An Argument for the Preservation of the Latin Rite

Étienne Gilson, writing in 1962:

Latin is the language of the Church. The sorry degradation of the liturgical texts by their translation into a gradually deteriorating vernacular emphasizes the need for the preservation of a sacred language whose very immutability protects them from the decay of taste. (The Philosopher and Theology, Cluny Media, 2020, p. 6)

Now why hadn't that argument occurred to me? It is so plainly cogent, and more apropos now than it was at the beginning of Vatican II.

'Thanks' to the internet, the degeneration of the various vernaculars is accelerating.  Attempts to hold the line are rear-guard actions in the main. There is need of a dead language to offset the liturgy's slide into the morass of leftist cultural crapola.

Death renders  immutable what was.

Comments

[Elliott]

Hi Bill. I like "the decay of taste."

Latin is to linguistic taste decay as dental hygiene is to tooth decay.

[BV]

Hi Elliot,

The preservation of the old rite may also help combat TRUTH decay.

I just started that book by Gilson and it looks good. Autobiographical.

On the dental hygiene front, I recently suoplemented my usual dental prophylaxis with use of a WaterPik. Amazingly effective contraption, especially when used in conjunction with flossing, brushing, and rinsing.

Send me you preferred mailing address and I will snail you gratis a paperback copy of a book I just published, Life's Path: Some Trail Notes, when my author's copies arrive.

https://www.amazon.com/Lifes-Path-Some-Trail-Notes/dp/B0DCR33VMD

[Joe Odegaard]

Gilson also wrote "The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy," which Merton mentions in Seven Storey Mountain as a book which strongly influenced him in a good way. I haven't read it, but it is on my list of books to read. Here's a review:

https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Mediaeval-Philosophy-Etienne-Gilson/dp/0268017409

[Vito B. Caiati]

Bill,

The Novus Ordo, of course, ensures and exalts the very “decay of taste” of which Gilson speaks, a decay that is manifest not only in its theologically and liturgically deficient texts but its elimination of almost all the ancient, highly reverential rubrics that are inherent in the Old Rite and that make it worthy of God and spiritually and aesthetically transformative for man, from the ad orientem stance of the priest; to the numerous genuflections of the priest, servers, and congregation; the symbolic displacements on the altar of the sacred scriptures from right (Mass of the Catechumens) to left (Mass of the Faithful); the repeated [52 times] sign of the cross; the use of incense and Gregorian chant, the disposition of the maniple on the altar and the wearing of the beretta to distinguish the Mass proper from the homily, and so on. As with the Latin language, each of these fixed rubrics are a barricade against the inevitable corruption of worship by the invasion of commonplace speech and gesture.

Regarding Latin, Michael Fiedrowicz (The Traditional Latin Mass: History, Form, and Theology of the Classical Roman Rite, 154) writes: "If sacred languages existed in numerous cultures and almost all epochs of history, and still continue to exist, this fact is an expression of a fundamental human need. In the background stands a particular religious experience that shapes and changes speech and language. It is the experience of something supernatural, divine, transcendent, and wholly other, to which man seeks to respond by using a language that differentiates itself from the form of everyday speech by means of a sacred stylization. Here lies the origin of the so-called hieratic or “priestly” languages. Far from creating a language barrier, the sacred language calls to mind that religion has “something else” to say to man. THE SACRED LANGUAGE PREVENTS MAN FROM DRAGGING THE DIVINE DOWN TO HIS OWN LEVEL, AND INSTEAD LIFTS MAN UP TO THE DIVINE [my emphasis by capitalization], which it does not, however, reveal and expose completely to the human understanding, but instead indicates as a mystery."

From the moment that the priest utters “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Santi. Amen. Introibo ad altare Dei” and the servers responds, “Ad Deum qui laetificat iuventutem meam," we know in mind and heart that we are entering a sacred, protected space, one in which we are, so to speak, told to “[P]ut off the shoes from thy feet: for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.”

Vito

[Elliott]

Bill, I’d love to read your book. Thanks! I’ll email you.

Truth decay is a serious concern. I sometimes suspect that too many folks don’t care about truth unless it happens to be useful to them. (In those cases, they seek some other end, and truth is the means thereto.) Otherwise, they prefer useful falsehoods.

Regarding dental hygiene: I brush twice/day, floss once, use a dental soft pick twice/week, and see the dentist twice/year. He has suggested a WaterPik but I haven’t tried it yet. I don’t want to add another task to my dental routine unless doing so makes a significant difference given what I already do.

But your endorsement of the WaterPik is helpful. How often do you use it?

[Elliott]

Bill,

In my previous comment, I mentioned negligence about the truth. Something similar seems to be the case regarding reasons and arguments. Folks might be interested in them (and even in weak ones) if they support a belief already held. But the same folks might turn away from good arguments in disgust if those arguments undermine their beliefs.

What’s happening here? Confirmation bias? Something like Sartrean bad faith or Heideggerian inauthenticity? Pauline suppression of the truth? (Romans 1:18) Intellectual laziness? Doxastic rigidity? Indifference to intellectual virtue?

Something else?