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Ecclesiastical Latin

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Ecclesiastical Latin
Church Latin, Liturgical Latin
Native toNever spoken as a native language; other uses vary widely by period and location
ExtinctStill used for many purposes, mostly as a liturgical language of the Latin liturgical rites of the Catholic Church, as well as in Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and Methodism.[1] Also used in the Western Rite of the Eastern Orthodox Church.[2]
Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3–
GlottologNone
IETFla-VA
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Library resources about
Ecclesiastical Latin
This article is about the version of Latin prevalent throughout Western Christianity. For its use in Christian liturgy, see Liturgical use of Latin. For Latin as a formal lingua franca outside the Church, see Medieval Latin and New Latin.

Ecclesiastical Latin, also called Church Latin or Liturgical Latin, is a form of Latin developed to discuss Christian thought in Late Antiquity and used in Christian liturgy, theology, and church administration down to the present day, especially in the Catholic Church. It includes words from Vulgar Latin and Classical Latin (as well as Greek and Hebrew) re-purposed with Christian meaning.[3] It is less stylized and rigid in form than Classical Latin, sharing vocabulary, forms, and syntax, while at the same time incorporating informal elements which had always been with the language but which were excluded by the literary authors of Classical Latin.[4]

Its pronunciation was partly standardized in the late 8th century during the Carolingian Renaissance as part of Charlemagne's educational reforms, and this new letter-by-letter pronunciation, used in France and England, was adopted in Iberia and Italy a couple of centuries afterwards.[5] As time passed, pronunciation diverged depending on the local vernacular language, giving rise to even highly divergent forms such as the traditional English pronunciation of Latin, which has now been largely abandoned for reading Latin texts. Within the Catholic Church and in certain Protestant churches, such as the Anglican Church, a pronunciation based on modern Italian phonology, known as Italianate Latin, became common by the 20th century.

Ecclesiastical Latin was the language of liturgical rites in the Latin Church, as well as the Anglican Church, Lutheran Church, Methodist Church, and in the Western Rite of the Eastern Orthodox Church.[2] Today, ecclesiastical Latin is primarily used in official documents of the Catholic Church, in the Tridentine Mass, and it is still learned by clergy.[3][1]

The Ecclesiastical Latin that is used in theological works, liturgical rites and dogmatic proclamations varies in style: syntactically simple in the Vulgate Bible, hieratic (very restrained) in the Roman Canon of the Mass, terse and technical in Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica, and Ciceronian (syntactically complex) in Pope John Paul II's encyclical letter Fides et Ratio.

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Latin

Latin

Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area around present-day Rome, but through the power of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Even after the fall of Western Rome, Latin remained the common language of international communication, science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the 18th century, when other regional vernaculars supplanted it in common academic and political usage, and it eventually became a dead language in the modern linguistic definition.

Christian theology

Christian theology

Christian theology is the theology of Christian belief and practice. Such study concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, as well as on Christian tradition. Christian theologians use biblical exegesis, rational analysis and argument. Theologians may undertake the study of Christian theology for a variety of reasons, such as in order to:help them better understand Christian tenets make comparisons between Christianity and other traditions defend Christianity against objections and criticism facilitate reforms in the Christian church assist in the propagation of Christianity draw on the resources of the Christian tradition to address some present situation or perceived need education in Christian philosophy, especially in Neoplatonic philosophy

Catholic Church

Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2019. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization. The church consists of 24 sui iuris churches, including the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, which comprise almost 3,500 dioceses and eparchies located around the world. The pope, who is the bishop of Rome, is the chief pastor of the church. The bishopric of Rome, known as the Holy See, is the central governing authority of the church. The administrative body of the Holy See, the Roman Curia, has its principal offices in Vatican City, a small enclave of the Italian city of Rome, of which the pope is head of state.

Classical Latin

Classical Latin

Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later periods, it was regarded as good or proper Latin, with following versions viewed as debased, degenerate, or corrupted. The word Latin is now understood by default to mean "Classical Latin"; for example, modern Latin textbooks almost exclusively teach Classical Latin.

Greek language

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy, southern Albania, and other regions of the Balkans, the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor, and the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet, which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic, and many other writing systems.

Hebrew language

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family. It was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a spoken language by their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans, before dying out after 200 CE. However, it was largely preserved as a liturgical language, featuring prominently in Judaism and Samaritanism. Having ceased to be a dead language in the 19th century, today's Hebrew serves as the only successful large-scale example of linguistic revival. It is the only non-extinct Canaanite language, and is also one of only two Northwest Semitic languages still spoken, with the other being Aramaic.

