The Loss of Language — and other Paradigms
—
in the Catholic Church
The
“Three-Generations
Solution”
Every
Jew knows how to pray in Hebrew, just
as every Muslim knows how to pray in Arabic
Both are essential idioms
in their respective religions, although most Jews, like most Muslims,
do not speak, or largely understand either language. It is unique to
— as it were, totally specific and carefully preserved
identifying markers inseparable from, characteristic of, and exclusively
pertaining to — their respective religions. Even Reform Jews know the
Sh'ma Yisrael, just as the most culturally assimilated Muslim
knows the Du'aa for Salah.
It is important to understand
that Arabic is only specific to Arabia and 25 other countries
throughout the world, and is not the lingua franca of other Muslim states.
Hebrew is only specific to Israel and is not the native
tongue of the Diaspora. We are agreed upon this, yes? The language of
prayer is different from the language spoken outside the place of worship.
Judaism clung to Hebrew. Islam clung to Arabic.
“Smacking
” — Latin as
idiomatic of Catholicism
Why, then, has
the Catholic Church jettisoned Latin as the language specific
to prayer in collective, and often private worship?
Why is Latin a taboo,
unlike Hebrew and Arabic? You will be hard-pressed to find a Catholic
fluent in Latin, and much more to the point, any ecclesiastic
(priest, bishop, and cardinal) who any longer has facility with
Latin. Our own “Cardinal Sean” (as he prefers to be called) is fluent
in Spanish, but I highly doubt that he could conjugate the simplest
Latin verb. It is no longer taught in seminaries (despite
Can. 249
requiring it), and no longer perpetuated in the Church itself at its
highest levels. The language that has been synonymous with the Catholic
Church for over 2000 years has become forgotten (yes, and verboten)
in less than 50. To pray in Latin is historically and absolutely unique
to the Roman Catholic Church. All formal ecclesiastical pronouncements
are still indited in Latin! Simply visit
http://www.vatican.va/latin/latin_index.html
Why, then, is Latin the
lightning rod of all “progressive” criticism of the Church — especially
in the language of worship? Virtually every other profane
language (any vernacular language specific to location: e.g. English,
Spanish, Vietnamese, Lao, German, etc.) is permitted ... but the
sacred language itself is not? Why such widespread animus
toward Latin? The answer is surprisingly simple: it “smacks” of Catholicism
in an age of unbridled ecumenism. Every language is acceptable to
the Post-Conciliar Church — except Her own. If She has forgotten how
to speak, how can She "teach, govern, and Sanctify",
for
which purpose God established Her in the first place?
1
North Korea as the Paradigm
of the Policy to Abolish Catholic Ecclesiastical Language:
specifically, Latin
The period at which the
people of North Korea became totally sequestered from the world and
the inception of the Novus Ordo (New Order) Mass (concomitantly
with the abolition of the centuries old Tridentine Mass) coincides
within a 10 year margin. Important — and potent — analogies obtain:
Having been both categorically and systematically indoctrinated
— crushed under an iron fist with no tolerance for dissent or dismay,
North Koreans subsequently know nothing other than what their brutal
regime propagates and allows them to know. This concerns such quotidian
features as whether the earth is round, the notion of free speech, and
the freedom of thought.
“The
Three-Generations Punishment”
as a Paradigm
150,000 to 200,000 North
Koreans were born in, live, and will die in concentration camps under
North Korea's policy of deterrence through “three generations of
punishment”: the criminal together with his entire family, and the
following two entire generations that will be born — and die — in the
prison camps: in other words, the primary “malefactor”, his children,
and their children. If there is a fourth generation, it
will possess no knowledge of anything whatever from posterity and outside
the concentration camps. It is their world. At least two complete generations
born within it will not know of any other kind of existence, and will
understand their own miserable existence as “normal”. Through this
policy of “Three generations of Punishment”, there is no possible transmission
of any knowledge apart from what is acquired (indoctrinated) in the
camp itself. All possibility of dissidence is totally expunged, for
there is knowledge of nothing from which to dissent.
The hierarchy of the Catholic Church subsequent to the “policies”
enacted following Vatican II, appear to have taken a similar approach
in the way of language, worship, tradition, and the Mass itself. Within
three generations, Catholics have largely lost (or more accurately,
have been systematically deprived of the transmission of) what pertains
to the unique Catholic identity that had been taught and lived for centuries
prior to the catastrophe that has been euphemized as “Vatican II”.
Centuries of teaching, worship, and tradition were categorically abolished
and anything verging on “residual” was not allowed to emerge again.
In may ways, it was not so much abolished as “stamped out” — much as
any criticism of the "Dear Leader" was met with a quick and final “dismissal”,
so was any criticism of “the Spirit of Vatican II” a specter even more
ghastly and destructive than the actual corpus itself.
Not only was a millennia old language abolished as unacceptable
anymore, but nearly every tradition and concept that was uniquely Catholic
was peremptorily suppressed, tossed out, and ultimately forgotten …
such that the last “malefactor” who breached the policy, were he still
alive, would no longer recognize the institution in which he was nurtured
— and the fourth generation Catholic would no longer recognize the last
malefactor and would not understand his language, let alone his gestures
and manner of living. Indeed, the physical structure itself in which
the celebration morphed from a Mass to a Prayer-Space, would itself
become unrecognizable to either. The spires ascending to God would seem
archaic and meaningless beside the Bauhaus flat, unadorned, and indistinguishable
building that could as well be a synagogue, a mortuary, or an office
building and which has a “presider” instead of a “priest” (a now unacceptable
"patriarchal" image of Christ).
North Korea
succeeded in extinguishing, obliterating all memory of anything that
preceded it. And so did Vatican II. Despite the motu proprio Summum
Pontificum, allowing the Tridentine Mass to be said by any priest
without “permission” from his ordinary (bishop), virtually any attempt
to celebrate it is met with hostility and every possible impediment.
Vatican II had spoken … much as the Dear Leader had spoken, and the
matter was settled and irreversible.
Another
paradigm ...
 |
Dresden
as another Paradigm
of the aftermath of
Vatican
II
|
 |
| Dresden at the turn of
the century |
|
Dresden less than 50 years
later in 1945 |
Irreversible also is the damage.
It is rather like a vignette of the city of Dresden before and after
its infamous fire-bombing in World War II. The name was retained, but
it designated utter ruin.
 |
Vatican
II as another Paradigm
of the aftermath of
Dresden
|
 |
| A Catholic Church at the
turn of the century |
|
A Catholic Cathedral less than
50 years after Vatican II
|
“The Eternal President
of the Republic” Kim Il-sung (his formal title, despite being dead 10
years now and counting) and Kim-Jong-il (dead now 3 years and counting)
and his porculent, maniacal son Kim Jong-un have made North Korea another
Dresden. And if we look at it closely and without bias, so did Vatican
II make a once flourishing Catholic culture the mere detritus of another
Dresden called the City of Man which is still being dismantled and destroyed
as we watch — without any outrage ... or even wonder.
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
__________________________________
1 Baltimore Catechism:
120. Q. “Why
did Christ found the Church? A. Christ founded the Church to teach,
govern, sanctify, and save all men.”
Printable
PDF Version
|
