I understand that in view of the concerns expressed by the Council Fathers, Pope Paul VI set up a commission of three cardinals to examine the question of whether the particular Churches should be allowed to communicate with the dicasteries of the Roman Curia in languages other than Latin. It is my understanding that Scotland’s William Theodore Cardinal Heard was one of the three. I believe that Cardinal Roberti MAY have been one of the others.I am afraid that I don't know anything about this commission. If you do, and especially if you have any links to put in the combox, that would be very helpful. It is interesting to hear about such a commission. If it existed as described, it would be typical of its time.
The problem is, I have never been able to locate anything about the report of the commission or anything about what Pope Paul VI decided, although it is obvious that they recommended, and the Pope accepted, that it was unreasonable/unadvisable (sic) to insist on the local Churches communicating in Latin.
I wondered if, bearing in mind your expertise in the Latin, you knew anything about this.
In the process of extirpating Latin from the life of the Church, it was often competent latinists who were most in favour of the vernacular. The attitude was to look condescendingly on students and priests who did not have good Latin and argue that it was pointless requiring them to say the breviary in Latin. In support of this attitude there were plenty of jokes told about ignorant priests who made mistakes in Latin. In those days, such attitudes were fashionable to the point that people were ridiculed routinely if they expressed a contrary opinion.
The stereotype of the ignorant parish clergy was always unfair. While the Latin of some was rudimentary, many priests had reasonably good Latin, and many improved over time through the conscientious recitation of the breviary.
There is a postscript to Hughie's comment concerning Cardinal Heard. There were many stories about him still doing the rounds when I was in Rome. They were not edifying - though again they were fashionable in an iconoclastic way. He and Cardinal Roberti may have been good latinists: there were still plenty around in Rome in the early 1960s. However I think that Cardinal Bacci was considered the doyen of latinists in the 1950s and, after him, Cardinal Felici. Reggie Foster spoke of Felici with awe: one tale he told us was that he could, ex tempore, compose hexameters in perfect metre .
In my time at Rome (1980-1985) Canon Law was still taught in Latin. Reggie told us of one lecturer who was particularly respected for his use of Latin. On one occasion I went with another student to his class in Canon Law: he beamed when we told him that we were not canonists but wished to hear his Latin.
It always irritated me that the theology lectures were given in Italian. The Italian of many of the teachers would have been no better than the Latin of some in previous years. Most students in Rome have to learn Italian from scratch: it would be far more use to them to learn Latin. What then happens is that a culture builds in which at least some take a pride in learning the language well. Others won't bother; but then there were always students who spent five or six years in Rome without being to speak Italian fluently. If Latin were part of the culture, some would learn Latin and Italian fluently while others wouldn't bother too much: but at least there would be an opportunity.
If that culture is present, then you also have a foundation for the cultivation of Latin at a higher level. At one time, People like Cardinals Bacci were admired for their Latin; it was seen as an accomplishment to be respected. I lived through the time when that admiration gave way to scorn and derision. Please God the process can be reversed as a younger generation begins again to treasure the wisdom of the ancients and the knowledge of their languages.
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Fr Tim:
Are you preparing us for the day on which you start to blog in Latin? Does not your post make a good case for that? After all, if the culture is there, some of us would ...
I dare you!
It is possible that relevant information is be found in this article entitled "Latin at the Ecumenical Council" which, alas, is not freely accessible beyond the first page, at the foot of which we find a tantalizing hint as to Paul VI's attitude -
http://www.jstor.org/pss/20162874
How about the decline of English? Do translators know what the word homonym means? Those who passed the cobblers' dilemma (*) obviously cannot recognise them.
(*)the cobblers' dilemma? "My soul shall be healed." Think about it.
As we speak of classical languages, and especially in this Christmas season, it is worth remembering the words of Dean Gaisford:
"Nor can I do better, in conclusion, than impress upon you the study of Greek literature, which not only elevates above the vulgar herd but leads not infrequently to positions of considerable emolument."
—Thomas Gaisford, Christmas sermon, Christ Church, Oxford.
1) All the Latin I learnt was from the Missal and Breviary. Anyone with a gift for languages can figure it out for himself - even if you don't know what the genitive or dative are, you can recognise the differences between cases through examples (Dixit Dominus Domino meo) if you know the psalms in English.
2) I have in my possession a philosophy textbook published in 1962. It is written entirely in Latin, except for a few bits of French. The text is aimed at French seminarians, but everything that wasn't originally in French or Latin is translated not into French but into Latin.
3) My copies of the Enchiridion Patristicum and the Enchiridion Symbolorum are from the same period. Both are entirely in Latin except for the Greek... which is given with Latin translations.
It was a disappointment to learn that the Pontifical Universities in Rome had switched to lectures in Italian by the 1980s. What a difference twenty years had made! In the 1960s all lectures were still in Latin with the presumption being that all incoming seminarians would be familiar with it. While perhaps not expert Latinists, at least they would know more Latin than Italian from day one. And having assisted at Masses in Latin their whole lives – not to mention the Office for some - it was hardly a ‘foreign language’ to them.
But the rot had begun to set in by 1967 as newer professors tended to lapse into Italian more frequently. I suspect another factor entered into this: the admission of lay students (begun about 1968, I believe) to the Gregorian, among others.
I note that the Angelicum now includes courses in Latin in its curriculum. It would not have been deemed necessary fifty years ago.
Eheu fugaces labuntur anni…
All very sad. I remember going out to Rome to begin my studies for the priesthood in 1975 and being disappointed that Latin was being so rapidly lost. But it cannot be allowed to be lost. The longer things go on as they are, the more difficult it will be to restore Latin. But it has to be restored. The Church did not begin in 1965. It is not going to be possible to translate everything from the history of the Church into ever-changing vernacular languages. If we are ignorant of Latin, we will be at the mercy of those who do know Latin and have an axe to grind. We must work to keep/restore Latin so that we can stop our vernaculars fraying away. I am now in my early 60's. The English I hear from children is very different from what I was taught to speak. The digital age, for all its positive possibilities, has begun to destroy communication. If Latin goes, English, etc. will soon follow.
I have a copy of Symes's 'History of the Roman Republic' published in the 1930s in which the author does not bother to translate his Greek and Latin quotations since he assumes that anyone reading his book would be familiar with both languages. When I went up to Durham University in 1969 to read Modern History, Latin to at least O-Level was a precondition, and I gather this was the same in the other two universities.
Sadly, the dumbing-down of our once-proud educational system has ousted the classics, and don't even get me started on what they have done to modern languages - A-Level French and German with no need to translate and no literature - it makes you weep.
Don't exactly know what "communication" means. Did this mean at the Council? Correspondence with the Apostolic See and the Roman Curia was not mandated to be in Latin and the nuncios and curial officials said as much long before the Council. Official correspondence was only in Latin when the recipient-in-question did not speak French or Italian. All internal minutes of curial dicasteries are in Italian except for official decrees and certain technical phrases (marks of the curia) like "dilata".
I taught Modern Languages for nearly 40 years.I can assure John Nolan that up to 2004, when I retired, I used the option system to ensure that no pupil of mine did an A Level without studying some Spanish literature. And I have frequently been thanked for it when they were at university and at an advantage over their peers.
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