I know it may sound strange to begin my second post with such a title, but a little squabble recently with a seminarian has proven to me (again) that, contrary to the express admonitions of the current Code of Canon Law, most bishops do not want their priests to know Latin. But first let us consider what the Church specifically dictates regarding the matter:
Can. 249 - Institutionis sacerdotalis Ratione provideatur ut alumni non tantum accurate linguam patriam edoceantur, sed etiam linguam Latinam bene calleant necnon congruam habeant cognitionem alienarum linguarum, quarum scientia ad eorum formationem aut ad ministerium pastorale exercendum necessaria aut utilis videatur.
My translation: In the program of priestly formation let provision be made that the students [i.e. seminarians] not only be carefully and thoroughly taught their native language, but also know well and by experience the Latin language; let them also have a suitable knowledge of those foreign languages, knowledge of which seems necessary or useful for their formation or for carrying out the pastoral ministry.
A few remarks regarding the precise wording of this canon are in order. The first thing to notice is that the Holy See envisions three kinds of language studies for seminarians: their native language, Latin, and other foreign languages necessary or useful for the priestly ministry. Because any language might theoretically be deemed “useful or necessary” for priests, there really is no limit to what a seminarian (or priest) might ask to study. More importantly, we can reasonably understand the Church to be stressing language study in a particular order. The top priority for future priests is their native language, then Latin, and then other foreign languages.
Now let us consider how universally ignored this canon is by the empowered. Do priests in the U.S. even know their native tongue? Given the low quality of sermons in most places with which one is regularly bombarded, we can tend towards the negative. Who learns the proper use of who and whom anymore? Dare I even mention the classical distinction between will and shall? Does anyone realize that the expression It’s me is grammatically incorrect? Perhaps the clergy should be more pitied than berated in this regard, for the translations of the Missal, Breviary, and Bible forced upon them for the past forty years have done nothing but vulgarize the speech of us all.
Returning to the details of Canon 249, we must note that seminaries ought to lay greater stress on Latin than on any other foreign language in the intellectual formation of seminarians. We now encounter the real lunacy of the post-conciliar Church, for who can imagine a bishop in the twenty-first century actually expecting his English speaking priests to know Latin better than any other foreign language, including Spanish? Not even the Jesuits know Latin that well anymore. (Pro dolor!) The chasm between the letter of the law and our daily lives widens when we consider the verb used to describe the sort of attention seminarians owe to the language that built Western civilization, callere. The verb originally meant to be callused with something and then came to mean to be skillful or versed in that something. By using this word, Canon 249 should give us the mental image of nineteen and twenty year old adolescent men in cassocks and Roman collars callusing their knees by genuflecting on massive tombs of Cicero while doing long-term damage to their eyes as they try to read the fine print of Lewis and Short under insufficient candlelight. Alas! As the current liturgical crisis has all too well taught us, said Canon takes 249th place on every bishop’s list of 100 things to do.
But why have things gotten to be as they are? The most obvious and superficial reason is that the priests of the Roman Rite no longer need Latin to go about their daily routine. If the Church never forces them to use an ancient and (mostly) non-spoken language, why should they bother learning it? Or rather, how could they when every opportunity has been denied them? At a deeper and more insidious level, however, is the grim reality that bishops do not want their priests to know Latin. In fact, the majority of bishops appointed before April 2005 probably hate it. This deep-seated desire to keep their priests ignorant has a two-fold cause to be discussed below:
A) “No Latin, no Latin Mass:” This one should be fairly straightforward. Young priests will not bring the traditional liturgy back into parishes if they cannot read and understand the text.
B) “Know Latin, Know too Much:” This is the real heart of the matter. Priests who have gone through the toil (Latin: labor) to make the Church’s language their own usually emerge with a thoroughly sharpened mind that enables them to read between the lines of the constant dribble of post-conciliar blah-blah-blah and episcobabble and reject it. Not only does a thorough knowledge of Latin predispose priests to reject what most of the bishops are saying now, it makes them impenetrable to claims and fallacies based on the “sprit of Vatican II” (not the Spirit of God), for they can actually read for themselves the texts of the Council. Make no mistake about it, those who can read the Council for themselves in its original language know it better, hands down, than anyone who can read it solely in translation. And that’s not all they know. They also have first hand access to a majority of the texts that have formed the Church’s magisterium for two millennia, and they know that those texts cannot be easily reconciled with the doctrinal novelties of the Council, especially those of Dignitatis Humanae. “Indeed,” assert our enemies behind closed doors, “keep them ignorant of Latin and they will have no choice but to believe that the Council means whatever we tell them.”
Of course, we must judge our shepherds mercifully. Why, after all, would they want classically trained presbyterates regularly spewing off quotations from Cicero and Pope Innocent III to the consternation and incomprehension of post-modern, pro-choice, we-just-want-to-sing-a-new-church-into-being, blah-blah-blah-loving Americanist congregations running around in Catholic drag? Can you imagine the toil and calluses to be suffered by a bishop in a diocese staffed by 150 Fr. Zuhlsdorfs? What about 150 Fr. Reginald Fosters? The solution, clearly, is to ordain only easily controllable men to the priesthood who know next to nothing and think they have some vague idea of the as yet unspecified, unculturally conditioned, post-modern meaning of O Salutaris Hostia from seminary Latin class. Let’s just hope that these men will one day learn enough Latin to mumble the Words of Consecration in more than just gibberish.
