The Good News and Bad News of African Catholicism

The following essay was published on January 2 by Jozef Duháček at the Slovak website Christianitas and is given here in translation, with permission.—PK

Catholic priest celebrates Mass in Kenya

When you study history, it often happens that what you thought was a historical fact turns out to be just a story with no basis in reality. For example, many Americans grew up believing that the Boston Tea Party took place because the colonists disagreed with the tax imposed on tea by the British government. However, I recently discovered that all the tea was dumped into the sea in Boston in protest against the British government’s plan to subsidize the East India Tea Company and grant it a monopoly in the colonies, with the aim of making British tea cheaper than that which Boston merchants imported from India. The tea party was not a protest against expensive tea, but an act of protectionism against cheap tea. The story of the protest against the British tea tax was just a widespread narrative—and a completely reversed one at that.

Boston Tea Party

Another widespread false historical narrative is that in the Middle Ages, people believed that the earth was flat and that it was Galileo and Columbus who proved that this was not the case. This is a simple, blatant lie. Ancient Greek scholars (Aristotle, Eratosthenes) already knew that the Earth was round, and Eratosthenes even calculated its diameter with relative accuracy (he was off by about 10 percent). The fact that the Earth is round was taught at medieval universities, and the lie about the flat Earth dates back to the 19th century as part of an effort to discredit the Catholic Church.

Another false story says that Marie Antoinette told the French people that if they had no bread, they should eat cake. This is also a complete lie. There is no evidence that she said this, and it was attributed to her during the revolution as propaganda to justify her execution. Many history textbooks mindlessly repeat this story in order to discredit the old regime and glorify the atrocities of the revolution.

History is full of such narratives, and the older we get, the better we are at exposing them. Narratives are repeated, but they are never substantiated. They are used as evidence in other discussions, but they are rarely the subject of discussion themselves. They are convenient, providing an easy sense of certainty without effort (the truth, on the contrary, requires patience, diligence, and careful sifting through details). Narratives are often nested within each other like Russian matryoshka dolls, with smaller narratives forming the building blocks of larger ones, until a monumental edifice of fiction is created, where the individual parts reinforce each other and hold the whole structure together.

A beautiful example of such a construction is the so-called Black Legend, which describes the atrocities committed by the Spanish in the New World. It originated in England and the Netherlands as a propaganda attack by Protestants on the Catholic Spanish Empire. It contains a number of lies, here and there developed from facts taken out of context, which were intended to portray the Spaniards as extremely cruel colonizers, fanatical inquisitors, and racially and culturally backward tyrants.

Perhaps no event in Catholic history has generated as many narratives as the Second Vatican Council. From claims such as “the new lectionary contains more of the Holy Scriptures” to “Eucharistic Prayer II comes from the earliest days of the Church,” decades of fabricated myths have been woven to justify the reforms of the Council and explain the obvious demographic decline. One such widespread myth is: “Although the Church in the West is in crisis, the reforms of the Council have been successful in Africa! Catholicism is flourishing in Africa! The African Church has many vocations, is missionary, and is growing promisingly.” This is what “Catholic” portals, newspapers, and dailies tell us, and many of us believe it without bothering to seek any proof.

Second Vatican Council

In 2023, in an episode of his show “Word on Fire,” Bishop Barron responded to two articles by Ross Douthat in the New York Times about the Second Vatican Council and its failure as follows: Argument No. 1: Blaming the Second Vatican Council for the decline of Catholicism in the West is a logical fallacy known as “post hoc, ergo propter hoc.” Argument No. 2: The growth of the Church in Africa after the Second Vatican Council is due to that very council.

It is not difficult to see that Msgr. Barron is guilty of the same logical fallacy of which he accuses Douthat and others. Nevertheless, this oft-repeated argument about Africa deserves closer examination, as it is one of the great myths of our time.

To be honest, any examination of the state of Catholicism in the “global south” must include the fact that, although Catholicism is growing in absolute numbers due to population growth, Protestant and Pentecostal sects are growing much faster in percentage terms—and tragically attracting many former Catholics into their ranks. This does not sound like an indisputable “success story.”

It is noteworthy that the growth of Catholicism in Africa was proportionally much higher before 1970, i.e., at the end of the so-called “Tridentine” period. The conclusion is inevitable: if the Second Vatican Council was intended not only to preserve the status quo of the 1950s, but also to launch a new evangelization and missionary expansion, then it has failed in Africa.

What we see in the claims about the excellent state of African Catholicism—a myth that is refuted by the facts—is very similar to what we see in almost every discussion about the successes of Vatican II or liturgical reform: an enormous willingness to ignore evidence or perhaps even distort the truth—for ideological reasons.

In Africa, which is very often presented as a showcase for the “successes of Vatican II,” the number of Catholics receiving the sacraments per 1,000 inhabitants has fallen by half since the Council until 2015, as statistics from religionnews.com show: “More Catholics, fewer receiving sacraments: A new report maps a changing church.”

In 1900, Catholics made up 2% of Africa’s population. By the Second Vatican Council, this proportion had risen to 13%. After the Council, the number of Catholics rose to about 18% (according to the World Christian Database), while Protestants doubled their share from 15% to 29% during the same period. The increase in the number of “Catholics” is mainly due to the fact that the population has tripled in absolute terms. In other words, the growth after the Second Vatican Council is mainly due to higher fertility rates and not to conversions or evangelization. In the first 70 years of the 20th century, the number of African Catholics increased sixfold. In the 60 years since the Council, it has only grown by half. What caused this change? Would it have been “worse without the Council,” as the usual phrase goes?

This topic is addressed in a book published by Os Justi Press entitled Is African Catholicism a “Vatican II Success Story”?. This concise book, which brings together contributions by four authors, effectively challenges this narrative by referring to history, liturgy, and common sense.

The well-known claim that Catholicism is flourishing in Africa—that it is the only continent where Vatican II has borne rich fruit—is not consistent with the available data and descriptions, as shown by the reports of the late George Neumayr from Ivory Coast. Moreover, a Nigerian seminarian analyzes the harmful inculturation imposed on Africans by racially stereotyping European liturgists. Claudio Salvucci asks critical questions about the so-called Zairean rite based on Congolese history, and Peter Kwasniewski evaluates the evangelizing potential of preconciliar faith, life, and worship. In Africa, as elsewhere, traditional Catholicism won over entire nations and stimulated enormous cultural creativity. However, under the reign of the new ecclesiology, new ecumenism, and new liturgy of progressive Western intellectuals, more and more people are turning to Protestant sects and uprooted secularism.

It was Neumayr’s articles on this topic in the American Spectator magazine that brought this issue to the forefront of a broader discussion. Neumayr had long questioned the African narrative and traveled to Ivory Coast, one of the most Catholic regions in Africa, to find out the true state of Catholicism there. Unfortunately, Neumayr fell ill and died in Africa in 2023. Only a few of his essays have been published so far, which can be found in this book and are an excellent introduction to the question of African Catholicism. On January 13, 2023, Neumayr posted this comment on social media: “As Freemasons grew stronger in Ivory Coast, they were condemned not by Catholic bishops, but by Pentecostal preachers. (Catholic) bishops only criticized them weakly, out of fear after it came to light that they had allowed the head of the lodge to receive Holy Communion.”

In his final weeks, he published a series of articles in The American Spectator that are instructive, albeit depressing, and testify to the decline of Catholicism in Ivory Coast and the many parallels with other parts of post-conciliar Africa. Neumayr was a man of keen observation, and he wittily shows that Catholicism in Ivory Coast is very, very far from its heyday. Neumayr effortlessly introduces foreigners to the issues of contemporary African culture and liturgical life through an interesting travelogue. His visit to Ivory Coast, especially its capital city, offers a valuable insight into the decline caused by the post-colonial situation. We learn that the rule of Western states (whatever its shortcomings) was not the only stabilizing factor that has been removed over the past seventy years. The ancient Roman liturgy, which once evangelized and united these countries, has been replaced by a rite that has become a source of division owing to the multitude of local dialects; speakers are humiliated when this or that dialect, not their own, is chosen as the language of celebration for a particular Mass.

The longest contribution to the book is by an anonymous African seminarian who discusses in detail the problems of inculturation in Africa. His section is extremely instructive and reveals the failures of inculturation.

