Why The Latin Mass?
©Prax Maskaren de Sangolda, 16th Marz 2003. Sant Juliano de Cilicia, M.
There is a lively controversy over the Catholic Church's legislation of about five hundred years ago, mandating the Roman Rite of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and in the Latin language, and the Antichurch's adoption of its sister protestantism's policy of a Communitarian service (Synaxis) and in the vernacular.
We will take the objection of 'Heloise' as representative of the view opposite to that of the Catholic Church as expressed and enshrined by the Holy Œcumenical and General Council of Tridentium and by Pope St. Pius V: latinmass1.html
In a nutshell, she says that if the reasons for insisting on Latin are correct, then we should insist, not on Latin, but on Aramaic and/or Greek; but if this is evidently not necessary, so that we can recourse to Latin, then it should be just as acceptable to have the Consecration in the vernaculars. I hope that I have got her argument right.
Tom Vicks and others have already given a good response to this objection, which is also to be found on the above page. And another good reply is that provided by Frs. Rumble & Carty in their Radio Replies, 1941: rr.v3.c12.html
However, I too will attempt an answer.
At the outset, I will confess that this is an issue that has foxed me too for long, and that I too have espoused the same views that 'Heloise' here has espoused. It has taken me a long time to be able to reach to the position where I believe as I do below:
It is true that the Consecration, as instituted by our Lord, was in the Aramaic language spoken in Israel at the time. However, our Lord did not prescribe any particular language for the rite, so that the Apostles and disciples, in their missionary endeavours, used the local languages legitimately in the Mass. Thus arose most of the original rites, with their different liturugical languages and variations in the rite of the Mass.
Again, however, our Lord did give the Church broad powers to govern itself and to set laws on faith, morals and the discipline of the faith ("Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatsoever you shall loosen on earth shall be loosend in heaven"). And, being provoked by the need of legislating on this subject by the Anarchy arising out of the Protestant Deformation, the Church did legislate, validly and justly, completely within its competence, that the Rite as used by the Church of Rome, and in the Latin language, was to be preferred to all other rites and to be taken as the universal norm.
Yet, there is another aspect to this legislation.
When we study the last Council of the Church, the Holy Œcumenical and General Council of the Vatican, 1869-70, we find its iterated insistence on the pre-eminence and indefectibility of the Roman Church, and that its faith is always to be taken as the norm for all believers anywhere in the world. This - Romanism - is one of the main fundamentals of the Catholic religion.
In teaching this doctrine, the Holy Council reiterated numerous previous Councils of the Church on the same topic, so that there is no ground for pretending that this teaching is a novelty. [See: pastoraeternas.html]
Therefore, it makes sense that the Rite of the Roman Church, whose faith is always the norm for the faith for any believer anywhere in the world, should be preferred above all other rites, for the universal Rite of the Church, when the Church had developed to the point that it needed to legislate for this.
But let us go further: If the Church could legislate this one day, cannot it reverse this legislation? Cannot it permit the creation of valid rites with a true Consecration?
Another way this is put is: If one legitimate pope can legislate one discipline, another pope can negate that and legislate a different discipline. This because the Popes constitute on hierarchial person, because no one pope is superior in power to another and therefore they have exactly the same powers and rights.
This is true. However, while theoretically what one pope legislates can be undone, mitigated or reversed by another pope within the bounds of legitimate discipline, there are some acts which are enacted by and under the guidance of the Holy Ghost and so, by their very nature, are irreversible.
When the Church legislated the Roman Rite as the Universal Rite, it was an act of progress under the guidance and direction of the Holy Ghost, as empowered and promised to the Church by our Lord. Therefore, a wholesale reversion of this legislation is in itself a regression and an implicit rejection of the validity of the guidance of the Holy Ghost in the past, which (claim of) guidance (on the part of the Holy Œcumenical and General Council of Tridentium and of Pope St. Pius V) has never been seriously and effectively challenged and shown to be false and wrong. Therefore, such a rejection of this legislation is implicitly a heresy, an affront and blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.
However, keeping aside 'wholesale' regression, the Church can and has, in the (recent) past permitted an exception, according to necessity and exigency, permitting a modern, recently created rite... Thus, for example, when Ivanious Mar Geevarghese (Gregorious), a theologian and a Jacobite archbishop in one of the Jacobite sect factions in Kerala, India, found that the Schism of the Broken Cross (Koonamkirusu) was unjustified, and proposed a return to Rome, H.H. Pope Pius XI permitted the creation of the 'Syro-Malankara' Rite based on the Antiochene Rite but using the vernacular of Kerala, Malayalam, as the liturgical language. Ivanious Mar Geevarghese and his followers were reconciled on 20th and 21st September 1930, and the Malankara Unitate Rite was established by H.H. Pope Pius XI by his Apostolic Constitution, Christo Pastorum Principi of 11th June, 1932.
However, such a step is actually only an indulgence in order to permit the reconciliation of schismatics, and should not be misunderstood as legitimising wholesale exemptions from Quo Primum
Heloise also wrote: "Why isn't the Consecration in Aramaic? If the exact words of Christ are necessary for the Consecration, why was it permissable to translate into Latin? AND - if it was permissable to translate His words into Latin and still be valid, why isn't it permissable to translate them into English and still be valid? I would think, the Canon would be said in Greek, the original language of the Gospels.
I cannot see where the consecration can be valid being translated into Latin, but not valid being translated into English. I see both as compromising the true words of Christ since no translation, no matter how accurate, can be the EXACT words of Christ."
Heloise, one must remember that the Roman Rite is not created from the Bible readings. Rather, it was created before the Bible could have been completely written down, and by the first Pope, St. Peter himself, aided and assisted by his partner in the foundation of the Roman Church - St. Paul. Therefore, the Roman Rite is among the oldest rites. Therefore it is a misunderstanding that the Canon is developed or translated from the Greek, for it is not that the faith was imparted to the Romans by the Greeks, but by the Apostles, Hebrews, simultaneously to the Greeks and to the Romans...
And as for authenticity of translation, I believe that this misapprehension too is unnecessary. It is certainly possible to translate accurately and convey the correct sense, even the exact purport. And remember that this work was and is aided by and guaranteed by the Holy Ghost, so that it is not merely a human effort. The Apostles and Fathers took a great deal of trouble to convey accurately in the Greek the Aramaic words of our Lord; Are we to understand that Sts. Peter, Paul, Mark, etc., who helped create the Roman Rite, were careless?
Lastly, it is necessary not to allow ourselves to be confused over issues and to keep perspective. As Tom Vicks and Arul Gnanaraj have already emphasized, the main issue is not Quo Primum or Latin vs. the vernacular; it is about what ideology we believe in.
As Catholics, we could conceivably have a Swedish rite invented or permitted as an indulgence, say, for example, for some Swedish protestants returning to Christianity and who have retained the Apostolic succession. However, some things we can never permit: Minister facing the people across a table rather than celebrating the service facing the Altar or the blasphemous, sacrilegous and deliberate falsification of the words of our Lord as 'for all' rather than 'for many', etc.
Yours sincerely,
Prax Maskaren