"Sorry, but THAT just won't wash. At SOME point, the dogma HAS to be translated accurately into the local vernacular in order to explain the faith to potential converts."
"Otherwise, the FIRST thing the RC church would have to do would be to teach Latin classes."
Really? Prior to Vatican II, in the U.S., there were 150,000 conversions per year. Now, there are 60,000. Doesn't look like removing Latin from the liturgy has really helped that one. Read "Index of Leading Catholic Indicators."
The Mass embodies the truths of the Faith. Every Latin Mass had Latin/English missals with ACCURATE translations. The people knew their parts of the Mass "in Latin." It is a principle called "repetitio est mater studiorum," and I am certain you can understand what that means, even if you don't understand Latin.
Your argument, especially in an issue that does not concern your Church, about Hebrew and Aramaic is silly. Neither of those languages were ever adapted as the official language of the Church. Latin was. Latin is. Latin will be forever.
Una Voce. You don't want to consider a real answer. You just want to argue. Have your opinions all you want, but since you are not Catholic, I wander why you really even care.
Which has absolute NOTHING whatsoever to do with the necessity to accurately translate the RC dogma into native languages.
"Every Latin Mass had Latin/English missals with ACCURATE translations. The people knew their parts of the Mass "in Latin." It is a principle called "repetitio est mater studiorum," and I am certain you can understand what that means, even if you don't understand Latin.
So, if every missal had an ACCURATE English translation, why say the mass in Latin rather than English.
Why the fixation that the Mass MUST be said in Latin to be "accurate"?? You're trying to have it both ways.
"Your argument, especially in an issue that does not concern your Church, about Hebrew and Aramaic is silly. Neither of those languages were ever adapted as the official language of the Church. Latin was. Latin is. Latin will be forever."
Not at all silly. Aramaic and Hebrew were the first languages of the Church---NOT Latin. So there has already had to be ONE set of accurate translations from the original language into Latin.
"Una Voce. You don't want to consider a real answer. You just want to argue. Have your opinions all you want, but since you are not Catholic, I wander why you really even care."
Because I'm trying to get an answer that actually makes sense--which yours DO NOT. The best one so far has been from "ClearBlueSky", who says it is because of an affection for tradition. I suspect she is correct, and it is nothing more than that.
Actually, Jones says 80,000. But then, USA TODAY says this, in 2003:
"I am finally becoming who I was meant to be," Matthew Stiles says. The Boston College freshman leaves behind his Methodist boyhood to join 160,000 men and women in becoming Roman Catholic this Easter season.
Source. I also saw the 150,000 figure for converts to the Church this year.
And Jones says that the Church has grown, in the US, from 45 million to 65 million in the last 37 years.
Jones' conversion figures differ significantly from other sources.