As this seminarian shows, the enormous fragmentation is further exacerbated by the political progressivism of many parish priests who promote socialism from the pulpit and allow heresy to flourish in their communities. One of the officially tolerated forms of heresy, as the seminarian explains, is liturgical inculturation, which has been spreading in Africa since the Second Vatican Council. Based on numerous scholarly sources, he explains how inculturation differs from adaptation, which was a healthy way in which the Church once integrated its liturgical rites into the healthy aspects of a culture. It is worth noting that the idea of an “inculturated” African liturgy did not originate with Africans themselves, but with European experts who speculated on what would best suit their African brothers.

One of the most interesting reflections in the book comes from this essay, where the author rejects the idea that liturgy in indigenous languages can save those languages:

Latin has never been a threat to the Igbo language, but English is. And this is not because English is taught in school or sometimes used in the church, but principally because Igbo is no longer spoken in many Igbo homes, no longer the mother tongue; making it the liturgical language does not help. The English language may indeed threaten the identity of the Igbo people, but post- Christian Western values, torn as it were from God and from the natural law, pose a mortal and infernal danger. A largely sentimental revitalization of traditional Igbo customs and its incorporation into the liturgy stand little chance in stemming the surging and sophisticated onslaught of the decadent West. (p. 67)

This section is indeed very interesting and is complemented by chapters by Claudio Salvucci, which describe what the adaptation of the liturgy before the Council looked like in practice. Salvucci writes about the Catholic Kingdom of Congo and points out that efforts to inculturate a kind of constructed “paradisiacal” African heritage actually ignore the real history of African Catholicism and erase the very heritage that we claim to want to respect. Unlike the modern “Zairean rite,” which includes ceremonies that were never part of traditional African Catholic culture, the Mass in the presence of the King of Congo had several elements that organically integrated his royal role into the liturgy—without violating a single prescribed rubric of the Mass. Salvucci asks: “How can we speak of the inviolability of non-Catholic customs and demand their preservation in the Church when at the same time we discard our own native Catholic customs and culture?”

Unfortunately, this is exactly what has happened in Africa over the past 70 years, and the alleged fruits of these changes do not correspond to the simple narrative we have all heard—namely, that “the Church in Africa has experienced a genuine renaissance since the Council!” On the contrary, as the Nigerian seminarian and Dr. Peter Kwasniewski clearly show in graphs depicting quantitative data, the pace of growth on the continent has slowed dramatically since 1970, even though the number of Catholics continues to increase due to population growth. This change cannot be fully explained by secularization, as the growth rate of Protestant sects is increasing while that of Catholicism is declining.

Kwasniewski describes the unifying power of the old Mass, whose homogeneity and rituality have brought millions of Africans to Catholicism in past centuries. The revival of the old Mass in several places on the continent gives great hope for its spread in the future, so that the important task of cultural adaptation and flourishing can continue unhindered. Kwasniewski recalls that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was a missionary in Africa from 1932 to 1959, and under his leadership, Catholicism spread extensively in the regions of Africa for which he was responsible. These included twelve archdioceses, thirty-six dioceses, and thirteen Italian apostolic prefectures.

As elsewhere in the world, Africans were denied something that was already a precious part of their Catholic heritage. Several thriving parishes with traditional Latin Masses in Africa, particularly in Nigeria and Gabon, suggest that African Catholics would perhaps flock to these Masses if they were more accessible. Their inaccessibility cannot therefore be used as an argument against their appeal or power.

Another significant problem that the proponents of the success story of Vatican II in Africa tactfully conceal is the shameless mixing of pagan practices into Catholic liturgy and faith.

Rev. Edwin Ezeokeke, a doctoral student in systematic theology at the John Paul II Catholic University in Lublin, wrote a thesis entitled Theological Analysis of Syncretic and Pagan Beliefs and Customs in Catholic Funerals in Igboland, Nigeria, in which he lists a number of animistic rituals and beliefs that tarnish the beautiful image of the African Church. He concludes his thesis with the words:

Many people in Igboland are Catholics but Catholic faith and the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ especially his teachings on death and resurrection are yet to take deep root in their lives. This is why many Catholic faithful incorporate lots and lots of pagan practices and beliefs in the Catholic burials and funerals. Many see this as inculturation. But as I have said above, inculturation is never and will never be syncretism. They are two different things with totally different meanings. Inculturation is recommended for evangelization. It entails a sincere and honest appreciation of the dimensions of other cultures in so far it does not alter the main essence of the Church’s identity. Syncretism alters the main essence and meaning of the Church’s identity. This is exactly what the above pagan practices do to Catholic Church in Igboland especially as it concerns her burial and funeral rites. These practices completely alter the entire essence and meaning of the Catholic burials and funerals.

Der Spiegel magazine published an article by Thilo Thielke entitled “Christianity in Africa: Jesus in the Morning, Voodoo in the Evening,” in which he vividly describes how animism mixes with the Christian faith. In the text, he quotes voodoo shaman John Odeh:

“Christianity has destroyed our culture. The people have lost faith in our ancient gods and values,” the animist priest laments. Ape skulls, amulets and shells are laid out on the concrete floor of the adjacent garage. Figures of Ogun, the god of iron, Orunmila, the god of wisdom, and Olokun, the god of waters, adorn this unusual shrine. Osalobua, the supreme God, punishes theft swiftly and without mercy, says Odeh. And the dead hear every lie told by the living. “The pastors go to church in the morning and preach Christianity,” says the voodoo priest. “And in the evening they come to me and speak with their forefathers.”

I personally heard the testimony of a priest from France, where the shortage of local priests is being remedied by importing priests from former African colonies. This priest said that Africans first celebrate a new Mass in the church and then spend the whole evening drumming and chanting their pagan rituals in the rectory. “But without the Council, it would probably have been worse…” (!).

However, the overall message of this introductory book is very positive. Perhaps it will open the door to further study of the Church in Africa, as it would be helpful to see an even stronger emphasis on demography.

Mark Twain once said, “The trouble with the world is not that people know too little; it’s that they know so many things that just aren’t so.” This book is an excellent response to those who “know so many things that simply are not true” about Africa. The book Is African Catholicism a “Vatican II Success Story”? can be obtained from Os Justi Press or from any Amazon outlet.

Why the Traditional Mass Should Remain In Latin

In spite of attempts to suppress it, the traditional Latin Mass is here to stay. It may not be as widespread as it was in the halcyon days of Summorum Pontificum, but neither is it exactly hidden under a bushel, as the early Christians were during the Roman persecutions. In many cites, gigantic parishes run by former Ecclesia Dei institutes are packed with faithful every Sunday. No, this is not going away; and the sooner a future pope comes to terms with the reality on the ground, the better off we’ll all be.

Unfortunately, due to the way the internet encourages the spontaneous expression of feelings and ideas (or some mixture of the two), a lot of premature and undercooked opinions tend to be expressed. One of the most frequent proposals I see being floated is this one: “Wouldn’t it be just grand if we could have the TLM in the vernacular? This would kill two birds with one stone: We get the traditional liturgy, but without the language barrier! Everyone would flock to it and the breach between old and new could be healed at last!” Even prominent figures among the Oratorians are not hesitate about expressing this opinion.

