[ealgeone]

14. The Fathers of the Church in their time, especially Augustine, warmly recommended to the Catholic scholar, who undertook the investigation and explanation of the Sacred Scriptures, the study of the ancient languages and recourse to the original texts.[22] However, such was the state of letters in those times, that not many - and these few but imperfectly - knew the Hebrew language. In the middle ages, when Scholastic Theology was at the height of its vigor, the knowledge of even the Greek language had long since become so rare in the West, that even the greatest Doctors of that time, in their exposition of the Sacred Text, had recourse only to the Latin version, known as the Vulgate.

http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_30091943_divino-afflante-spiritu.html

If Latin was the only language available to the "greatest Doctors" then that partially explains part of the problems we see in Roman Catholicism.

[Hieronymus]

Linguistic knowledge ebbs and flows.

No doubt there are many causes to the present problems the Church faces, but I rather doubt that St. Thomas’ comparative lack of knowledge of Biblical languages is one of them. Augustine himself, while warmly recommending the study of the languages, had no Hebrew and was comparatively weak on Greek.

Why don’t you continue on to where Pius XII notes that any Catholic Scripture Scholar who neglects the study of these languages is guilty of “levity and sloth,” or quote Pius XI noting that every Catholic institute of higher education ought to make the Biblical Languages available (not required but available) to undergraduates?

[Elsie]

Isaiah was enough for the Ethiopian eunuch.