Carolingian Renaissance

Carolingian Renaissance

The Carolingian Renaissance was the first of three medieval renaissances, a period of cultural activity in the Carolingian Empire. It occurred from the late 8th century to the 9th century, taking inspiration from the Christian Roman Empire of the fourth century. During this period, there was an increase of literature, writing, visual arts, architecture, music, jurisprudence, liturgical reforms, and scriptural studies.

Charlemagne

Charlemagne

Charlemagne or Charles the Great, a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the Emperor of the Romans from 800. Charlemagne succeeded in uniting the majority of western and central Europe and was the first recognized emperor to rule from western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire around three centuries earlier. The expanded Frankish state that Charlemagne founded was the Carolingian Empire, which is considered the first phase in the history of the Holy Roman Empire. He was canonized by Antipope Paschal III—an act later treated as invalid—and he is now regarded by some as beatified in the Catholic Church.

Italian phonology

Italian phonology

The phonology of Italian describes the sound system—the phonology and phonetics—of Standard Italian and its geographical variants.

Christian liturgy

Christian liturgy

Christian liturgy is a pattern for worship used by a Christian congregation or denomination on a regular basis. The term liturgy comes from Greek and means "public work". Within Christianity, liturgies descending from the same region, denomination, or culture are described as ritual families.

Anglican Communion

Anglican Communion

The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Founded in 1867 in London, the communion has more than 85 million members within the Church of England and other autocephalous national and regional churches in full communion. The traditional origins of Anglican doctrine are summarised in the Thirty-nine Articles (1571). The archbishop of Canterbury in England acts as a focus of unity, recognised as primus inter pares, but does not exercise authority in Anglican provinces outside of the Church of England. Most, but not all, member churches of the communion are the historic national or regional Anglican churches.

Eastern Orthodox Church

Eastern Orthodox Church

The Eastern Orthodox Church, also called the Orthodox Church, is the second-largest Christian church, with approximately 220 million baptized members. It operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops via local synods. The church has no central doctrinal or governmental authority analogous to the head of the Catholic Church—the pope—but the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is recognized by them as primus inter pares. As one of the oldest surviving religious institutions in the world, the Eastern Orthodox Church has played a prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe. The Eastern Orthodox Church officially calls itself the Orthodox Catholic Church.

Usage

See also: Liturgical use of Latin

Late antique usage

The use of Latin in the Church started in the late fourth century[6] with the split of the Roman Empire after Emperor Theodosius in 395. Before this split, Greek was the primary language of the Church as well as the language of the eastern half of the Roman Empire. Following the split, early theologians like Jerome translated Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin, the dominant language of the Western Roman Empire. The loss of Greek in the Western half of the Roman Empire, and the loss of Latin in the Eastern half of the Roman Empire were not immediate, but changed the culture of language as well as the development of the Church.[7] What especially differentiates Ecclesiastical Latin from Classical Latin is the consequences of its use as a language for translating, since it has borrowed and assimilated constructions and vocabulary from the koine Greek, while adapting the meanings of some Latin words to those of the koine Greek originals, which are sometimes themselves translations of Hebrew originals.[6]

Medieval usage

At first there was no distinction between Latin and the actual Romance vernacular, the former being just the traditional written form of the latter. For instance, in ninth-century Spain ⟨saeculum⟩ was simply the correct way to spell [sjeglo], meaning 'century'. The writer would not have actually read it aloud as /sɛkulum/ any more than an English speaker today would pronounce ⟨knight⟩ as */knɪxt/.[8]

The spoken version of Ecclesiastical Latin was created later during the Carolingian Renaissance. The English scholar Alcuin, tasked by Charlemagne with improving the standards of Latin writing in France, prescribed a pronunciation based on a fairly literal interpretation of Latin spelling. For example, in a radical break from the traditional system, a word such as ⟨viridiarium⟩ 'orchard' now had to be read aloud precisely as it was spelled rather than */verdʒjær/ (later spelled as Old French vergier). The Carolingian reforms soon brought the new Church Latin from France to other lands where Romance was spoken.