An NLM reader once wrote to me:

I have read certain articles of yours in which you treat of the question of introducing the vernacular into the traditional rites in a limited fashion and come out decidedly against it. I myself prefer an entirely Latin liturgy in all respects, lessons included—indeed my daughter’s (old rite) baptism was entirely in Latin, including the godparents’ responses. The only vernacular was the Pater and Credo in the procession to the sanctuary (per custom). I think that there is a certain dissonance in “mixing” languages liturgically, with the obvious exceptions of the Greek Kyrie and various Hebrew words, especially if I am saying “and with your spirit” at one point and “et cum spiritu tuo” at another point. There is an imbalance there that I can’t precisely explain.
       Yet, I was reading Dobszay’s treatment of the issue in which he argues that the introduction of certain vernacular elements alongside, not in place of, the Latin would be highly beneficial for the simple reason that the entirely Latin liturgy is, truly, a stumbling block for many who are otherwise friendly to the tradition. Yes, I understand that man is to be formed into the image of the liturgy, and not vice versa—St. Benedict, after all, urges ut mens concordet voci—that the mind harmonize with the voice—which, in addition to sounding “quaint,” actually is quite radical when compared to the modern emphasis on “authenticity” (wrongly identified with virtual formlessness). And, with the necessary reservations, viz. the Orations, Canon, and silent prayers remaining in Latin, Dobszay nevertheless suggests the possibility of not only the lessons, but also at times the proper chants and Mass ordinary being authorized in a hieratic vernacular. (And for this purpose, let us assume that the principal parish Mass would be required to be fully in Latin, so the totally-Latin liturgy would still play a truly primary role in the Church’s liturgical life.)
       Don’t misunderstand me: I am not saying that the introduction of the vernacular is “necessary” from a liturgical standpoint. But I am haunted by Dobszay’s point that a moderate introduction of the occasional hieratic vernacular would serve to de-ghettoize the classical Roman liturgy and thereby increase its appeal. In this way, the ancient heritage would enter the ecclesial mainstream instead of remaining on the relative margins.
       To put it bluntly: is an unbending adherence to the exclusive use of Latin semper et ubique in the liturgy ultimately wise, if the price to pay is that the authentic tradition (form and content) remains a marginalized minority? Would not a moderate use of a hieratic vernacular be a small price to pay for the greater expansion of the Roman heritage? Is this not a legitimate instance of the perfect being the enemy of the good? Moderate vernacular usage for the lessons seems to be one of those things that, for better or worse, we are stuck with permanently, and I worry that we might lose too many lives battling on this hill while losing the mountain.

I remain unconvinced. Just as Marshall McLuhan maintained that bringing microphones into churches would undermine the numinous character of the liturgy (and how right he was), I am equally convinced that de-Latinization would spell the end of the Roman rite in its distinctive character, as much as abolishing icons would do to the Byzantine liturgy. Here I would like to offer some reasons why I think this.

A Fundamental Argument

Among the Eastern Christian churches, we find considerable linguistic diversity, which has led in some cases to the development of sacral languages and in others to almost total vernacularization. In the Western church, however, we find an impressive and almost monolithic unity: Latin is the language par excellence for all Western rites and uses.

Now, this monumental linguistic unity is either the work of Divine Providence and of the Holy Spirit, or a huge error, deviation, and problem to be overcome. I maintain that the only acceptable Roman Catholic mentality is the former; the latter leads necessarily to the overthrowing of all liturgical standards: if not even Latin is safe, then neither is ad orientem, communion under one kind, plainchant and polyphony, a proleptic Offertory, etc.

And, in point of fact, this is exactly what we saw in the liturgical reform, whose proponents and implementers tended to reject all of those so-called “medieval” features (even though many are properly ancient).

An Aesthetic Argument

Martin Mosebach maintains that the use of Latin is primarily responsible for the creation of a sacral atmosphere from start to finish in the traditional Mass. The moment it begins, one knows one is in a different “place,” one is moving on a different level; the workaday world has been left behind, and one is entering the divine domain. The vernacular, no matter how well translated, or how archaic in sound, does not have this requisite otherness. As Michael Fiedrowicz says, the Latin reminds us that we are seeking something else in worship than what we find everywhere else.

As for alternating between Latin and vernacular, it is no more coherent than a man with a tuxedo jacket on top and blue jeans on the bottom.

A Pastoral Argument

There is already an insidious tendency for Catholics to splinter into factions the moment someone decides to move the flowers above the altar one inch to the left or the right. We are all rather high-strung at this point, and, in addition to the need to relax a bit, we also need to supply as few incentives for division as possible. Changing the language that has been part and parcel of the liturgy for over 1,600 years would be a nuclear bomb in that regard: instantly, there would be all-Latin communities and mixed-language communities. Indeed, we already have that, because of the “two forms”; the last thing we need is further balkanization.

Moreover, use of the vernacular, so far from uniting people who speak a common language, instantly segregates the faithful into categories. Some would prefer an archaic translation such as the Douay-Rheims; others would agitate for the Revised Standard Version or (God forbid) the New American Bible. And if the Vatican or the USCCB got involved, it would all go south in five minutes. With Latin, no one can complain: we are using the language that all the saints before us prayed with. Each person can then pick up whatever hand missal suits him best.

One difficulty with modern languages is that they do not possess sufficient “alterity” and “elevation” to serve as liturgical languages. The traditional Anglicans and the Ordinariates use Elizabethan English, which I’m sure sounded normal back in Shakespeare’s day but now sounds formal, elevated, and a little strange. To have liturgy in the vernacular requires a sacral register, which, it seems, today’s Church is incapable of producing. Moreover, the Byzantine Divine Liturgy is not a good example because it achieves its effects in a totally different way, through waves and waves of poetic speech and singing. The Roman liturgy is austere and slender; much of its affective power depends on Latin, silence, and chant—the three elements of the sonic iconostasis.

Additional Theological Arguments

In general, we overestimate the primacy of verbal comprehension. It is often non-verbal signs and behaviors that affect us more deeply. I think this is above all true for acquiring the spirit of reverence and prayer at liturgy.

As people know from experience, there are many ways to participate in a Latin liturgy. It takes many years to grasp it—which is appropriate for the greatest mystery on earth. One starts with simple steps, like a “child’s missal,” and eventually works up to an adult’s missal with all the translations—and finally, one knows it so well that one can put aside the missal and simply yield oneself to the liturgy. This can happen more easily with the Tridentine rite because it has fewer options and fewer texts that become familiar over time. It takes a long time to enter fully into it, and it ought to be this way.

One learns to swim by starting in the shallow end and eventually venturing into the deep end. The traditional liturgy in its richness of symbolism, its pageantry of ceremony, its beautiful musical patrimony, offers many “handles” to grab on to. I remember my son being fascinating with the coordinated movements of the servers in their sacred choreography. Another little boy I know loves watching the thurifer handle the thurible, with the hot coals and clouds of smoke. One does not have to be a genius to appreciate the Latin Mass; one simply has to use the eyes in one’s head, the ears, the nostrils; one watches, listens, ponders, and prays. The best thing we can do at Mass is to pray earnestly; this is worth more than any amount of rational understanding.

The sacral language of the Mass, its totally untranslatable poetry, deserves to be left intact. We laity have many ways of accessing its meaning, including: learning Latin; following in a missal (where the translation doesn’t have to bear the weight of being the actual rite that is offered); or just watching and absorbing and praying in our own words inspired by the liturgy.

The key is letting the rich ceremonies of the Mass themselves be the first message it conveys. The text is not absolute and exclusive, nor is it primary from the point of view of lay participation. It is something one grows into over time. We are so impatient nowadays: we want an “instant fix.” Well, it took God several thousand years to prepare humanity for the Incarnation, and it took him 1,500 years to bring the Roman rite to perfection among us. He’s apparently not in a huge rush to get things over and done with, and neither should we be. Certainly, our lives are short, but not usually so short that we cannot acquire the habit proper to the rite.

C. du Plessis d’Argentré writes:

It is perfectly clear that the benefit of the liturgical prayer consists not only in the understanding of the words; it is a dangerous error to think that vocal prayer serves only to educate the intellect. On the contrary, such prayer mainly contributes to inflame the affections, so that the worshipper, rising up to God with a pious and devout heart, will be edified, and, obtaining his wishes, he will not be frustrated in his intentions; and in addition, the intellect acquires illumination together with other useful or necessary things, all of which benefits are far more abundant than the understanding of the words alone, which does not achieve much advantage without the arousal of the affection for God. (Collectio iudiciorum de novis erroribus II [Paris: Cailleau, 1728], 62, quoted in Guéranger, Institutions liturgiques III, 164)

Musical Inheritance

With all due respect to the great Prof. Dobszay, vernacular plainchant is an ugly duckling compared to its Latin paradigm. It can be done decently, but it remains rather awkward. No two languages function the same, and the peculiar sound of each is very different. Latin and chant are like a body-soul composite. Again, Byzantine chant tends to work better, because—and I intend no offense to our Eastern brethren—it is generally quite a bit simpler and plainer than Gregorian chant. It is more in the nature of harmonized psalm tones that can suit any language. Latin chant, on the other hand, is a highly refined musical form that grew up for a thousand years with its Latin text.

