From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
Can a priest say Latin mass if he doesn’t know Latin formally?
Message:
For instance, could a Novus Ordo priest be convinced to do a Low Mass even though he is not fluent in Latin? By reciting the Latin?Context: was going to ask my parish school to do Low Mass and Leo XIII prayers for the school children.
Say what you want about the late Card. Egan of New York, but he was indisputably a good canonist and an even better Latinist.
When he commented on Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum in 2007, Egan – not a friend of Tradition – wrote that:
Priests who choose to celebrate Mass in the “extraordinary” form must have a sufficient knowledge of the Latin language to pronounce the words correctly.
This is excellent. It applies the proper interpretive principals. A priest does not have to be an expert Latinist. He must have sufficient knowledge to pronounce the words. That is what is wrapped up in idoneus along with proper faculties: idoenus points to minimum qualifications, not to expertise.
Let’s use an analogy. Say there is a priest who does not speak Hmong fluently, but he has learned to say the texts of the Mass in Hmong. Should he not be allowed to say the Novus Ordo Mass for the Hmong community because he is not fluent? Say that they want the Traditional Latin Mass and he has someone who will translate his brief sermon into Hmong with proper transliteration. Should he not be allowed to preach?
So, a priest whose knowledge of Latin is not all that strong, but who is able to pronounce it properly, can use the 1962 Missale Romanum.
Fathers. Put on your Big Boy Underwear and learn your Rite!
If little boys can learn to pronounce the Latin prayers and memorize them, so can a grown up Roman Catholic priest.
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And it does not take long to learn to pronounce the words as written in the liturgical books (i.e. you don’t need to learn the IPA or other such system). Really! If you pay attention, you can learn Ecclesiastical pronunciation in a few hours. It’s just the vowels. The consonants are pretty much the same. Maybe, the first few times you are actually celebrating a rite this way, you can take it slowly, carefully but joyfully – like walking around with a baby in your arms. And if you make a mistake, you will still be within the limited legal idea of “correct”. … If only those poor Hmong never had to have such a desire for a Traditional Mass, because: Huh? What other language would you say Mass in the Latin rite?
I have trouble believing that all the priests in our diocese who celebrate Mass in Spanish—some of whom I know—actually know Spanish well enough to carry on a non-trivial conversation.
“Fathers. Put on your Big Boy Underwear and learn your Rite!
“If little boys can learn to pronounce the Latin prayers and memorize them, so can a grown up Roman Catholic priest.”
Spot on, Father. In conversation with an awesome bishop a few years ago, he asked me if I pray with my sons in Latin. When I told him I wasn’t, he said I should start. Before my one son turned 3, he was able to pray the Pater Noster. Same for his older brother at 4 years of age. Same thing with the Ave Maria. We reinforce that by (still) saying one decade of our family rosary each night in Latin. It’s really not that hard.
Yes it almost only the vowels. But it can be difficult to know which are long vowels and which are short, because this is not usually marked. As Fr Z occasionally mentions, two words may have the same spelling but different vowel lengths and different meanings.
Would the rule of being able to pronounce the Latin correctly also apply to deacons participating in a Solemn Mass? Does a deacon have to be able to correctly pronounce the Latin words of the gospel to participate as the deacon of a Solemn Mass? Does a deacon have to be able to pronounce the Latin formula for distributing Holy Communion to be allowed to do that?
Does a deacon have to be able to correctly pronounce the Latin words
If a deacon can’t manage to do even that… I question his selection for formation in the first place.
It’s not that hard.
However, the most difficult tasks to complete are the ones that are not started.
Please forgive my confusion, but I thought the texts of the Mass were prayers. If two priests recite the texts annunciating every word, but inaudibly, and one priest pronounces them perfectly without full knowledge of their meaning and the other priest pronounces them without perfection, but with full awareness of their meaning, which of them actually prayed the Mass? If both, which one prayed more perfectly?
“If little boys can learn to pronounce the Latin prayers and memorize them, so can a grown up Roman Catholic priest.”
Yes, yes, and YES!
Fredi: The texts are prayers.
The texts are also mysteries.
Mysteries are something about which we can know only a little. Most remains beyond our ken.
A canard emerged, probably out of the intentional misapplication and misinterpretation of the Council’s mandates, that everyone present at Mass has to see everything, hear everything, and, worst, without even a minimum of work “understand” everything. Moreover, because of tendencies of Modernism, which seek to reduce the supernatural to the natural, Mystery itself dissolved into a forgotten category. It is a danger to worship itself to apply the modern mania of perception of greater detail, as in when watching baseball, slow motion let’s us see the stiches in high def on the slowly spinning ball. That removes something from the experience of the ball game at the park. When this is applied to liturgical worship, disaster occurs: people are distracted by the details rather than steeped in an encounter with Mystery. There is a lot more to say about this, and I have said it elsewhere.
Another point: There is a phrase popular today that is actually pretty new: “praying the Mass”. It is a highly praiseworthy goal. It is to be fostered. It is pious. It is also as nebulous as it is optimistic.
Back in the day, we spoke of “reading Mass” for the priest and “hearing Mass” for the people. Priests “read” Mass. They said the black and did the red. Mass was offered.
Did Father “pray” every word? Some? Most? Sure. Was his mind elsewhere sometimes? Sure. Did he truly grasp what he was reading? Did he, for example, know why this particular antiphon was chosen for this Mass formulary or know how the Scripture pericopes fit together with the life of the saint or the feast? When he would say the, for example, Preface of the Trinity, did he have beyond a regular understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity, a prayerfully deepened profound understanding of “non in uníus singularitáte persónae, sed in uníus Trinitáte substántiae.”
On the other hand, back in the day when priests “read” Mass, St. Philip Neri would have ecstasies and elevate off the floor. He was probably “praying the Mass”.
There are many many many times when priests have told me that, when the started to say the Traditional Mass, they also began to “pray the Mass” in a way that they had not before. I think I know what they mean, especially at the level of not having the psychological pressure of being the “performance artist” or “show host” at the stage of the versus populum altar. I also get that their experience of prayer was renovated because they were learning more about their own priestly identity. It is not that they weren’t priests before that, but their self-awareness as priests as revealed in the Traditional Mass could only be gained by celebrating Mass with the Traditional Missal. There is “praying the Mass” and there is “praying the Mass”.
Back to your statement, which seem to pit the perfect against the good:
“If two priests recite the texts annunciating every word, but inaudibly, and one priest pronounces them perfectly without full knowledge of their meaning and the other priest pronounces them without perfection, but with full awareness of their meaning, which of them actually prayed the Mass? If both, which one prayed more perfectly?
Firstly, it is not likely that “perfection” of pronunciation is going to be attained. Whose pronunciation? Of what region? Also, it is hardly likely that there will be full awareness of their meaning, since they deal with mysteries. After all, we should not limit ourselves to knowledge of vocabulary and syntax.
Which of them prayed Mass? The less perfect pronouncer? The more perfect pronouncer?
Yes.
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