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.
Amat victoria curam.
"I danced on a Friday and the sky turned black;
It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back;"
I'll never forget my mother turning to me in disgust and saying "He was NOT DANCING on that cross!!!!"
No school here tomorrow........
Heeheehee
>>God bless you and yours... +<<
And you my FRiend!
It brings tears to my eyes to hear my five year old say the sign of the cross the way my mom did when I was her age!
Puhlease!!! The words - "poor catechesis" - have become the excuse given by those who romanticizie what they never experienced. Did you attend the Latin Mass pre Vatican Council II? I did! Did you attend catholic school pre Vatican Coucil II? I did!
"Poor Catechesis" .... lol! We were fed and ingested the Baltimore Catechism, beginning with 1st grade.
"Why did God make us?"
"He made us to love and serve Him in this world and the next."
Unless you lived it (and, sorry, your mother does not qualify since she is too old), you can't begin to imagine what it was like back then. Don't get me wrong ... I fault no one. The good sisters were dealing with a "baby boom" post WWII. Class rooms were packed to overflowing. The average class size throughout the elementary school years, was 55 students to 1 nun. Sister ruled with an iron fist. There was no departmentalization. Whichever teacher we were assigned to was the one we had for every course throughout the entire school year, and in the same classroom.
In 7th grade, I developed a very painful rash on my chest. The diagnosis? To the amazement of the dermatologist, I was suffering from shingles, at age 12! I'm no saint but the stress imposed on these nuns was more than they could bear. As an adult, I can reflect on their experience - imagine 55 kids with popping hormones assembled in one classroom the entire day, for an entire year. Sister burned out and we were the most convenient outlet.
Unless you lived through those years, you can't begin to understand what it was like. The children were expected to attend the "Children's Mass" (usually 9am on Sunday). We abstained from Midnight and walked the mile to a packed church. The children were expected to sit with their classmates and Sister monitored all the activities. Clicker in hand, she clicked when it was time to kneel, clicked to stand, clicked to sit ... these were all signals. God forbid someone missed Sunday Mass, they were singled out on Monday morning and suffered the repercussions, humiliated before their peers.
As previously mentioned, I am no fan of the the contemporized liturgy; hence I now attend a Maronite Divine Liturgy for its reverence and total respect for the Blessed Sacrament. But, .... please .... don't ever suggest to me that I was improperly catechized. I had 12 years of solid 'pre-Vatican II' religious instruction. Of all my classmates, I am the ONLY one who still attends Mass on Sunday and have been labeled a 'religious fanatic' by many of my peers.
Here's an idea to start prepping for those classes...I have these:
what the heck does that mean?
My statement that you were poorly catechized was with regard to the mass, which seems likely to me by this statement you made:
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...
My eleven year old has only been going to TLM for less than a year, she is picking up the Latin faster than I can, she knows the parts of the mass and what they mean, she can easily follows the priest's actions, no one needs to tell her when to stand or kneel because she can follow in her missal, (also when to stand and kneel is perfectly tied to what is happening in the mass) and she knows why some parts are said in low voice.
"Hatred for the Latin language is inborn in the hearts of all the enemies of Rome. They recognize it as the bond among Catholics throughout the universe, as the arsenal of orthodoxy against all the subtleties of the sectarian spirit. . . . The spirit of rebellion which drives them to confide the universal prayer to the idiom of each people, of each province, of each century, has for the rest produced its fruits, and the reformed themselves constantly perceive that the Catholic people, in spite of their Latin prayers, relish better and accomplish with more zeal the duties of the cult than most do the Protestant people. At every hour of the day, divine worship takes place in Catholic churches. The faithful Catholic, who assists, leaves his mother tongue at the door. Apart form the sermons, he hears nothing but mysterious words which, even so, are not heard in the most solemn moment of the Canon of the Mass. Nevertheless, this mystery charms him in such a way that he is not jealous of the lot of the Protestant, even though the ear of the latter doesn't hear a single sound without perceiving its meaning .… . . . We must admit it is a master blow of Protestantism to have declared war on the sacred language. If it should ever succeed in ever destroying it, it would be well on the way to victory. Exposed to profane gaze, like a virgin who has been violated, from that moment on the Liturgy has lost much of its sacred character, and very soon people find that it is not worthwhile putting aside one's work or pleasure in order to go and listen to what is being said in the way one speaks on the marketplace. . . ."