Composer Mark Nowakowski observed in an interview:

Latin is a language I keep returning to in my writing not only because it is still the Church’s language, but also because it is a singularly beautiful language. It is inherently sing-able and seems to have the necessary structure and gravitas to bear the full weight of both liturgical solemnity and spiritual contemplation. Let’s be honest: “Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world” is just not as beautiful or sing-able as “Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi…” – and we have an entire failed post-conciliar repertoire to prove it. And now that composers are in an age where English settings are still the Church standard, they mostly want to compose in Latin! That should speak for itself.

False Centrality

Every time someone proposes translating the Latin Mass, they immediately add: “But of course the principal Mass would remain in Latin,” or “Naturally, for those who love Latin, it would still be available.”

I think this is a false hope.

However much better an usus antiquior in the vernacular would be than an usus recentior in Latin, ultimately I fear that such a move would begin a slow-motion marginalization of Latin and chant, with almost no hope of their recover. Once people are convinced that they “ought” to understand this or that part of the liturgy immediately, good luck trying to have a solemn Mass where that’s not the operative assumption. These treasures would become like animal or plant species that are driven out of their native environment by more aggressive foreign organisms introduced into the ecosystem.

Perhaps the most decisive observation is that the Latin texts have a dense web of intraliturgical and extraliturgical associations that no vernacular, regardless of its refinement, could carry—at least not without having its own arc of 2,000 years of development. I do not wish to sound like I am defending a sort of “magical” property of Latin, but I do think it’s worth pondering why exorcists consistently report more success when they use the old rites in Latin.

Priorities

Finally, can we not say that a religion that took itself seriously would ask its members to study it seriously? Serious Jews ask their boys to learn Hebrew; serious Moslems ask them to learn classical Arabic; the Copts figure out Egyptian; the Russians must get down some Slavonic; and so forth. The Catholic Church will become stronger again when it actually demands more of its people than it currently does (the realm of fasting is perhaps the most obvious place to begin).

There are thousands of Catholic schools that could be teaching Latin. They do not, because it has been deemed of little or no worth. This ignorance, skepticism, or rejection of our tradition is the real problem; this is the attitude that has to change. Otherwise, we are trying to cram a beautiful liturgy into people who could care less whether it is high, low, right, wrong, old, new, Latin, or English.

In short: Latin’s not some outlying hill, remote from the fortress, but part of the foundation rock in the mountain fastness we are defending.

Sacred Rhetoric and the Question of Vernacular Liturgy: Súscipe Sancte Pater

Several weeks ago, in an article entitled “‘An Art Which Leads the Soul by Words’: Sacred Rhetoric in the Roman Liturgy,” I discussed the nature and significance of rhetoric in Western culture and in Christian spirituality. I encourage you to read that article if you haven’t already, but to ensure that all readers will have at least a bare minimum of theoretical foundation before we continue, I’ll provide some key excerpts by way of summary:

• “Rhetoric is, quite simply, the art of language. If my students remember only one definition—or even only one vague definitional idea—of rhetoric, I want it to be this one. Though it requires a bit of elaboration and qualification, it is accurate and pleasing to the ear, and it counteracts the ruinous tendency to equate rhetoric with the deliberate misuse or even abuse of language.”
• “The Church’s ancient liturgies [as well as Sacred Scripture] employed highly rhetorical texts. Indeed, rhetoric is so central to salvation history and the Christian experience that a new definition is called for, one that pertains specifically to Christian education and foregrounds the role of rhetoric in the spiritual and liturgical life of the Church. I will propose one: rhetoric is the sublimation of language.”
• “When we speak of persuasion in the Christian and rhetorical sense, we must look far beyond the impoverished modern sense.... Rhetorical persuasion is language in the service and pursuit of truth.”
• “There is one domain of Christian life” in which we find “a harmonious public ceremony that is persuasive in the fullest, most transcendent, most sanctifying and transformative sense that this word could ever hope to have. The domain of which I speak is the sacred liturgy, which glorifies the eternal God while marshalling every imaginable rhetorical resource to persuade fallen man that this God exists, and that His words are supremely true, and that His works are wondrously good.”

In the present article, we will examine the rhetorical qualities of one short prayer found in the Roman Mass. Our objectives are three: First, to appreciate the poetic excellence that informs our traditional liturgical texts, which emerged from an intellectual culture that, in its ability to craft language and achieve eloquence, far surpasses our own. Second, to explore a serious yet often overlooked difficulty surrounding the issue of vernacular liturgy. Third, to more fervently bemoan and bewail the fact that the Latin Church has lost the will to teach her children the Latin language.

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The analysis below involves obscure rhetorical terminology. I understand that most people have not studied this terminology and do not find it enjoyable. If you have no interest in it, feel free to ignore it, but I have an important reason for including it: I want to demonstrate that the expressive techniques found in our inherited liturgical texts are part of a venerable and well-documented tradition of rhetorical education that extends through medieval culture and the Patristic era all the way back to Greco-Roman antiquity. These techniques have names because they were studied and taught and employed for centuries by societies that believed in the power of language to change hearts and reshape the world.

As Christians, we can understand this as the power of language to achieve “divine persuasion”—in other words, to achieve conversion, in the broad sense of the word. The good God wants us to convert to Him, that is, to continually turn back to Him with greater fidelity and obedience and affection. He does not compel us to do this, for we are intelligent beings with free will, but He does persuade us, and one of His most persuasive texts is the traditional Eucharistic liturgy of western Christendom, also known as the Latin Mass.

Today we will examine the Súscipe sancte Pater, which is currently the first fixed oration in the Mass of the Faithful. This lovely prayer signals a sacred crescendo in the liturgical drama, as we move from preparatory prayers and scripture readings to the sacrificial action of the Offertory and Canon. This is the text as it appears in the 1962 Missal:

Súscipe, sancte Pater, omnípotens æterne Deus, hanc immaculátam hostiam, quam ego indignus fámulus tuus óffero tibi Deo meo vivo et vero, pro innumerabílibus peccátis, et offensiónibus, et neglegentiis meis, et pro ómnibus circumstántibus, sed et pro ómnibus fidélibus christiánis vivis atque defunctis: ut mihi et illis proficiat ad salútem in vitam æternam.

And this is the English translation given in my hand missal:

Receive, O holy Father, almighty, eternal God, this spotless host which I, thine unworthy servant, offer unto Thee, my living and true God, for my own countless sins, offenses, and negligences, and for all here present; as also for all faithful Christians, living or dead; that it may avail for my own and for their salvation unto life eternal.

This prayer is, by the standards of traditional liturgy, quite new. Along with other Offertory prayers and the prayers at the foot of the altar, it was introduced during the Middle Ages, and it was in limited use until the Roman Rite, whence it originated, spread far and wide with the liturgical standardization decreed by St. Pius V. Let there be no mistake, though: this prayer existed long before the Counter-Reformation. The following example is taken from a French manuscript produced sometime before the middle of the thirteenth century:

And here is another, from the early fourteenth century:

This is how the prayer appears in a printed Missale Romanum published in 1607, thirty-seven years after the promulgation of Quo primum.

One thing we should observe about liturgical texts such as this one is that punctuation cannot be considered part of the original composition. Though the punctuation in the 1607 text is similar to that of the modern text, the punctuation—or “pointing,” to use a more medieval term—in the older manuscripts is sparse and not consistent with modern practices.

As you’re reading through the analysis, keep the following question—which we’ll discuss further in a future article—in mind: How successfully could all this rhetorical excellence be translated into another language, especially if that language is not closely related to Latin? (And let us remember also that from a stylistic perspective, the Romance languages are closer to one another than to Latin.)    

