Good points. The expert’s deployment of ambiguity whether in liturgical “reform” or in public health pronouncements and prevarications is also a tool that appeals to aspirational elitists everywhere. I think the NYT practically invented that audience.
Good points. The expert’s deployment of ambiguity whether in liturgical “reform” or in public health pronouncements and prevarications is also a tool that appeals to aspirational elitists everywhere. I think the NYT practically invented that audience.
it's a reference to the protestant reformation and the attendant enlightenment.
the catholics sought to keep the bible and the mass in latin and thus inaccessible to most congregants. authority was vested in the clerisy, not the laypeople.
translating the bible and moving the mass to the spoken tongues of the populace made the words accessible to the masses and moved the idea of interpretation into the personal instead of relying upon "experts."
it was a profoundly fundamental shift in view and was a part of what set off the enlightenment especially as so many protestant sects advocated learning to read so that people could read bibles.
this spread of literacy had profound societal impact.
Thanks for the reasoned response, but I think it is a common misconception.
The Latin used at Mass was well understood by a huge number of people. The Homily or Sermon was in the local language in the Middle Ages.
As people became more literate, and books started being distributed, everyday people began discussing thing like interpretations, and theology, and realized that the Bishop may not have all the answers, rather he might be a hereditary flunky who makes bold proclamations without theological backing.
It is the very access to Latin (or Hebrew and Greek) that gave the everyday person the backing data to question the powers that be, not so much the haphazard translation of the theological texts into the vernacular.
Thomas Aquinas had some well thought out theological and practical teachings (he wrote extensively on weights and measures, for example). When Joe (or Giuseppe) Peasant read through Aquinas, he probably had some second thoughts on what the Duke or Lord had to say about things.
They still taught in Latin at the Archdiocese of Chicago Seminary (Mundelein) until the 50's or 60's.
I get it, thanks for the thoughtful response and for all your work. You didn’t mention the Bible specifically or the Protestant Reformation just the liturgy in the post. I jumped as it’s a very current topic still (whereas Biblical translations from not only the Latin but also using the original Hebrew and Greek are acceptable now even in the Catholic Church). The gatekeepers of the secret knowledge hardly know that the cat is out of the bag.
Good points. The expert’s deployment of ambiguity whether in liturgical “reform” or in public health pronouncements and prevarications is also a tool that appeals to aspirational elitists everywhere. I think the NYT practically invented that audience.
it's a reference to the protestant reformation and the attendant enlightenment.
the catholics sought to keep the bible and the mass in latin and thus inaccessible to most congregants. authority was vested in the clerisy, not the laypeople.
translating the bible and moving the mass to the spoken tongues of the populace made the words accessible to the masses and moved the idea of interpretation into the personal instead of relying upon "experts."
it was a profoundly fundamental shift in view and was a part of what set off the enlightenment especially as so many protestant sects advocated learning to read so that people could read bibles.
this spread of literacy had profound societal impact.
Thanks for the reasoned response, but I think it is a common misconception.
The Latin used at Mass was well understood by a huge number of people. The Homily or Sermon was in the local language in the Middle Ages.
As people became more literate, and books started being distributed, everyday people began discussing thing like interpretations, and theology, and realized that the Bishop may not have all the answers, rather he might be a hereditary flunky who makes bold proclamations without theological backing.
It is the very access to Latin (or Hebrew and Greek) that gave the everyday person the backing data to question the powers that be, not so much the haphazard translation of the theological texts into the vernacular.
Thomas Aquinas had some well thought out theological and practical teachings (he wrote extensively on weights and measures, for example). When Joe (or Giuseppe) Peasant read through Aquinas, he probably had some second thoughts on what the Duke or Lord had to say about things.
They still taught in Latin at the Archdiocese of Chicago Seminary (Mundelein) until the 50's or 60's.
I get it, thanks for the thoughtful response and for all your work. You didn’t mention the Bible specifically or the Protestant Reformation just the liturgy in the post. I jumped as it’s a very current topic still (whereas Biblical translations from not only the Latin but also using the original Hebrew and Greek are acceptable now even in the Catholic Church). The gatekeepers of the secret knowledge hardly know that the cat is out of the bag.