Sorry Lady,
I don't feel sorry you a bit. Any number of people can sing your song, Unless you grew up in the post Vatican II debacle, You don't know what you are talking about.
When one of my closest childhoood friends put a bullet through his brain nearly 8 years ago, he went to confession just before he did it. He wasn't taught that suicide was a mortal sin! Crazy as it sounds, knowing that might've stopped him or at least bought some time for someone to help him.
Vatican II didn't stop the nuns from smashing kids heads into the blackboard. (Sister Cyril, thank you.) And smaller classrooms didn't stop it either. It was just more violent because the drugs the kids were on emboldened them to hit the nuns back. Of course we found out that the nun went to her shrink on Wednesday's so the kids would be extra bad on those days because she couldn't keep the class after school. oh Good times. I feel so lucky compared to your experience.
Meanwhile, while you were taught the Baltimore Catechism. We were taught the Baltimore Catechism and then taught that it was wrong. We had four different versions of the Act of Contrition between my siblings and I, each one more watered down than the one before.
We had Childrens Mass and then we didn't. So many of us just stopped going.
We were told to abstain from Midnight on. Then three hours, then one hour. Why bother at all?
Sister Mary Battle Axe never had a vocation. She needed three hots and a cot because the Church could give her that when she entered during the Depression and during the War. She used the Church and took it out on the kids.
The real nuns could handle 50 kids with no problem. I remember them. I was in those classes. Of course by the time I finished school those classes were emptying because of the loss of faith and the freebies from the public school system.
OH and as far as the Mass goes. The Novus Ordo was 3 years old when we were complaining about how boring it was. And it was always so pleasurable to be screamed at because we sat in silence and didn't give the responses or sing the crap new hymns loud enough for the apostate priest to go through the consecration in English like an Auctioneer.
So spare me your sob story about what you went through. All of the things you whined about didn't change because of the Old days. They got worse. You had a banquet. I had the leftovers. The kids today have nothing but poison.
beatus in gen dieseum!
(at least it still is, AZ time)
Dear Miss Victoria,
I had only hoped to make you laugh with my ' Three Stooges ' translation of the Latin. You didn't actually think I thought ' Let there be light ' translated to ' Let us buy light bulbs ' did you??!~
It's not a question of knowing the parts of the Mass - we were all well versed in them. You seem to have missed the point. The churches were packed. These were not "devotees" such as yourself, who seek the TLM. The Latin Mass was the only one. The priest praying with his back to the congregation, was quite incoherent. The altar boys said the responses, even though we followed along in our missals (I still have mine). The children sat apart from their parents; hence the clicking nuns.
It's impossible for someone who did not experience the Latin Mass, 40+ years ago, to grasp the situation.
Latin was the language of Christ's persecutioners.
Jesus spoke Aramaic. Does it not make more sense that the words of Institution be in their original form? Only a handful of Catholic Churches retain Aramaic as part of the liturgy.
On the contrary .... I watched in shock and horror as the churches were wreckovated by modernists bent on self-serving agendas. Nothing like being taught respect for the Eucharist which ONLY the priest may touch to being given communion by heavily perfumed ladies whose painted fingers now distributed communion.
The kids today have nothing but poison.
There I agree with you. It has been a challenge to raise a child with some modicum of orthodoxy in the post VCII Church. In our (now former) parish, we watched the spectacle of two gay priests making eyes at each other throughout the Easter Vigil Mass. That sent her packing and it was a huge struggle to get her all the way through Religious Education to Confirmation.
Your experience and mine is identical. It's not necessary to belittle me.
How you doin?
Ok... my Latin dictionary is no where to be found...
Victoria's Secret?
Just up... No Brett in camp?
What's up?
I heard Javon is holding out.
It brings tears to my eyes to hear my five year old say the sign of the cross the way my mom did when I was her age!
My youngest is starting to work on it as well.
Doesn't the English language derive its origins from Latin?
Certainly Hebrew is still taught today in the Synagogues.
I think what I find amazing is that Latin is still the universal language of the Catholic Church. I am grateful for the Mass in English, but certainly don't mind the edification of Latin to this old brain.
Blessings to you...
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