  

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Súscipe, sancte Pater, omnípotens æterne Deus, hanc immaculátam hostiam: The prayer begins with a sense of grandeur and upward movement through auxesis (or in Latin, amplificatio), which is a general rhetorical strategy for achieving eloquence and richness of thought through expansive language. Various specific rhetorical figures can contribute to auxesis. In this case we have  antonomasia, because the descriptive phrase “holy Father” initially replaces the appellation “God”; appositio, where the descriptive phrase “almighty eternal God” builds upon the initial address to “holy Father”; and pleonasm, which is eloquent redundancy—the title “God” implies “holy,” “almighty,” and “eternal,” and therefore it is not strictly necessary to include these adjectives. Finally, note the overall structure of this clause: imperative verb → elaborate identification of the subject of the verb → object of the verb. This creates interest and emotion, since we must wait a few moments to learn what is to be received, and a sense of urgency in calling upon God the Father, whose grace and goodness make the offering of this “immaculate victim” possible.

quam ego indignus fámulus tuus óffero tibi Deo meo vivo et vero: Let’s focus here on rhetorical figures of sound, which I have indicated with underlining and which are remarkably abundant in this passage. We have assonance (general repetition of vowel sounds), with the particularly melodic phrases indígnus fámulus tuus and Deo meo vivo et vero; we also have dramatically rhythmical alliteration (repetition of initial consonant sounds) in vivo et vero and pleasing consonance (repetition of final consonant sounds) in indígnus fámulus tuus. The result is a sonorous and memorable phrase whose beautiful music contrasts, in paradoxical and therefore thought-provoking fashion, with the righteous self-abasement expressed on the semantic level (i.e., the level of direct meanings that the words convey).

pro innumerabílibus peccátis, et offensiónibus, et neglegentiis meis: The evils for which the Victim is offered—sins, offenses, negligences—are listed in order of decreasing severity. This is called catacosmesis, and here it creates a sense of alleviation and hope, as though our various moral failings in the service of God are diminishing as we approach the consummation of the expiatory sacrifice. We also see hyperbole (eloquent exaggeration), a favorite rhetorical figure in biblical and devotional literature. Many saintly priests have said these words day after day, year and year, and it would not be reasonable to repeatedly accuse them of “countless” misdeeds. And yet, the prayer reminds us that there is a certain immensity, a transgression that is somehow immeasurable, in every act that violates the laws of an infinitely loving God.

et pro ómnibus circumstántibus, sed et pro ómnibus fidélibus christiánis vivis atque defunctis: Elegance and emphasis are achieved through anaphora (repetition of initial words in nearby phrases), with the addition of sed in the second phrase imparting rhythmical intensity that I find highly effective. That one extra syllable, considered only on the level of sound, creates a sense of urgency that harmonizes with the words: the vast multitude of Christians everywhere, even those who have died and now languish in Purgatory, are in desperate need—the Victim must be offered; the sacrifice must be performed.

ut mihi et illis proficiat ad salútem in vitam æternam: Note the number of monosyllabic connecting words—ut, et, ad, in—placed between longer words. This resembles polysyndeton, which is defined as the use of many conjunctions between clauses; here we have two conjunctions and two prepositions, and they mostly join nouns or pronouns rather than clauses, but the effect is similar: pauses multiply, the reading tempo changes, and our thoughts slow down as we meditate upon this concluding idea with its crucial and resounding significance.

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Let us recall that this is but one short prayer selected from the vast collection of writings in the Roman Missal. The traditional Latin liturgy is a rhetorical masterpiece of epic proportions, and the persuasive objectives of all this finely crafted language are the noblest imaginable: God’s glory, and man’s salvation.

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For thrice-weekly discussions of art, history, language, literature, Christian spirituality, and traditional Western liturgy, all seen through the lens of medieval culture, you can subscribe (for free!) to my Substack publication: Via Mediaevalis.

Was Liturgical Latin Introduced As (and Because It Was) the “Common Tongue”?

In a lecture published recently at Church Life Journal, “In the Swarm: The Liturgy and Liquid Identity,” Angela Franks offers an intriguing analysis of “solid” and “liquid” aspects of Christianity and the impact this should have on our concept of pastoral care. The article — a keynote address for the Society for Catholic Liturgy — contains much insight: her general line is reminiscent of John Henry Newman’s emphasis on ecclesial development as an enrichment and articulation of what is always already given in Christ and in the deposit of faith.

One must, however, take exception to an illustration Dr. Franks offers from liturgical history, where she unfortunately repeats a misconception that has shown a remarkable resilience against all attempts to correct it. Here is what she writes:

We need solidity… Let us not, however, dismiss too quickly the balancing reality of liquidity. The history of the development of the liturgy and of sacramental theology bears this out as well. I will not attempt to delve into this history, but let us take one simple example: the changes in the liturgical languages of the Church. Very early Christian liturgy privileged Greek (although not exclusively), as the language of Scripture and the universal “common” (koine) tongue, but other rites in the vernacular have ancient roots, such as Coptic and Syrian. The standardization of Latin as the Western liturgical language began to occur when Latin became the “common” tongue. In this and in many other ways, liturgy has developed and changed under the guidance of the Church.

The assertion here is a familiar one: the Christian liturgy was “done in the vernacular,” and whenever the vernacular changed, the language of the liturgy also changed (or, presumably, should have changed). The Latinization of the liturgy in the fourth century is therefore explained simply in terms of wishing to move from an earlier but no longer accessible vernacular (koine Greek) to the vernacular of the day (Latin).

The trouble with this assertion is that it is highly misleading, to say the least, and downright incorrect in some respects. In her classic work Liturgical Latin: Its Origins and Character, published by CUA Press in 1957 (and happily back in print), Christine Mohrmann (1903–88) explained at length, with an abundance of examples, that the Latin of the early Roman liturgy is anything but the vernacular Latin of its time. It abounded in archaicisms, Hebraisms, legalisms, odd or intricate syntax, and rhetorical tropes. In this respect it was similar to the unusual Greek of the Septuagint and of early Greek Christian liturgies—which should hardly surprise us, given that the Jews themselves continued to use Hebrew in their worship, which, by then, was a language no longer commonly spoken. Indeed, the Son of God would have conducted the Last Supper at least partially in an archaic sacral language. [1]

The discussion of language in Michael Fiedrowicz’s The Traditional Mass: History, Form, and Theology of the Classical Roman Rite is quite illuminating. The entire section (153–78) is well worth reading; I shall quote here only the most immediately pertinent passages.

…Latin translations of the Bible originated in the middle of the second century. But even these developments were not simply a colloquial element within the divine worship. These texts also possessed a sacred stylizing, insofar as the Latin translations bore a strong biblical complexion through a certain literalism, that is, a close following of the scriptural forms of speech, and in this way they acquired a peculiarly foreign style, soon felt to be holy….
       An appreciation for the sacred formation of the holy texts was the inheritance of old Roman religiosity. In order to conform to the requirements of a hieratic style, Christian Latinity first had to be perfected to a certain degree and be capable of rising above everyday speech. If the development of a Christian sacred language thoroughly drew on particular elements of style of old Roman traditions, then such an impartial use of Rome’s cultural inheritance was conceivable only in the later peacetime of the Church (from 313 on) when the pagan religion no longer presented a serious threat to Christianity; and just as confidently as the Church introduced the spoils of heathen temples into her own basilicas, she made the stylistic forms of ancient prayer texts her own. (156–57)
       The use of Latin as a sacred language that stylistically tied in with old Roman traditions would especially have won over to the Christian Faith the influential elite of the empire, who at this time [fourth century] had just begun to discover anew their texts of classical literature. The Church had at its disposal a language of prayer whose content was renewed by revelation and at the same time formally bound to the Roman tradition. (157–58)

And most to the point:

The introduction of Latin into the Roman liturgy, then, certainly did not indicate the abandonment of the principle of a sacred language. In that sense, Latinization cannot be understood as an argument for the vernacular, as though with the change of the liturgical language, the Church in Rome were simply accounting for the fact that the majority of the faithful by then were no longer Greek-speaking, but Latin-speaking Christians. The Latin of the liturgy was identical with neither the classical Latin of Cicero nor the colloquial language, Vulgar Latin. It was, at least in the texts of prayers, a highly stylized form of language, which was not readily understandable to the average Roman of the fourth and fifth centuries: “No Roman had ever spoken in the language or style of the Canon or the prayers of the Roman Mass.”
       It was rather a language that sought to awaken the experience of the sacred and to raise man above the things of this world to God. This rising up to God was accomplished neither by a complete renunciation of language (holy silence, silentium mysticum) nor in the form of glossolalia, the gift of tongues (cf. 1 Cor 14:2), which no longer possessed its communicative character; rather, it was accomplished by means of a sacred language that drew from biblical sources as well as from the hieratic idiom of pagan Rome and, not least of all, also made use of ancient rhetoric. As a glance at the historical development demonstrates, the Church did not slip Latin on as a garment that could be replaced with another at any time. Rather, the Roman Church artistically forged for herself her own Latin for her liturgy, and in it she uniquely expressed her identity. (158)

