latin Mass.
We need to say this after Mass again, Your Holiness. We really need St. Michael's protection now!
Haven't been called "Your Holiness" before.
I kinda like it. *Grins*
God Bless!
Habemus Pacham!
We started here.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0964321033/102-5975135-2454560?v=glance
bookmark
Your experience is not the same as everyone else's. Perhaps you had poor catechesis. My mother who is the same age as Pope Benedict XVI knew and understood the whole mass in Latin even though she never had a "part to play". She was taught the parts of the mass, their meaning, and Latin. On her own she used to attend daily mass at 6 am before school from first grade on through college. She still knows every traditional hymn in Latin by heart.
It is one of her greatest joys in old age to assist at the mass of her youth, the mass of the saints again, and to know that when she dies she will have a proper requiem mass.
My wife and I like to look through the song book to find the songs that have no reference to the Lord whatsoever. I can't understand why some of these songs are considered hymns at all.
Is that the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel?
AH HA!!!
That will be the next thing we study!!
We actually end Holy Mass with the prayer in English so now I can teach the girls!
Latin Catechism blend for my girls!!
I love it!
God bless you and yours... +
" Fiat lux "
Ok, thats.... " turn on the lights "
or is it
" we need light bulbs"
wheres my latin dictionary!
Let there be light.
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