Posted on 05/13/2011 8:27:14 AM PDT by Brian Kopp DPM
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican told Catholic bishops around the world on Friday they had to obey a papal order allowing priests to say the old-style Latin mass for traditionalist Catholics, whether they liked it or not.
The Vatican issued an "instruction" to bishops as a follow-up to a 2007 papal decree authorizing the wider adoption of the Latin Mass, which was in universal use before the 1962-1965 Vatican Council introduced masses in local languages.
...The five-page instruction from the Vatican's doctrinal department, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, made it clear that the pope wants bishops to follow his orders.
...While couched in polite, institutional language, the instruction said local parishes had to insert a Latin mass into their liturgical schedules if tradionalist faithful wanted it.
...A Vatican official said recently that only a third of the world's bishops responded to a Vatican questionnaire and that prejudice against the old mass was "still widespread."
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
I got a chuckle out of that myself. :)
OOPS!
That was a graphic our local newspaper put together for advertising purposes (i.e., it was their mistake). Fortunately, we picked up that little error, but I had saved this version of the ad on my hard drive.
“I wonder: In what language do these folks suppose the Church should write her Liturgy and teaching?”
Erethay isay onlyay oneay olutionsay...
Eegardsfray
For those who learn Latin it requires no translation and ain't speaking in tongues!
BBC News Europe
13 May 2011 Last updated at 12:06 ET
Vatican instructs more priests to say Mass in Latin
The Vatican has instructed priests to allow the celebration of Mass in Latin if traditional congregations demand it.
The so-called Tridentine Mass remains rare, despite a 2007 papal decree ordering its wider use for Catholics uncomfortable with modern rites.
The ‘old rite’ was abandoned in most churches more than 40 years ago, in favour of services in local languages.
The move is part of an effort to bridge differences between traditionalists and progressives in the Church.
Traditionalists object to the fact that only a third of dioceses worldwide have implemented the 2007 decree, which is partly due to a lack of priests trained in Latin, correspondents say.
The new Vatican document instructs bishops to make more space and time available for groups wishing to celebrate the old Latin Mass, adding that both the old and the modern rites are equally valid.
It also calls for Latin instruction for priests wishing to celebrate it. But it admits that with ever fewer priests having a working knowledge of Latin, this is going to be difficult in some parts of the world.
“There are going to be a lot of happy traditionalists,” Reverend John Zuhlsdorf, a commentator and columnist told the AP news agency.
Others have criticised the directive, suggesting it could create a rupture in the Church.
What Pope Benedict is now trying to do is to heal the rift between those Catholics who regard the attempted restoration of the old Latin rite as a step backwards, and the traditionalists who are nostalgic for the old Church liturgy, says the BBC’s David Willey in Rome.
A serious breach which occurred in the 1970s when a traditionalist French Bishop was excommunicated for rejecting the reforms of the second Vatican council and insisting on the continuation of the Latin Mass.
Not a Roman Catholic myself, but you can't be this ignorant.
I believe you may be thinking of the common, garden variety of "don't know no better" ignorance, which can be corrected by supplying missing information.
Arrogant and willful ignorance, by contrast, and like the cold, empty space which it most closely resembles, is limitless and does not happily accept correction because the willfully ignorant person's self-image and sense of his own righteousness are too closely connected to his despite of the group he is defaming.
I have no way, of course, of knowing which group of the ignorant the person you quote belongs to, but knowing as I do a number of Catholics who do in fact read the Bible, I would like to suggest to him that either (a) his sample of Catholics may not be large enough for him make such a blanket declaration, or (b) his assertion is based on a common anti-Catholic libel he has learned from others, and not from his own experience.
How he might respond to such an attempt at correction could help determine in which category he belongs--or whether, in fact, he is simply and innocently mistaken--which may be the actual case. My sincere apologies if my post comes off as too snarkily confrontational--I have my own blind spots I have to deal with and really can't afford to be a prig about things.
The mind boggles when faced with such reasoning.
Latin mass without translation is speaking in tongues and strictly FORBIDDEN.YAAAAWNNNNN....................
Roman Roads, Roman Pax and Roman Language. Explain how these three things contributed to the spread of Christianity.
I want to attend the Sunday Mass in Patton SO BADLY, but hubby doesn’t want to drive that far. If it were up to me, we’d join your parish. We are going to a local NO parish with a more traditional priest. Just four miles from us.
