Why Latin?

As any regular lair visitor knows, the cavemen are in unapologetic agreement that the Latin Mass has a reverence, beauty, and ability to inspire that the most orthodox Novus Ordo Mass will never have. The former is oriented vertically to worship God; the latter is focused horizontally torward the community. However well-intentioned it might have been, the results of Vatican II have proven it has wrought havoc and the Novus Ordo is a prime disaster. The “New Mass” has led to innumerable abuses and has been a primary factor in the faithful losing their belief in the Real Presence.

A number of posts have asked “Why the Latin Mass?” or “What’s the big deal with Latin?” Well, I came across an article by Father Chad Ripperger, FSSP, that answers those questions quite well.

“...I went to Rome and attended the Mass in Italian. Had the Mass been in Latin according to the ancient rite, I would have felt right at home at Mass; instead, I was left with the impression that I was merely an onlooker from the outside. This is why Latin and a fixed ritual allow the Mass to have a universal appeal: one can attend it in every country, in every parish in the world and still feel right at home. While we may not understand the homily or sermon when we are in a foreign country, we can nevertheless enter into the ritual in the same depth and fervor that we can at our home parish. This also avoids the problem of people parish shopping, as it were, trying to find a priest whose choice of Mass options suits their own dispositions.

Latin also provides a form of self-denial by taking the translation of the ritual out of the hands of questionable agencies. Inclusive language is a classic example of what we have been describing: the desire of a small group to impose its spirituality on everyone else. The desire for inclusive language is a manifestation of the expectation that the ritual should conform to the group rather than vice versa. Latin undermines this idea because everyone, as Pope John XXXIII says in Veterum Sapentia, is equal before the Latin language. Latin forces a type of self-denial on us because we can not manipulate the language to our own ends. It also thwarts the inclination of the priest to ad lib, foisting his own personal disposition on those attending the Mass.”

This excerpt is from Father Ripperger’s article “The Spirituality of the Ancient Liturgy” in the Fall 2001 issue of Latin Mass magazine.