The Forgotten Great Man

I attended one Catholic service in my childhood. The service was in Latin, the church was somber and dark--it had only a few stained glass windows---and the men wore suits. In those days children had to sit absolutely still throughout. I never complained about Episcopal worship again.

Fast forward ten years, when a friend in Boston invited me to a Catholic service that was popular with college students. The mass was in English--nearly indistinguishable from an experimental Episcopal liturgy--and the priest played the guitar. The bread was torn from a loaf, and the chalice was ceramic, not metal.

The changes in the Catholic church, all within the span of a decade, were the result of the Second Vatican Council, and one of the 20th century's "forgotten" great men, Pope John XXIII.

The Second Vatican Council, which opened 60 years ago on Oct. 11, 1962, was the most important Catholic event in half a millennium. Its achievements were many and notable; it was also followed by ecclesiastical upheavals that continue to roil the Church today.

After Vatican II, Catholics worshiped in their own languages, rather than in Latin. By urging Catholics to become more biblically literate, the council inspired lay communities of spiritual renewal, some of them robustly charismatic. It also led to greater lay participation in all aspects of Church life: liturgical, educational, managerial, evangelical. The council fully inserted Catholicism into the ecumenical movement’s quest for Christian unity, even as it dramatically reconfigured the Church’s relationship to its religious parent, Judaism.

Vatican II was also the moment in which Catholicism fully realized its claim to be a global (“catholic”) institution, as churchmen from outside the Church’s historic European core began to take prominent roles in shaping the Catholic future. The extraordinary growth of the Catholic Church in sub-Saharan Africa—where Catholicism now counts hundreds of millions of adherents, many of them first- or second-generation Christians—was accelerated by the council’s promotion of native African clergy and religious orders, its disentanglement of Catholicism from colonialism and its insistence on the Church’s essentially missionary character.

....From his historical studies and pastoral experience, John XXIII knew that the defensive Catholicism of the Counter-Reformation, however successful a salvage operation, had run its course. It was time to raze the bastions that Catholicism had erected and turn its robust institutions into platforms for evangelization and mission in order to engage a deeply troubled modern world. The Church, he believed, existed to proclaim and compassionately witness to Christian truth for the world’s healing and sanctification. It could not hide that truth like the frightened servant in Christ’s parable of the talents (Luke 19:12-28).

...John XXIII often spoke of his hope that Vatican II would be a “new Pentecost,” recalling the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles. The council he imagined was not a business meeting in which the branch officers of a global enterprise discussed ways to increase market share in a stable cultural and social environment. Pope John intended Vatican II to be an event in the realm of the spirit: an experience of the love of God breaking into the world anew

Jewish and Christian history is replete with great men and women like Pope John XXIII, whose background and training made them seem singularly unequipped to lead people out of the wilderness.

The Beam in Their Own Eye

Having studied Latin in middle school and rather unsuccessfully trying to learn conversational French and Spanish during the '80's and '90's, your humble blogger was struck by the foundational importance of gender in the Romance languages.

(Gif from NBC News)

At the beginning of the 21st century, in the drive to eliminate gender from American English, a strange word, Latinx, seeped out of the academy into the mainstream.

How would American Hispanics react?

Latinx was initiated by a Progressive movement that purports to have their interest at heart, but labeling a group with a genderless brand-new word seemed a bit like the cultural imperialism that Progressives decry. (For the record, I believe that we should strive to call people by the names that they wish to be called, but when addressing members of a group who themselves disagree, we should try to use the terms that the majority find least offensive.)

There were Hispanic voices speaking out against Latinx when we posted on the subject in 2019, but they were still early days.

In the intervening two years more evidence has come in that 'Latinx’ Isn’t Popular With Latinos:

Actual Latinos shun the word “Latinx.” According to a November 2021 poll by Bendixen & Amandi International, only 2% of Americans of Latin descent refer to themselves that way. Some 68% prefer “Hispanic” to “Latino” and “Latina.” And 40% are offended by “Latinx,” which means it’s a mistake for a politician to use the word, at least around Latino constituents.

Will the white Progressives who use Latinx respect the wishes of the overwhelming majority of Hispanics? I doubt it, they see white supremacy everywhere but in themselves.

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus

The words of the Latin Mass are understood by few, but for the dwindling number of Catholics who do prefer the ancient liturgy no modern substitutes will do. [bold added]

the old Latin Mass, also known as the Tridentine Rite, follows an ancient pattern that was codified in the 16th century. It is celebrated only in Latin, with greater formality and ceremony, and its words and symbolism emphasize Christ’s redemptive sacrifice on the cross as reproduced through the actions of the priest.

Devotees of the old Mass say that they treasure the beauty of the ritual, its links to the church’s past, and what they say is an atmosphere of greater mystery, solemnity and reverence than they find in the new Mass.

As an Episcopalian who's visited Catholic churches for 50 years, I remember the "folk masses" that startled church goers in the 1970's. The music was different, the words were different, even the bread and wine were different. Eventually they were accepted.

Catholics were forced to think about their faith from top to bottom; yet it was clear that other forms of worship were just that--alternatives that one could use from time to time to enhance understanding of the essentials of faith. We're not taking off anything from the menu, just adding a few dishes.

To this non-Catholic Christian banning the Latin Mass ("In July, Pope Francis issued a decree permitting local bishops to ban the Latin Mass in their dioceses and instructing them to do so in parish churches") seems like a betrayal. Advocates of change were given the opportunity by traditionalists and over decades won over the majority. Now they want to remove one of the former-majority-now-minority's cherished ceremonies. A little fair play, not to mention Christian charity, is called for.

Besides, why the insistence on removing something so beautiful?