But it’s not the same....
I continue to pray that the Latin Mass will return to our diocese.
:-(
Well, gosh, the men's and women's bible study groups in my Catholic parish will be surprised to know that!
I suppose to most of the world's Catholics a mass in English is in tongues.
No offense meant, faucetman, but this Catholic, while a mere imperfect man, who certainly could stand to read the Bible more, has his in his backpack every day he goes to either job (Douay/Confraternity and study Bibles), on his work phone and nook. The latter two are Douay-Rheims. the study Bibles are by Dr. Sungenis. We belong to what is often called the Latin rite Catholic Church. While Latin is a dead language, it was quite lively when the Catholic Church began using it, TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO. Not at all meaning to sound anything other than suggestive, please, read some history of the Roman Catholic Church. That might give a different perspective, and will surely increase your font of knowledge regarding why we use this language.
Oh, faucetman, you had me chuckling at the people who didn’t get your joke.
The Latin is always interpreted in a Catholic church; typically, there was a side-by-side translation from Latin into English in the missal. The extemperaneous portions were spoken in English.
And for the record, every Catholic mass is comprised in part of three to four bible readings: a reading from the Old Testament, Acts or Revelation; a reading from an Epistle; a psalm or canticle*; and a gospel reading. (In some weekday masses, the first reading is omitted; in some Sunday masses, the psalm or canticle is replaced by a song based on the psalm or canticle, but the Vatican has been trying to require only songs based word-for-word on the psalm or canticle.) Nearly all the prayers composed from direct lines from scripture. What you don’t have is the pastor constantly pausing for the congregation to find the passage in their own bibles.
(*A canticle is prophesy from the bible which was given in the form of a song or sung poem.)
Hebrew and Aramaic are not unrelated. They are two partially mutually intelligible branches of the Levantine Semitic language family. However, to really make your point, the evidence which was once cited to suggest that the gospels were late-second-century forgeries is now interpreted to show that the evangelists’ Jewish society was immersed enough in Greek as to use it as a lingua franca; St. John was a Jew who composed his thoughts in Greek when he wrote.
Further, the use of two languages, or at least tonalities, in a society is actually more common than America’s use of only one. Typically, there is a formal language and a colloquial language. For instance, Most of the third world uses a colonial language for literature, government and commerce, while retaining a local language for informal conversation. The entire Muslim world reads Arabic, but speaks local languages; In Europe, Jews read Hebrew, but spoke local languages, giving rise to Yiddish when German and Hebrew intermingled. In Japanese, the written characters have no relation to spoken characters, and an entire new set of characters were created to translate spoken characters to text.
Even in traditional English, Anglo-Saxon was “common” and French or Latin, “cultured.” Hence, the middle-men would, for instance, kill “sweine,” “cattle,” or “deere” (Anglo-saxon) and present it to the Lords as “porc,” “beouf,” or “venisson” (French).
‘I think Hebrew was the common language of Jews at that time’
Hebrew is used as a living language far more in Israel today than it was at the time of Christ. Virtually everyone spoke Aramaic, the language of the former Kingdom of Aram in part of what is now Syria, which was the language of most locals in that part of the world for hundreds of years. Religious leaders spoke Hebrew the way most Roman Catholics spoke Latin 50 years ago, by rote, and without much understanding. Highly educated people spoke the literary language of the entire eastern Mediterraenean, which is to say Koine Greek. Folks who dealt with the Roman governing officials and military officers spoke Latin.
For you it’s a ROMAN Catholic thing. The Dead Sea Scrolls were written in Hebrew. Were the ten commandments written in Latin on those stone tablets?
Thank you, dangus; I hadn’t realized I’d written “UNrelated” in my post. However, your explanation is far superior to mine and thus you made my point better than I did.
I’ve always been fascinated with the English/French connection, and remember learning about “cow” vs. “beef” and “chicken” vs. “poultry” as a child. It spawned a lifelong interest in stories about the time of the Norman Invasion (and earlier): Beowulf, Canterbury Tales, the Arthurian legends, etc. Now that youtube is here, I even get to hear these words spoken aloud! Fabulous!
