Tea at Trianon: Dare to Try the Johannine Option

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Dare to Try the Johannine Option

From Adoremus:

On February 22, the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, in 1962, the year that the Second Vatican Council began, Pope St. John XXIII put pen to vellum. Before a solemn convocation of cardinals, bishops, and members of the faithful, he signed his new Apostolic Constitution after placing it on the high altar of St. Peter’s Basilica. It was Veterum sapientia, on promoting the study of Latin.
Echoing his predecessors, Pope John asserted that the Latin language, being universal, immutable, and non-vernacular, is uniquely suited for the Catholic Church. In fact, he claimed, it was no accident that the Word became flesh when he did, precisely when the Greek and Latin languages were ready to carry the truth of the Gospel to the nations. This was the design of the same providence that would root the Church’s visible headship not in Jerusalem but in the imperial city of Rome.

Veterum sapientia is not only about the Mass but about the whole life of the Latin Church and, indeed, the Church universal. Pope John directs that seminaries and other academies are to teach in Latin, use textbooks written in Latin, and ensure that their students become proficient in Latin. It is an unambiguous, rigorous document, one that Pope John meant to be taken seriously.

Even those familiar with Veterum sapientia may not know the companion document issued by the Sacred Congregation for Seminaries and Universities to assist in the implementation of Pope John’s mandate.^[1] This document delineates requirements for teachers, exercises, examinations, and a full curriculum for Latin studies extending all the way to nine years! It specifies how seminaries and universities around the world should have Latin as their lingua franca for study.

None of this happened. Despite the mandate of the pope who called the Second Vatican Council, despite the stated intention of that same Council,^[2] despite the statements of subsequent popes and Church documents,^[3] it is not uncommon today for priests never even to have studied Latin at all—never mind the standing canonical requirement of good proficiency (“bene calleant”).^[4] The situation among the lay faithful is even worse.

And yet, by the firm and gentle hand of providence, Latin has not yet been lost forever. In fact, there is clear growth in the use of Latin in the Mass and interest in Latin both in Catholic schools, especially those exploring the use of classical curricula, and in the thriving Catholic homeschooling movement. We are far from a revival of Latin on the scale of what was achieved in modern times with Hebrew through the efforts of scholars such as Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858-1922) in Israel, but there is interest. I suggest that it is time to accelerate that progress.

Nearly 60 years since Veterum sapientia, we must get serious about reviving Latin in the Latin Church. Despite the near total abandonment of the language, we now have tools that Pope John would have marveled at—the Internet, smart phones, and serious advances in language pedagogy. Actually, the Church has now fallen behind the world of secular Latin.

This is a pity because Pope John was right. The Church needs Latin. We are, after all, a global community, an ancient community, and an everlasting community. (Read more.)