Say WHAT?? ...
“But Father! But Father!”, some priests and religious may be saying. “We don’t have to pray the office in Latin! We had Vatican II!”
Really?
Sacrosanctum Concilium:
101. 1. In accordance with the centuries-old tradition of the Latin rite, the Latin language is to be retained by clerics in the divine office. But in individual cases the ordinary has the power of granting the use of a vernacular translation to those clerics for whom the use of Latin constitutes a grave obstacle to their praying the office properly. The vernacular version, however, must be one that is drawn up according to the provision of Art. 36.That's what the Conciliar document says, isn't it? So why does he say he's "just being difficult" because he gets irritated with "people who invoke Vatican II for all sorts of things, but neglect things like this"? So is he "just being difficult," or is he letting his readers off too easily?
My, oh, my! How far we have drifted!
2 comments:
Another good post. The problem with the V-2 documents is that they're crafted in such a way that they lend themselves to being led selectively, by factions on all sides. This is a way to make everybody happy but have nobody agree with anyone else. Unity is out. Diversity is in. Catholicism is no longer 'Catholic' by virtue of commanding universal assent to one understanding of one creed, but 'Catholic' by virtue of allowing everybody to invent their own interpretations of their own creeds.
You want Latin? You get Latin. You want Swahili? You get Swahili. You want formal? You get formal. You want rock masses? You get rock masses. You want heresy? You get heresy.
Fr. Z is funny. Some time ago a woman asked him, via a blog comment I think, which edition she should obtain from Catholic Book Publishing that she too might participate in the Prayer of the Church. The reply was: it does not matter: if you’re not obligated to pray, whatever you pray is a devotion rather than the Prayer of the Church.
Of course, I might have misinterpreted the response.
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