Regards,
PS: It’s my own opinion, of course, but I always thought of Jesus and His followers as being quite a bit like Europeans in their ability to speak many languages. Due to their proximity to one another and their need to communicate in order to conduct the businesses of carpentry and fishing, it seems to me that they’d HAVE to be able to converse not only in Aramaic and Hebrew, but also, to some extent, in Greek and Latin as well. Of course, being God, Jesus would have been able to speak any language at all, I imagine...
I know lots of Bible Christians. They are great people. If they ran the world, it would be a much better place.
BUT
As to matters of church, conduct, worship, family life, etc - the Holy Ghost must be very confused, since He tells them so many different things.
John 14:26: "But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you."
Either the Holy Ghost has the promised authority to TEACH YOU (plural) IN ALL THINGS, or He doesn't.
But if He does, Bible Christianity cannot possibly be true - just look around you for the proof.
To the rest of you, I want to thank you for your responses to my provocative post. For the most part they were civil. I'm a big boy and can take it.
I am going to take the occasion of KC Burke's long post to finalize my thoughts on this matter and cease and desist on this topic. Not that it hasn't been fun, but if I have provoked your thinking and have caused a little more bible study, I'm a happy camper. It was never my intention to try to convert Catholics to Protestants. If we all believe that Christ died on the cross for our sins, that he rose again so we could have everlasting life, that we are sinners who have repented of our sins, and we accept Him as our Savior, then we are brothers and sisters in Christ. The TRUE “CHURCH”.
Romans 14:4 (New International Version)
4 Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.
So, not judging, just questioning, examining, discussing.
Now on to KC Burke....
“You started out saying, “No joke.” and perhaps you intended it as a deflection for your false criticism against fellow Christians, but it hardly suffices from a broadside attack at the seriousness to which each member of this forum holds their faith.”
deflection? sincere. broadside attack? hardly.
“seriousness to which each member of this forum holds their faith.” With all due respect, if your faith is so weak, that you can't defend it with facts & scripture, or you blindly follow it without question, then it isn't a faith that you have, it is only a “Religion”.
“The argument about language is poorly presented in my humble opinion.”
Perhaps I was unclear. The bible, God's word, was written in two languages. Hebrew and Greek. Are you questioning His wisdom in choosing these languages? Did He make a mistake? Should He have used Latin instead? (I know you don't think that, just making a point).
When reading, or hearing the Holy scripture, I want the closest I can get to the original meaning, yet in a language I can understand. While most translations have value, and I don't discount the Holy Spirit's power in imparting understanding to me, God did have His word written down in a book for us to read and study. He decided the time, the place, and the language for this all important book to be written. Since ONE WORD can influence the entire meaning of a verse, I want to do my very best to understand the original meaning. Not what some priest tells me it means. Not what some Pastor tells me it means. I'll listen, but I will decide for myself by reading His word.
I often check my concordance for the original meaning in Greek and Hebrew for pivotal words in passages.
“Likewise, there are plenty of issues with the KJV being the alpha and omega of translations that don't go along with your insistence upon no-translation being required and many Protestants that look with reverence on the KJV take offense when it is belittled by others in a debate on this forum that doesn't stick to strict historical context.”
We can agree on those points. The KJV is not for today. It is not written in the English language understood today. (The same could be said about Latin).
“The are plenty of religious forums across the Internet where Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox, Coptics, Anglicans, Calvinists and all the many denominations can have arguments about the details for true and false, correct and incorrect, valid and invalid expression and exercise of Christianity. We belittle our fellowship as conservatives on this forum however, if we don't, at a minimum, acknowledge that HERE we all are at least (small “o”) orthodox in our belief.”
I didn't know about these “rules”. Dr. Brian Kopp started the thread not me. I was commenting on the use of Latin, which is what the thread was about.
“Save the denominational one-ups-manship for other religious debate forums. We're busy saving the USA.”
Your argument is with Dr. Brian Kopp. “one-ups-manship”?
unaware of my doing that. Maybe it's in the translation of one-ups-manship.
I do agree that we need to defeat the racist, Black Liberation Theology, Muslim, traitor & chief, who is not my brother in ANY sense of the word. He, and his minions are out to destroy this country with the help of Satan. We must (attention, Christian speak coming) stand in the gap.
Again thank you for a lively debate. Hopefully we all learned something, I know I did. I must move on to other things. May God bless America.
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