[ealgeone]

Point is they didn't attempt to teach them to read the Word in their native language. They kept it Latin for a reason.

They didn't want the common folk to read the Word....notice the Reformation happened as the Word became more available.

Your own USCCB admits catholics were not encouraged to read the Word until the 20th century.

[Mark17]

Your own USCCB admits catholics were not encouraged to read the Word until the 20th century.

When I was a catholic, I don't recall if they even hinted that I could not read the Bible, but wouldn't that be like a bull fighter putting a cape in front of a bull?

[Mrs. Don-o]

Latin was continent-wide --- it was the universal language of text. It was used, not because it was arcane, unknown, but because it was widely known. It was how Poles, Scotsmen, Sicilians and Swedes could communicate: like Esperanto, like a little Pentecost.

While it is true that independent reading of Scripture is a (comparatively) recent turn in Catholicism, all liturgical texts were based on Scripture. That's something I think most people don't grasp the significance of.

The more Scripture reading the better. The Catholic missionaries were all Scripture-translators: Cyril and Methodius into Slavic, Matteo Ricci into Mandarin, Isaac Jogues into Mohawk, Charles de Foucauld into Tuareg. I think the reason why this prospered more on the "peripheries" than in Europe, --- perhaps --- is because in Europe people saw the splitting and wrecking that occurred in the wake of the Protestant revolt: continent-wide warfare and the proliferation of belligerent movements: Lutherans against Anabaptists, Anglicans against Levelers, and on and on.

The Wars of Religion left Europeans exhausted and disgusted, and paved the way for the militantly antireligious "Enlightenment", the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars in its wake, and the secularization of Europe. You can see the results in the historic strongholds of the Reformation: the die-out of the faith in the British Isles, Scandanavia, northern Germany, the Netherlands.

It became appallingly clear that people who think they can appropriate Scripture for their own purposes, independently, may unwittingly be following the deceiver, the splinterer, Satan, who, as we know, can quote Scripture for his own purposes--- and does.

It doesn't have to turn out that way. With more charity, Scripture would lead to unity. That's what I would like to see.

[Elsie]

They kept it Latin for a reason.

A VAST number STILL wishes it was this way today!