The Weightiest of Reasons: The Pope and Latin in the Liturgy 

 Weightiest of Reasons 

And We also, impelled by the weightiest of reasons — the same as those which prompted Our Predecessors and provincial synods  — are fully determined to restore [the Latin] language to its position of honor, and to do all We can to promote its study and use .  . . so as to ensure that the ancient and uninterrupted use of Latin be maintained and, where necessary, restored. (Veterum Sapientia)

Who would you guess authored the quote above? Would it surprise you to know that it was Pope St. John XXIII? But wasn’t he the pope who called the Second Vatican Council? And didn’t Vatican II do away with Latin?  

 The Latin Language is to be Preserved 

Yes and No. Pope John was indeed the pope who convoked Vatican II. Contrary to the common misconception, however, the council did not retire the Latin language. Furthermore, as the quote above demonstrates, John XXIII would have strenuously opposed any attempts to do so. In any case, the council and the pope were in agreement. Vatican II’s decree on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, says quite directly: “The use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites.” (SC §36 n1) Both the council fathers and Pope John saw no inherent conflict between preserving Latin and allowing some use of the vernacular in the liturgy.

John XXIII was quite ready to provide reasons for his defense of the Latin language. The quote above, in fact, is from his apostolic constitution Veterum Sapientia (The Wisdom of the Ancients). He promulgated this decree in February 1962, just a few months before the opening of the council.  Pope John invokes his predecessor, Pope Pius XI who, he says, “conducted a scientific inquiry into this whole subject.”  Pope John approvingly cites the previous pope’s Apostolic Letter Officiorum Omnium. Here Pope Pius writes: “For the Church, precisely because it embraces all nations and is destined to endure to the end of time … of its very nature requires a language which is universal, immutable, and non-vernacular [my italics].” Pope John then offers a brief discussion of each one of those points.

 Universal 

The first point is that Latin is universal. Pope John quotes St. Irenaeus, who asserted that “every Church must assemble round the Roman Church.” The popes have “true episcopal power” over the entire church, Pope John points out. This authority covers bishops, priest, and the lay faithful. And so “it seems particularly desirable that the instrument of mutual communication be uniform and universal.”

Given that,

When, therefore, the Roman Pontiffs wish to instruct the Catholic world, or when the Congregations of the Roman Curia handle matters or draw up decrees which concern the whole body of the faithful, they invariably make use of Latin, for this is a maternal voice acceptable to countless nations.

All the various entities within the universal Catholic Church know Latin. It is also part of their ecclesial heritage, especially for Roman Rite Catholics. Catholics everywhere know Latin.

Immutable 

Next, Latin is immutable, that is, unchanging.  “Modern languages,” Pope John reminds us, “are liable to change, and no single one of them is superior to the others in authority.” If we tried to preserve the “truths of the Catholic Church” only in one or more modern languages, the meanings of the words would vary from one language to the next, and there would be no benchmark we could use to determine how valid those understandings were.

Latin provides that authoritative voice, and serves as that benchmark: “It is set and unchanging. it has long since ceased to be affected by those alterations in the meaning of words which are the normal result of daily, popular use.”  And while certain words “acquired new meanings” to better express Christian teaching, “these new meanings have long since become accepted and firmly established.”

 Non-Vernacular 

“Finally,” Pope John explains, “the Catholic Church has a dignity far surpassing that of every merely human society, for it was founded by Christ the Lord. It is altogether fitting, therefore, that the language it uses should be noble, majestic, and non-vernacular.”  Vernacular language is limited to a particular people in a particular time.  Latin faces no such limitations.  Pope John offers three further reasons why Latin’s non-vernacular character is of such great value to the Church:

Consecrated through Constant Use 

‘It has been consecrated through constant use by the Apostolic See.’ In other words, instead of being the native language of just one constituent part of the Church, it’s the native language of the Church itself.

 Passport to Proper Understanding 

‘It is a general passport to the proper understanding of the Christian writers of antiquity and the documents of the Church’s teaching.’ Latin is the language in which St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and countless other Catholic theologians and philosophers formulated their ideas. It is also the primary language of all but a few of the Church’s doctrinal formulations.  Latin is our only means of encountering these fundamental texts directly, without having to get past the distortions inherent in translation.

 A Most Effective Bond 

‘It is also a most effective bond, binding the Church of today with that of the past and of the future in wonderful continuity.’ I discussed a similar idea in my earlier talks. It’s like the Laying on of Hands, that unbroken chain of human touch starting with Jesus himself and continuing through every bishop today. Or, it is like the sensation of visiting a historic site such as Gettysburg and feeling the immediate, physical reality of long-ago events. We’re no longer talking about mere information.  It has become something bound up with our experience.

Something similar, and even more profound, happens when we celebrate the Mass, recite the psalms, or pray Christian prayers in Latin. We’re not simply expressing the same ideas, we’re enunciating the same words, syllable for syllable, uttered by centuries of our forebears in the faith, including some of the greatest saints.

 Continuing Use 

These are some of those Weightiest of Reasons that Pope St. John XXIII gave for continuing the use of Latin in the Church. There’s more, which I’ll cover in the future.  In any case, you don’t need to take my word for it. After all, the Pope of Vatican II himself was a big promoter of Latin in the Liturgy.

Featured image top of page: statue of St. Peter, photo by tama66 via Pixabay.

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https://spesindomino.org/its-greek-to-me-the-kyrie