I ran across another example of the war against Latin. Trying to inculcate a general resistance to Latin, some commentators have created a false story about the place of Latin in the twentieth century. An examination of the facts dispels this false narrative.

Msgr. Clement Connoll of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles labels the Latin language a companion of other supposedly misguided practices. Contrasting the repressiveness of the pre-conciliar Church with post-conciliar "freedom," Connoll writes in a 2002 Saint Patrick's Day homily:

We stand in a place where we are educated. We are free. We can look back and draw from the past and look into the future knowing that we need a renewed faith. It's a defining time in the life of the church, and we, the privileged participants in that time. I can look back and remember the beginnings when I celebrated Mass in Latin with my back to the people. Those days, if you ate meat on Friday, that was a mortal sin. If you were late for Mass, if you got in after the gospel, you were in sin.

I won't examine the twists of language by which Connoll's negative phrases like "Latin with my back to the people" can as easily become "Latin with my prayers directed to God," and I won't contrast today's disappearance of fasting, mortification, and piety to the times when the guidelines of canon law shepherded Catholics in their journey to spiritual perfection. The popularity of Philip Gröning's Into Great Silence attests to the attractiveness that traditional spiritual disciplines have for people even today. Rather, I intend today to focus on Connoll's claims about education and freedom. In a forthcoming entry, I'll trace the history of the Latin language in the twentieth century.

"We Are Educated." "We are free."

Connoll mistakes freedom for education. Not observing the Friday fast and coming late (or not at all) to Mass are indeed examples of the liberties that some experts like Connoll encourage Catholics to take. These "freedoms," however, don't demonstrate that we, in contrast to those of the past, "stand in a place where we are educated." The loss of the old disciplines and scruples proves rather that we today understand far less about our history and our obligations. In reality, Connoll's term "educated" really connotes "careless," in its most literal sense. Today, we don't care about spiritual habits and the reasoning behind them. We care about the moment. We care about our immediate convenience. We care about our own petty concerns. We feel "free" from obligations, but this freedom is a false freedom that relies on ignorance, not on education. We aren't educated. We know little about the past, except as it appears in the mythical and grotesque sound-bites that Connoll and others offer: Because of rhetoric like Connoll's, we "know" only that the Catholic past was somehow foreign and repressive.

The history of the Church cries out against the accusation that Connoll levies against the past. Is it because we're better educated that we today prefer Reality TV to Fulton Sheen? Is it because we're better educated that our theologians today have abandoned the study of Latin, in opposition to the Vatican's instructions? Is it because we're better educated that nearly 75% of Catholics no longer believe in the Real Presence? We're free. We aren't educated.