In his new book The Liturgy, the Family, and the Crisis of Modernity—which, incidentally, engages with many of the issues raised by Dr. Franks in her lecture—Dr. Joseph Shaw summarizes and comments on Dr. Mohrmann’s research:

The argument from “expedience” may seem particularly weak today, in light of the stress laid by the reformist party on how the liturgy was translated into Latin to aid the comprehension of the faithful, and how it has been translated into a number of other languages by the churches of the East. This argument, familiar as it is, is misleading. We do not have any records of the reasoning behind the composition of the Latin liturgy, but the kind of Latin used suggests that popular comprehension was not the overriding consideration, in contrast to the importance of appropriating the tradition of solemn and sacred Latin for the use of the Church at a moment when Paganism was no longer a threat….
       The Roman Canon would have been at least as incomprehensible to fourth-century prostitutes and bums as Cicero’s convoluted orations would have been to their predecessors. In such cases the style, vocabulary, and in general the register is not designed for immediate and universal comprehension. In the case of the Roman Canon, we find archaisms, neologisms, Hebraisms and other foreign loan words, and echoes of the unnatural syntax of sacred and legal language. In any case, from an early date, and quite possibly from the start, it was said silently, by a celebrant hidden from the congregation in the nave by curtains. If verbal comprehension was the object of the Latin liturgy’s composition, Pope Damasus (if it was he) and his collaborators went about their task in a most surprising way. (60, 72)

With considerations like these in mind, it becomes clear why we need to be extremely cautious about making claims like “Christian liturgy privileged…the universal ‘common’ tongue” and “the standardization of Latin as the Western liturgical language began to occur when Latin became the ‘common’ tongue.” Both of these claims are demonstrably false.

As to the first, Christian liturgy, even when first rendered in the language of a certain people or cultural sphere, always exhibited peculiar traits that linguists describe as sacral or hieratic, and which would already have sounded that way even to those at the time it was first used, but much more so to those who come in the generations after, given both the continual development of the vernacular and the tendency toward a strong conservatism of forms on the part of the Church in every one of its historic rites.

As to the second claim, Latin was spoken for centuries before the Roman liturgy was rendered in Latin; the reason for the delay, therefore, was not that Latin was not a “common tongue” prior to this, but rather, that it still had pagan associations and lacked the resources needed for a distinctively Christian register suitable for divine worship. When Roman society (above all, in its aristocracy) had become more Christianized and an abundant Christian literature was available, the time was ripe for the Latinization of the Roman liturgy. As Fr Uwe Michael Lang writes in his recently published The Roman Mass: From Early Christian Origins to Tridentine Reform:

The formation of a Latin liturgical idiom was a major contribution to this project of evangelising Roman culture and thus attracting the influential elites of the city and the empire to the Christian faith. It would not be accurate to describe this process simply as the adoption of the vernacular language in the liturgy, if ‘vernacular’ is taken to mean ‘colloquial’. The Latin of the canon, of the collects and prefaces of the Mass transcended the conversationl idiom of ordinary people. This highly stylised form of speech, shaped to express complex theological ideas, would not have been easy to follow by the average Roman Christian of late antiquity. (109)

Fr Lang also explains why the East saw a profusion of languages (including the Coptic and Syrian of which Dr. Franks makes mention):

The Christian East was in a position to make use of several languages that carried with themselves a certain cultural, social and political weight: in addition to Greek, which retained a strong presence well into the fifth century, Syriac, Coptic Armenian, Georgian and Ethiopic began to be employed in the liturgy. In the Christian West, vernacular languages were not used in divine worship. The case of Roman North Africa is instructive: Augustine held Punic in esteem and made sure that the bishop chosen for a Punic-speaking region knew the language needed for his ministry. However, there are no extant documents of a Punic liturgy, whether Catholic or Donatist. The religious prestige of the Roman church and its bishop helped Latin become the only liturgical language of the West. This would prove an important factor in furthering ecclesiastical, cultural and political unity. Latinitas became one of the defining characteristics of Western Europe. (109–10) [2]

So successful was this endeavor that Latin would remain the mother tongue of the Western Church at prayer for the next 1,600 years. The core of the Roman rite continued intact, while growing organically in its calendar, prayer texts, lectionary, rubrical codification, and artistic externals. Truly one and the same Roman rite, as a person is one and the same, though he was once a child and is now a man; yet also the source of an endless profusion of cultural riches on every continent. Truly, the traditional liturgy demonstrates the most harmonious interplay of the “solid” and the “liquid” in Western history, in support of a transnational and transcultural unity of religion—an interplay and a unity that have been lost in the demotic babelization and ritual fragmentation caused by the postconciliar reforms.

NOTES

[1] “At the time of Christ, the Jews used the language of Old Hebraic for their services, though it was incomprehensible to the people. In the synagogues, only the readings and a few prayers relating to them were written in the mother tongue of Aramaic; the great, established prayer texts were recited in Hebrew. Although Christ adamantly attacked the formalism of the Pharisees in other respects, He never questioned this practice. Insofar as the Passover Meal was primarily celebrated with Hebrew prayers, the Last Supper was also characterized by elements of a sacred language. It is therefore possible that Christ spoke the words of Eucharistic consecration in the Hebrew lingua sacra” (Fiedrowicz, Traditional Mass, 153).

The same author defines “the characteristics of a sacred language” as: “(1) a conscious distancing from the words of colloquial language, which makes the “complete otherness” of the divine felt; (2) an archaizing or at least conservative tendency to favor antiquated expressions and adhere to certain speech forms from centuries ago, as is well-suited for the worship of an eternal and unchanging God; (3) the use of foreign words that evoke religious associations, as, for example, the Hebrew and Aramaic forms of the words alleluia, Sabaoth, hosanna, amen, maranatha in the Greek books of the New Testament; and finally, (4) syntactic and phonetic stylizations (e.g., parallelisms, alliterations, rhymes, and rhythmic sentence endings) that clearly structure the train of thought, are memorable and allow for easy recollection, and strive for tonal beauty” (154–55).

[2] Regarding Roman prestige: one can well understand why Charlemagne would have adopted for the Franks the Latin liturgy of Rome.

Are We Justified in Calling Paul VI’s Creation the “Novus Ordo [Missae]”?

Those who spend time in liturgical discussions are guaranteed to encounter at some point the following objection: “You shouldn’t be speaking of the ‘Novus Ordo’ or the ‘Novus Ordo Mass.’ This isn’t what it’s called. That’s a traditionalist label — a way of attacking the reformed missal of Pope St. Paul VI,” etc.

This matter deserves a closer look.

While “Novus Ordo [Missae]” is not a typical way in which the Vatican itself, post-1969, has preferred to denominate the Order of Mass created by the Consilium and promulgated by Paul VI on April 3, 1969, it is nevertheless a phrase found in a couple of official documents and does not seem to have ruffled feathers until later on.

The first thing to establish is that Paul VI constantly attached the word “new” to his ongoing liturgical reforms of the 1960s. For example, in his general audience of March 7, 1965, he spoke of a “new order [of worship],” a “new scheme of things,” “new liturgical books,” “new form,” “new liturgy,” “new habit,” and “liturgical innovation” — and all this, about changes far less drastic than those he would promulgate four years later. A fortiori, the application of novus to the missal of 1969 is entirely justified on the basis of its own promulgator’s habits of speech.

Let us not forget that many things people today would assume must have entered with the Novus Ordo in 1969 were already around prior to it, as the traditional liturgy was progressively dismantled in the 1950s and 1960s: turning the priest toward the people, which first happened with Pius XII’s lamentable Palm Sunday service; having the people say the Lord’s Prayer at the liturgy together with the priest, something never done in the Roman tradition prior to Pius XII’s new Good Friday; praying the Mass in the vernacular, which came in here and there experimentally; dropping the prayers at the foot of the altar and the last Gospel, a cropping that happened in 1965; bringing in new ad experimentum lectionaries; the admission of multiple Eucharistic Prayers; the discarding of some liturgical vestments; and so forth.

