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“So I must learn a new language to be saved and to be able to participate in a church service?...”

Not. So. Fast.

You are jumping to conclusions. Judge not a case without a full hearing.

Please take a few minutes to read the end of an article written on Latin, then reassess what we are doing.

Christians have been using Latin exclusively in the Mass for 1400 years. The includes Mr. Luther before he became an apostate.

Snippet:

Why not have Mass in English? “But would it not be better for the Catholic Church to conduct its worship in a language understood by the worshippers?” Yes, and no. The advantages of so doing are plausible in theory; the disadvantages render the idea difficult and even totally impracticable.

We do not intend to deny that, in the abstract, a service in the language of the country would be very useful – possibly preferable to a service in an unknown tongue; but the difficulties in the way of such action are so great that the Catholic Church has wisely persevered in offering her public worship in one language over the greater part of the world. Any other tongue than Latin is used only in certain Eastern rites -in communities which were never in close contact with Rome, and which have used Greek or Syriac or Arabic from the beginning of their history. Even in these the language employed in divine worship is not the spoken language of to-day, but an older form which is as un intelligible to the worshippers as Latin is to the average layman of our parishes.

“But why cannot the Catholic Church use English in England and French in France?” etc. Because she is a universal Church. A small sect or a “national church “ can use the language of the country in its worship. But the Catholic Church is not a national church. She has been appointed to “teach all nations.” She is not the church of the Italian, or the Englishman, or the Spaniard. She could, of course, translate her liturgy into any tongue, but a Mass in the language of any one nationality would be unintelligible to all the rest.

At present a priest can say Mass, privately or publicly, in almost any church in the whole world. If Mass was to be said in the language of the country only, he could celebrate only in private, and he would be forced to bring his own Mass-Book and server. Such a system (or lack: of system) would be unworkable in the Catholic Church – because she is Catholic.

Although in the course of centuries the Latin of Gaul was gradually modified into French, that of Italy into Italian, and that of Iberia into Spanish and Portuguese, the Church did not attempt to follow these changes in her language of worship. Nor has she tried to translate her liturgy into the myriad tongues of the nations and tribes that have come into her fold. She has deemed it wise to retain the use of Latin in her worship and her legislation.

Unity of Speech and of Faith. How well, in the Catholic Church, her oneness of speech seems to typify her unity of faith. More than that – it not only typifies but helps to preserve it. We can readily understand that it is of the utmost importance that the dogmas of religion should be defined with great exactness, in a language that always conveys the same ideas. Latin is now what we call a “dead language” — that is, not being in daily use as a spoken tongue, it does not vary in meaning.

It is very convenient for the Church to have Latin as her official language, as a means of communication between her members and her Head. To legislate for the Church’s good it is necessary from time to time to hold a General Council, at which the bishops of the entire world assemble. They all understand Latin; no interpreter is required. Every bishop writes often to Rome and goes at intervals to visit the Holy Father; and if there were no common language used in the Church, the Vicar of Christ would need to be familiar with more than the tongues of Pentecost if he would understand the German, the Spaniard, the Slav, the Japanese, or the countless others of many races to whom he would be obliged to listen.

“But do not the people suffer by this method?” No; they are instructed in religion in their own native tongue, whatever it may be-and we venture to say that, on the average, taking them as they are all over the world, our Catholic people know their religion at least as well as the Anglican or the Baptist. But the ceremonial of the Church is carried out in the grand old language of imperial Rome, where the Prince of the Apostles established the central government of Christ’s kingdom upon earth – a government which has endured while other kingdoms have risen and decayed and died – from which the light of God’s truth has shone farther and farther, century after century, into the dark places of the earth.

For the beginning of the article above, visit:

http://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/1035-traditional-catholic-answers

(Note: The above link is published by a group that sadly fails to recognize that “popes” of late are false due to their adherence to heresy, including as suggested by the popular “catholic” church of today abandoning Latin.)