Sallustius, Misanthropicus salutem. S.V.B.E.E.V.
With the due respect for Evan’s thoughtful article about Obama’s fraudulence (article which I already forwarded to many), I’ll take the liberty to add to my prior post/RE Sallust(ius)’ justifiably indignant & severe comparison Obama/Catiline (and to Sallust’s subsequent correction of
my chronological mistake) the following piece regarding Latin language.
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BBC/Europe/May 10th, 2008 AD.
“Avete cybernaute!
Vatican gives Latin online boost/The saying of Mass in Latin has been promoted by the current Pope
The Roman Catholic Church, for centuries a bastion of Latin usage, has given the ancient tongue a 21st Century boost by launching a website in Latin. The Vatican website now has a section – Sancta Sedes (Holy See) – with Latin papal texts and religious works. Pope Benedict XVI is an advocate of Latin, allowing Mass in the language. But when a papal decree was issued only in Latin by mistake last June, there was confusion until the Vatican press office put out an Italian version. “It caused a bit of panic for my colleagues who had no schooling in Latin,” said the BBC’s Rome correspondent David Willey, “until the official translation finally emerged.” The Vatican website already has sections in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.
Ancient traditions
Fr Foster: Using Latin means you have to say something. For centuries church documents were all written in Latin, the mass was said only in Latin. Without a knowledge of the language you would not go far if you were an ambitious priest. But Latin has fallen out of favour in recent years
as the subject has been dropped from school curricula in many countries and normal Vatican business is conducted in Italian, or increasingly in English. But Pope Benedict wants the Catholic Church to keep its ancient traditions. After his election to the papacy three years ago, he addressed the Church’s cardinals in Latin. He has encouraged the use of the language in seminaries where new priests are trained. The new website will make sacred texts available in Latin. Last year he lifted restrictions on celebrating the Latin Tridentine Mass. The Latin Mass had been largely abandoned in the 1960s, as part of reforms to make Catholicism more relevant to its worldwide congregation. But Father Reginald Foster, an American priest who is the Pope’s official Latinist, praises the virtues and the clarity of the Latin language. “You have to say something and move on,” he says. “It’s not like French and some of these philosophical languages where you can write a whole page and say nothing – in Latin you
can’t do that!” Fr Foster has a weekly programme on Vatican Radio called The Latin Lover, in which he explains the historical and contemporary uses of the language.”
Misanthropicus: Loved it – and, strange enough, when I read it I suddenly remembered a resembling piece by, heavens! Alexander Cockburn himself, that somber, Orwell/Trotsky/Frenchie intellectuel who (at that time) was praising a Finnish radio station for worldwide broadcasting in Latin, this strangely grasping language…
Latin, this strangely grasping language: “Eheu, fugaces, Postume, Postume, labuntur anni, nec pietas rugis et instanti senectae oferet,” – Misanthropicus is certain that most of PJM enthusiasts have recognized in that line Brittney Spears’ melancholy evaluation of her footsteps in the eternity’s sands…
Salve et vale.