Coming nearer to our topic: in the general audience of November 19, 1969, which attempted to explain why a new missal was to be imposed, Paul VI — this time with much greater justice — referred to “a new rite of Mass” (four times), “a new spirit,” “new directions,” “new rules,” “innovation.” In the general audience one week later, he mentioned “the liturgical innovation of the new rite of the Mass” and mentioned the “new rite” seven times; he used words like “new,” “newness,” “renewal,” “innovation,” “novelty,” a total of 18 times. I comment in detail on these two general audiences in chapter 4 of my new book from TAN, The Once and Future Roman Rite: Returning to the Latin Liturgical Tradition after Seventy Years of Exile. [1]

Interestingly, Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, one of the highest ranking Vatican prelates (in spite of the enormous hatred directed at him by the anti-Roman faction at the Council) and for a long time the head of the Holy Office, used the phrase “Novus Ordo Missae” 18 times in the famous “Ottaviani Intervention” of September 25, 1969 — more properly entitled Short Critical Study of the New Order of Mass — co-signed with Cardinal Antonio Bacci and submitted to Paul VI. [2] He employs the expression as if it is quite obvious, familiar, and unobjectionable, and to my knowledge no one at the time disputed the appropriateness of it, even though much else in the critical study was the subject of hot debate.

To my knowledge, the first time the expression “Novus Ordo Missae” shows up in a papal magisterial document is in an address delivered by Paul VI (text here) at a consistory for the appointment of twenty cardinals on May 24, 1976. In this address he uses the expression novus Ordo [Missae]: “usus novi Ordinis Missae” and “novus Ordo promulgatus est” (“the use of the new Order of Mass”; “the new Order has been promulgated”). [3]

In April of 2010, the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff placed a short document on the Vatican website entitled “The Priest in the Concluding Rites of the Mass.” Surprisingly, although the text is redolent of Benedict XVI and the reign of his MC Guido Marini, and although it refers plentifully to “ordinary” and “extraordinary” forms, it still remains on the Vatican website (here). This document refers to the “Novus Ordo” (tout court) and the “Vetus” [Ordo], albeit using scare quotes for the latter term.

All of the foregoing was known to me prior to discovering an article at Pray Tell by Max Johnson dated January 14, 2010: “From Where Comes ‘Novus Ordo’?” (Would that Pray Tell had opted for the more eloquent title “Whence Cometh ‘Novus Ordo’?,” but the spirit of Comme le Prévoit has long prevailed in those quarters.) As one would expect, the article complains that the phrase has become weaponized by traditionalists into a “title” for the Mass instead of being a simple passing description, like saying “new hymnal” or “shiny new book,” that has no substantive (theological) meaning. This view would seem to be difficult to sustain in light of Paul VI’s veritable paean to innovation in the 1969 audiences mentioned above. The changes made to the Mass are not merely incidental or superficial, like a new typeface or a new binding for a missal, but cut into the bone and marrow of the rite.

The conclusion I reach is, understandably, quite different from Pray Tell’s. I think it is fair to call the Consilium’s fabrication “novus,” which means both novel and strange. Whatever is it, it is most definitely not the Roman rite, as I demonstrate on multiple grounds in The Once and Future Roman Rite. The relentless traditionalist critique has indeed made of “Novus Ordo [Missae]” a pejorative term — and that is no worse than it deserves.

NOTES

[1] That chapter itself is a revised and expanded version of a lecture whose text may be found here.

[2] Text available at EWTN here; for more on its history, see here.

[3] A note about terminology. Nowadays the phrase “Novus Ordo” has been extended to mean virtually the same thing as “the reformed liturgical rites.” Thus, one will hear people speak of the “Novus Ordo baptism,” “Novus Ordo breviary,” and the like. Although we readily understand what is meant, it would be more accurate to say the “new rite of baptism,” the “new liturgy of the hours,” and so forth, since “Novus Ordo” is just an abbreviated form of “Novus Ordo Missae”: it is specifically about the order of Mass followed in the offering of the Eucharist. However, one may justifiably refer to the “Novus Ordo lectionary” and “Novus Ordo calendar” because of how closely associated they are with the liturgical books for the Mass.

“The Value of a Sacred Language”: Guest Article by John Byron Kuhner

John Byron Kuhner writes a column on Latin for Inside the Vatican magazine, where this originally appeared in the September-October 2021 edition. NLM is grateful for the permission from the author and the publisher to reprint it here.
 

The Value of a Sacred Language

by John Byron Kuhner

Latin has been back in the news recently, as most Catholics are aware, thanks to Pope Francis’s motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, calling for fairly severe restrictions on the Tridentine Latin Mass. Reaction has been politically divided about as one would expect. If you get on some Latin Mass Facebook pages, you will find sadness and anger. If you go to Fr. James Martin’s Facebook page, people are celebrating and cheering Francis on.

I will note that I see a point in what Francis is saying. There is division in the Church. In my upstate New York parish, as in many places in America today, we already functionally had two parishes which never came together, divided by the Novus Ordo Mass. There was the Spanish-speaking parish and the English-speaking parish. Then a new pastor came in who added a Latin mass. This brought a whole new group of people in, who in general don’t socialize with the English-mass people OR the Spanish-mass people. I actually like the diversity of liturgy, but I can see the potential trouble. It would be nice to have a mass that was the same for everyone. The odd thing about Traditionis Custodes is that this dream of having a universal mass was the situation until the Novus Ordo.

But from comments and articles I’ve been reading, I think it is worth taking some time to think intelligently about how language operates in the liturgy. This whole controversy has raised some interesting questions.

First of all, why wouldn’t we want our prayers and the Mass in our mother tongue? It seems entirely rational to just have our prayers in the language we are most comfortable with. And since just about no one is as comfortable with Latin as they are with their native languages, why not simply get rid of Latin as a liturgical language? This seems rational enough.

But it is not upheld by the actual experience of the majority of human beings. India’s magnificent religious culture is sustained to this day by songs, chants, prayers, and Scriptures written in Sanskrit, a language just as dead as Latin. Tibetan Buddhists like the Dalai Lama pray in Classical Tibetan from the 12th century and not modern Tibetan. Muslims pray in 7th century Classical Arabic – even though Arabic has changed a great deal in the past 1400 years and the world’s largest Muslim countries (Indonesia, Pakistan, India) do not speak Arabic at all. The Hebrew language appears to have passed out of daily use sometime before Latin did, but it has remained the language of prayer for all Jews to this day, whatever language they may have first heard from their parents (Hebrew was also successfully resurrected as a spoken language in the 19th century by the remarkable Eliezer Ben-Yahudah). Greek Orthodox Christians still celebrate the Mass in ancient Greek – the same Koine Greek the New Testament was written in.

The idea of a preserving prayers in an old language – and not updating them to keep up with the times – is not an eccentricity of Roman Catholicism. It is at the heart of most of the world’s most successful religions. Even in the Protestant World, English speakers have kept the King James Bible to this day, and a whole host of archaic usages; Germans have kept the Luther-Bible and its New High German.

Such a widespread phenomenon must mean something. It may go against reason, but the idea of a sacred language different from the language of everyday life appeals to human beings. I can say from my own experience that prayer in Latin and Greek actually does seem to have a different effect on me: it pulls me out of my daily life, places me sub specie aeternitatis, where I have room to reflect on what is most important to me. Joseph Campbell – the furthest thing from a traddy Catholic – wrote about this:

There’s been a reduction, a reduction, a reduction of ritual. Even in the Roman Catholic Church, my God, they’ve translated the Mass out of the ritual language into a language that has a lot of domestic associations. Every time I read the Latin of the Mass, I get that pitch again that it’s supposed to give, a language that throws you out of the field of your domesticity.... They’ve forgotten what the function of a ritual is: it’s to pitch you out, not to wrap you back in where you have been all the time.

Human artifacts and cultural productions point the mind always to the era of their origin. Language acts this way as well. Sometimes this makes sense: the prayers and Scriptures of Islam hearken back to the days of Muhammad, who is considered the perfect embodiment of the Muslim life. The Aramaic of the Syriac Churches, and the Greek of the Orthodox Church, come directly from the times of Christ. When there is no particularly obvious reason for making the language of one era the language of prayer for later eras, people often resort to mythic reasoning: some Hindus maintain that Sanskrit is actually the language of the gods, just as some Jews maintain that Hebrew was the language spoken by God to Adam and Eve.

