Friday, February 20, 2009

Rising interest in Latin

Fascinating piece on Latin appearing in The Catholic Thing

Today many young Catholics, conscious of the Church’s catholicity and two thousand year history, perceive Latin as the means to reconnect the universal Church with her past, a past that is nearly inaccessible without it. The Fathers of the Western Church, the Middle Ages, and the Magisterium down to this very day communicated, taught, and worshiped in Latin. The traditional Latin Mass enables Catholics to worship in the same manner and in the same language as their ancestors had for many centuries. But Latin also provides linguistic unity in the present for a Church that spans all continents and includes all peoples. No one understands this better than the young, who, having witnessed firsthand the Church’s universality at the World Youth Day celebrations, long for a shared articulation of the one faith that they all profess.

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