Following is a sample of texts in Church history pertaining to the Latin language, the nobility and encouragement of the language, as well as the glory of the Latin liturgy. Emphasis added.
If any one saith… that the mass ought to be celebrated in the vulgar tongue only…let him be anathema. (Council of Trent, Session 22, Canon 9, 1563)
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| Council of Trent by Pasquale Cati, 1588 |
Let all everywhere adopt and observe what has been handed down by the Holy Roman Church, the Mother and Teacher of the other churches, and let Masses not be sung or read according to any other formula than that of this Missal published by Us. This ordinance applies henceforth, now, and forever, throughout all the provinces of the Christian world... (Pope Pius V, Quo Primum, 1570)
The previous text from Pope Pius V does later in the apostolic constitution allow for pre-existing liturgies in other forms. However, I have included it above because of the force by which the Latin liturgy is elevated.
The first thing concerns fostering with every care and promoting the study of the Latin language in the literary schools of clerics; and gaining a grasp of this language, by knowing and using it, is important not merely for humanity and literature but also for religion. For the Church, since it contains all nations in its embrace, since it is going to endure until the consummation of the ages, and since it utterly excludes the common people from its governance, requires by its own nature a universal language, unchangeable, not that of the common people. Since Latin is such a language, it was divinely foreseen that it should be something marvellously useful for the Church as teacher, and that it should also serve as a great bond of unity for Christ’s more learned faithful; that is to say, by giving them not only something with which, whether they are separated in different locations or gathered into one place, they might easily compare the respective thoughts and insights of their minds, but also – and this is even more important – something with which they might understand more profoundly the things of mother Church, and might be united more closely with the head of the Church. (Pope Pius XI: Apostolic Letter Officiorum Omnium, August 1, 1922)
The use of the Latin language, customary in a considerable portion of the Church, is a manifest and beautiful sign of unity, as well as an effective antidote for any corruption of doctrinal truth. (Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, 1947)
Nor must we overlook the characteristic nobility of Latin formal structure. Its “concise, varied and harmonious style, full of majesty and dignity” makes for singular clarity and impressiveness of expression. … Since “every Church must assemble round the Roman Church,” and since the Supreme Pontiffs have “true episcopal power, ordinary and immediate, over each and every Church and each and every Pastor, as well as over the faithful” of every rite and language, it seems particularly desirable that the instrument of mutual communication be uniform and universal, especially between the Apostolic See and the Churches which use the same Latin rite. … Finally, 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. In addition, the Latin language “can be called truly catholic.” It has been consecrated through constant use by the Apostolic See, the mother and teacher of all Churches, and must be esteemed “a treasure … of incomparable worth.” It is a general passport to the proper understanding of the Christian writers of antiquity and the documents of the Church’s teaching. It is also a most effective bond, binding the Church of today with that of the past and of the future in wonderful continuity. (Pope John XXIII, Veterum Sapientia, 1962)
Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites. (Sacrosanctum Concilium, Second Vatican Council, 36.1, 1963)
While there are many motives that might have led a great number of people to seek a refuge in the traditional liturgy, the chief one is that they find the dignity of the sacred preserved there. After the Council there were many priests who deliberately raised ‘desacralization’ to the level of a program ... they put aside the sacred vestments; they have despoiled the churches as much as they could of that splendor which brings to mind the sacred; and they have reduced the liturgy to the language and the gestures of ordinary life, by means of greetings, common signs of friendship, and such things ... That which previously was considered most holy — the form in which the liturgy was handed down — suddenly appears as the most forbidden of all things, the one thing that can safely be prohibited. It is intolerable to criticize decisions which have been taken since the Council; on the other hand, if men make question of ancient rules, or even of the great truths of the Faith — for instance, the corporal virginity of Mary, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the immortality of the soul, etc. — nobody complains or only does so with the greatest moderation. (Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Address to the Bishops of Chile, 1988)
I am of the opinion, to be sure, that the old rite should be granted much more generously to all those who desire it. It’s impossible to see what could be dangerous or unacceptable about that. A community is calling its very being into question when it suddenly declares that what until now was its holiest and highest possession is strictly forbidden and when it makes the longing for it seem downright indecent. (Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Salt of the Earth, 1996)