Latin has seen this mythic reasoning too, that it is the “language of the angels.” And indeed in Christian terms Latin’s claim to sacrality is not as great, quantitatively, as Greek or Aramaic, which were likely spoken by Jesus. But Latin has the same type of claim, qualitatively, as Greek and Aramaic: it is one of the languages of the days of Jesus. The Roman centurion he met spoke it; Pilate spoke it; when Paul had to defend himself in court in Rome, or when Peter heard the crowds in the Eternal City, Latin was the language of the day. And now Latin has been further consecrated by a whole host of saints and believers through the subsequent centuries of what has been called the Latin Rite. The Tridentine Mass makes those people and those present in the soul of the believer.

The Novus Ordo Mass is of course just as much a product of its time as any other cultural product. It is a product of the late 1960s. There is no doubt that this is the single most important period in the recent history of the world, a time when so much of modern life – our language, our architecture, our entertainment, our business habits, our social mores, our sex lives, and our liturgy – developed its current form. This is the strength of the New Mass: it is firmly rooted in a culture which is still very much with us.

But many people want the patina of age on their religions. A friend of mine declared that the older a religion is, the more respectable it is: he was uneasy with the newness of Scientology, the Baha’i, or Mormonism. Many people feel that way. And it is with the older forms of liturgy that Catholics actually get to experience the venerability of their religion.

Like many Catholics, I am not an exclusive adherent of the Tridentine Rite, but I see its beauty and importance. I think that people should pray, often, in the language they are most comfortable with; but I think people should also pray, at least sometimes, in a language removed from daily associations, and know, as most of the world’s believers do, the value of having a sacred language. I think eventually people will consider it odd that for a brief period of time there were many Roman Catholics, and even several popes, who did not understand this.

Why Archaic and Elevated Bible Translations Are Better, Especially for Liturgical Use

In an article last month, “Against Vernacular Readings in the Traditional Mass,” I spoke about why the traditional Latin Mass should remain in Latin for all of its parts, including the readings. However, I would not wish to be misunderstood as an opponent of vernacular translations of Scripture. On the contrary, there is an important twofold place for these translations: first, as a “support” to the congregation at Mass, either by way of their missals or from the pulpit before the homily; second, as a “mainstay” for lectio divina or personal meditation on Scripture. In keeping with the principle of St. Augustine, one should consult a variety of editions of the Bible because each will bring out meanings that the others do not. (The limit to this is merely a practical one: there are only so many Bibles one can juggle, and it is beneficial to have a “primary” Bible for the sake of memory and thorough familiarity.) Even knowledge of the original language of Scripture—Hebrew for the Old Testament and Greek for the New—does not obviate the need for other languages. For example, the Greek Septuagint offers invaluable insights into the Old Testament that the Masoretic text cannot supply.

This much is clear to me: for public proclamation of the Word of God, the translation we use should not be in “contemporary English” as it is spoken—or rather, cheapened and slaughtered—in today’s society. There are many reasons for this judgment in favor of archaic eloquence. Here I will present one set of reasons articulated by Fr. Luke Bell in his book Staying Tender: Contemplation, Pathway to Compassion (Angelico, 2020). Fr. Bell explains why he has chosen to quote from the King James Version:

Readers of early drafts of the book have suggested that this might be more difficult for people to get their head around than a modern version, so a word of explanation is in order. I don’t want you to get your head around it. I want it to get into your heart. I have chosen this version because it is poetic. T. S. Eliot observed (in connection with Dante) that “genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”
       That is to say that what comes through it is more than what the mind can grasp, at least to begin with. It speaks first of all to intuition rather than to any analytical faculty. That in us which sees the whole is touched by the poet’s own vision of the whole, its words awakening in us what awoke the words in him or her. Just as an inspiration of the oneness of creation can sometimes come through the beauty of nature, so a sense of the one divine source of all meaning can sometimes be received through poetry. It is the genre of the transcendent. Through it can be heard an echo of the music of eternity.
       If all this is true of poetry it should be true a fortiori of versions of Scripture, which is above all the text through which the transcendent comes to us. If we word it so it reflects back to us the quotidian banalities of our own speech with all the limitations of its vision, reducing in effect what it speaks of to that of which we speak, then we tend to make it tamer than it should be. We risk the complacency of thinking we have mastered it replacing the aspiration that it should master us…
       An older version, written when the language was richer and less abstract, is more likely to make us pause before the mystery, to humble us before the numinous, to open us to what comes from beyond.

Frontispiece of KJV, 1611 ed.

In Anthony Lo Bello’s extremely interesting, if eccentric and occasionally erroneous, Origins of Catholic Words: A Discursive Dictionary (Washington, D.C.: CUA Press, 2020), we read this marvelous quotation from Theodore Dwight Woolsey (1801–1889), chairman of the American New Testament Committee and ex-president of Yale University, who wrote in 1879, concerning the impending revision of the King James Version:

We would here guard against a wrong inference which might be drawn from our remarks, as if in a translation for the nineteenth century the words most in use in the century, and most familiar to the ears of the people, ought always to take the place of others less in use, which, however, retain their place in the language. This is far from being a safe rule. One of the most important impressions which the Word of God makes is made by its venerableness. The dignity and sanctity of the truth are supported by the elevation of the style, and woe to the translator who should seek to vulgarize the Bible, on the plea of rendering it more intelligible. Understood it must be, and this must be provided for by removing the ambiguities and obscurities to which changes in society and changes in the expression of thought give rise. But as long as the English is a living tongue, the style of the scriptures must be majestic, and removed from all vulgarity. Indeed, it must be such as it is now, with those exceptions, few in number, which time brings with it, and most of which will hardly be noticed by the cursory reader.

Another one of the revisers, A. B. Davidson (1831–1902), professor of Hebrew in Ediburgh, commented on the same topic:

The antique cast of style must be retained. Nothing that is not absolutely wrong, or not absolutely out of use, should be removed. The modern vocabulary, and the modern order of words, and the modern cast of sentence must be avoided. Any change of familiar passages will grate on the ear, and even on the heart, of the devout reader.

These men were part of the committee that produced what we now call the Revised Version (OT, 1881; NT, 1885). As Lo Bello wryly remarks, “another point of view was that to be discovered in the literary principle of the Roman Consilium” in connection with translations of the Roman Missal:

The language chosen should be that in “common” usage, that is, suited to the greater number of the faithful who speak it in everday use, even “children and persons of small education.” (Comme le prévoit, 1969)

Hmm. Let’s take the liturgy, the highest and most sublime public activity known to man, and render it into the most commonplace language we can manage, easy enough for little kids and the uneducated to follow. And then let’s ask people to listen to this week in, week out, for decades of their lives. What wonderful results can be predicted! They will fall in love with this facile discourse! They will mutter the memorable words as they go about their day, as people in former times would sing folksongs or savor tales. Their dreams will be permeated with the phrases and periods of the New American Bible, like so many susurrant winds or heaving waves. The very discourse of Catholics in the home and in the market will be shaped by the resonance of ICEL’s prose, as once upon a time the English tongue was leavened with the lines of the Bard of Avon.

I’m afraid not.

What's that about not judging a book by its cover? 

The truth of the matter is that an elevated diction, unusual rhetorical tropes, a spacious and ponderous feel, are all highly suitable to signifying that this book is like no other book, and that it is worthy of our attention and our effort. We must, to some extent, strain to it, in order to find out what it is saying; its lack of immediate comprehensibility is a shield against contempt. Anything easily understood is viewed by us as beneath us, inferior to our own power of understanding; at best, it will be classified as “useful,” at worst as worthless. I remember hearing one Sunday at Mass the word “froward” in the Epistle that was read from the pulpit before the homily: I said to myself: “What in the world does froward mean?” Much later, I learned that it meant difficult to deal with, contrary, ornery. The word actually stuck in my memory better because I did not know what it meant.

That reminds me, too, of times when our children would ask us what something meant in a story or a poem or at Mass. Usually they asked us about something strange in a text—something that went beyond their reading comprehension. And the answer provided by my wife or me was often an occasion for a brief catechetical lesson.

It seems to me that there is so much wisdom to be found in the practice, common to every religious tradition on earth, of using more archaic and more solemn forms of language as part of the act of worship. I would be remiss not to mention in this connection the stellar example given to the English-speaking world by the Anglican Ordinariate, which has brought into Catholic life, for the first time since the Council, a truly lofty and noble register of vernacular. And I daresay “even children and persons of small education” are instructed, inspired, and intrigued thereby.