In brief
Latin comes back.
A document on the use of Latin in the Church and on the compulsory study of it in the seminaries is being prepared in the Vatican. A commission has just been created by Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski in order to write out a working document which could be sent before the summer to the bishops conferences and the seminary rectors for approval before being published by the end of 2004.
"In order not to practice self-mutilation, the Church cannot not keep her tradition and her patrimony written in Latin", he stated. Latin remains the official language of the Roman Church and that of all the documents of the magisterium for centuries, in consequence, it is "urgent to foresee measures so that Latin may be correctly studied in the seminaries". The seminary of Ecône, which has not lost its Latin, will thus be able to teach lessons.
Cardinal Ratzinger against showbiz liturgy
In an interview granted to the Spanish daily La Razon, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith warns against the danger of transforming the liturgy into a show, and to dispose of it according to ones own whim. In this way, he states, we would end by corrupting it totally. "I am opposed to those who think that liturgy may come through only once it is transformed into a show, and who reduced to very little this great work which liturgy is when it is well celebrated and with the necessary interior participation".
- Are we to see soon the end of the "village fair Masses"?
