In the Chicago Tribune today there was an interesting article by Jeremy Manier on American Catholic bishops voting on changing words that have been said in mass for awhile. For example, instead of saying, "Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary," they will say that he was "incarnate of the Virgin Mary." In a change, which fortunately was voted down, some bishops want to describe Jesus as "consubstantial with the Father," rather than "one with the Father."
The author of this article said that the changes seem to imply that plain old English isn't enough to convey the birth and nature of Jesus. The author sees English as a "wonderfully fleshy language," whereas Latin was a well regulated language. That's why, he says, that many of our legal terms come from Latin. Manier cites Orwell a number of times, and I like Orwell's quote that it's time to stop being "haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones." I hadn't thought about that before, and until this article, I hadn't thought that Greek or Latin were considered grander. Thoughts?
Right down to this day people talk about "four letter words," which are almost exclusively Anglo-Saxon. The double standard still exists! The folks who moved in back in 1066 still think they're better than everyone else. Uhhhh, they were French.
Oh, heck, zmj, you've spoiled my fun! By the time they invaded England I imagine they were far from being pure Nordic. After all, they had French women even back then!
Et incarnatus est de Spíritu Sancto ex María Vírgine and genitum, non factum, consubstantialem Patri sound better to mine ear.
Yes, the Catholics used to speak in Latin during Mass. I suppose that changed so that they'd become more "modern." I love temple services that are in Hebrew, but many of them have changed too, at least for Reform Judaism.
The Second Vatican Council got rid of the mass in Latin, the priest facing the high altar (away from the congregation), and a bunch of other stuff. Happened in '62/'63. Pissed off a bunch of people. The First Vatican Council (1868-69), and mainly about the primacy and infallability of the Bishop of Rome aka the Pope, caused a schism, creating the Old Catholics. When I lived in Bonn, I used to often walk past an Old Catholic church that had belonged to the Jesuits at one point.
The tripartite division of Jewish congregations into Orthodox, Conservative, and Reformed was an invention of 19th century German Jews that was later imported to the States. It was a development of the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) of the 18th century.