For fostering a true consciousness in liturgical matters, it is also important that the proscription against the form of liturgy in valid use up to 1970 should be lifted. Anyone who nowadays advocates the continuing existence of this liturgy or takes part in it is treated like a leper; all tolerance ends here. There has never been anything like this in history; in doing this we are despising and proscribing the Church’s whole past. How can one trust her present if things are that way? I must say, quite openly, that I don’t understand why so any of my episcopal brethren have to a great extent submitted to this rule of intolerance, which for no apparent reason is opposed to making the necessary inner reconciliations within the Church. (Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, God and the World, 2000)
On the other hand, a variety of vocabulary in the original text should give rise, insofar as possible, to a corresponding variety in the translations. The translation may be weakened and made trite, for example, by the use of a single vernacular term for rendering differing Latin terms such as satiari, sumere, vegetari, and pasci, on the one hand, or the nouns caritas and dilectio on the other, or the words anima, animus, cor, mens, and spiritus, to give some examples. Similarly, a deficiency in translating the varying forms of addressing God, such as Domine, Deus, Omnipotens aeterne Deus, Pater, and so forth, as well as the various words expressing supplication, may render the translation monotonous and obscure the rich and beautiful way in which the relationship between the faithful and God is expressed in the Latin text. (Fifth instruction for the right implementation of the constitution on the sacred liturgy of the second vatican council, Liturgiam Authenticam, 51, 2001)
The previous text was one that ultimately discussed how to incorporate the vernacular mass, and in doing so, found itself admitting to the advantages of Latin.
The Popes and the Roman Church have found Latin very suitable for many reasons. It fits a Church which is universal, a Church in which all peoples, languages and cultures should feel at home and no one is regarded as a stranger. Moreover, the Latin language has a certain stability which daily spoken languages, where words change often in shades of meaning, cannot have. … Latin has the characteristic of words and expressions retaining their meaning generation after generation. This is an advantage when it comes to the articulation of our Catholic faith and the preparation of Papal and other Church Documents. … Blessed Pope John XXIII in his Apostolic Constitution, Veterum Sapientia, issued on 22 February 1962, gives these two reasons and adds a third. The Latin language has a nobility and dignity which are not negligible (cf. Veterum Sapientia, nn. 5, 6, 7). We can add that Latin is concise, precise and poetically measured. (Cardinal Francis Arinze, “Language in Liturgy,” 2006)
The Latin language has always been held in very high esteem by the Catholic Church and by the Roman Pontiffs. They have assiduously encouraged the knowledge and dissemination of Latin, adopting it as the Church’s language, capable of passing on the Gospel message throughout the world. This is authoritatively stated by the Apostolic Constitution Veterum Sapientia of my Predecessor, Blessed John XXIII. (Pope Benedict XVI, Motu Proprio: Latina Lingua, 2012)
Furthermore, after the 1960s, some riches of the liturgy were abandoned, such as its hieratic invariance, but also its geographic and historical unity, which was assured by Latin as the language of the liturgy, by the rites that had been handed down, by the beauty of its art and of the solemnity that accompanied it. The disappearance of linguistic unity in the liturgy in favor of the vernacular languages is, to my mind, one possible factor of division. … The Second Vatican Council explicitly demands that the Latin language be preserved. Have we been faithful to it? The use of Latin in some parts of the Mass can help us to rediscover the profound essence of the liturgy. Being a fundamentally mystical and contemplative reality, the liturgy is beyond the reach of our human activity. Nevertheless, it presupposes on our part some openness to the mystery being celebrated. Thus the conciliar Constitution on the Liturgy recommends a full understanding of the rites, and it prescribes “that the faithful may also be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 54). (Cardinal Robert Sarah, The Day is Now Far Spent, p. 137-138, 2019)
It must be remembered that, from a theological point of view, every valid celebration of a sacrament, by the very fact that it is a sacrament, is also, beyond any ecclesiastical legislation, an act of worship and, therefore, also a profession of faith. In that sense, it is not possible to exclude the Roman Missal, according to the UA [Usus Antiquior, i.e. Usage of Antiquity], as a valid expression of the lex orandi and, therefore, of the lex credendi of the Church. It is a question of an objective reality of divine grace which cannot be changed by a mere act of the will of even the highest ecclesiastical authority. (Cardinal Raymond Burke, Statement on the Motu Proprio Traditionis Custodes, July 22, 2021)
The Eucharist is to be celebrated in the Latin language or in another language provided the liturgical texts have been legitimately approved. (Code of Canon Law, #928)