Usage during the Reformation and in modern Protestant churches

The use of Latin in the Western Church continued into the Early modern period. One of Martin Luther's tenets during the Reformation was to have services and religious texts in the common tongue, rather than Latin, a language that at the time, many did not understand. Protestants refrained from using Latin in services, however Protestant clergy had to learn and understand Latin as it was the language of higher learning and theological thought until the 18th century.[9] After the Reformation, in the Lutheran churches, Latin was retained as the language of the Mass for weekdays, although for the Sunday Sabbath, the Deutsche Messe was to be said.[10] In Geneva, among the Reformed churches, "persons called before the consistory to prove their faith answered by reciting the Paternoster, the Ave Maria, and the Credo in Latin."[10] In the Anglican Church, the Book of Common Prayer was published in Latin, alongside English.[1] John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist churches, "used Latin text in doctrinal writings",[1] as Martin Luther and John Calvin did in their era.[1] In the training of Protestant clergy in Württemberg, as well as in the Rhineland, universities instructed divinity students in Latin and their examinations were conducted in this language.[10] The University of Montauban, under Reformed auspices, required that seminarians complete two theses, with one being in Latin; thus Reformed ministers were "Latinist by training", comparable to Catholic seminarians.[10]

Modern Catholic usage

Ecclesiastical Latin continues to be the official language of the Catholic Church. The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) decreed that the Mass would be translated into vernacular languages.[11] The Church produces liturgical texts in Latin, which provide a single clear point of reference for translations into all other languages. The same holds for the texts of canon law.[3] Pope Benedict XVI gave his unexpected resignation speech in Latin.[12]

The Holy See has for some centuries usually drafted documents in a modern language, but the authoritative text, published in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, is usually in Latin. Some texts may be published initially in a modern language and be later revised, according to a Latin version (or “editio typica”), after this Latin version is published. For example, the Catechism of the Catholic Church was drafted and published, in 1992, in French. The Latin text appeared five years later, in 1997, and the French text was corrected to match the Latin version, which is regarded as the official text. The Latin-language department of the Vatican Secretariat of State (formerly the Secretaria brevium ad principes et epistolarum latinarum) is charged with the preparation in Latin of papal and curial documents. Sometimes, the official text is published in a modern language, e.g., the well-known edict Tra le sollecitudini[13] (1903) by Pope Pius X (in Italian) and Mit brennender Sorge (1937) by Pope Pius XI (in German).

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Liturgical use of Latin

Liturgical use of Latin

Liturgical use of Latin is the practice of performing Christian liturgy in Ecclesiastical Latin. This practice is typically found in the context of liturgical rites of the Latin Church.

Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople. It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire remained the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. The terms "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" were coined after the end of the realm; its citizens continued to refer to their empire as the Roman Empire, and to themselves as Romans—a term which Greeks continued to use for themselves into Ottoman times. Although the Roman state continued and its traditions were maintained, modern historians prefer to differentiate the Byzantine Empire from Ancient Rome as it was centred on Constantinople instead of Rome, oriented towards Greek rather than Latin culture, and characterised by Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

Jerome

Jerome

Jerome, also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome.

Koine Greek

Koine Greek

Koine Greek, also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-regional form of Greek spoken and written during the Hellenistic period, the Roman Empire and the early Byzantine Empire. It evolved from the spread of Greek following the conquests of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC, and served as the lingua franca of much of the Mediterranean region and the Middle East during the following centuries. It was based mainly on Attic and related Ionic speech forms, with various admixtures brought about through dialect levelling with other varieties.

Carolingian Renaissance

Carolingian Renaissance

The Carolingian Renaissance was the first of three medieval renaissances, a period of cultural activity in the Carolingian Empire. It occurred from the late 8th century to the 9th century, taking inspiration from the Christian Roman Empire of the fourth century. During this period, there was an increase of literature, writing, visual arts, architecture, music, jurisprudence, liturgical reforms, and scriptural studies.

Alcuin

Alcuin

Alcuin of York – also called Ealhwine, Alhwin, or Alchoin – was a scholar, clergyman, poet, and teacher from York, Northumbria. He was born around 735 and became the student of Archbishop Ecgbert at York. At the invitation of Charlemagne, he became a leading scholar and teacher at the Carolingian court, where he remained a figure in the 780s and 790s. Before that, he was also a court chancellor in Aachen. "The most learned man anywhere to be found", according to Einhard's Life of Charlemagne, he is considered among the most important intellectual architects of the Carolingian Renaissance. Among his pupils were many of the dominant intellectuals of the Carolingian era.

Charlemagne

Charlemagne

Charlemagne or Charles the Great, a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the Emperor of the Romans from 800. Charlemagne succeeded in uniting the majority of western and central Europe and was the first recognized emperor to rule from western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire around three centuries earlier. The expanded Frankish state that Charlemagne founded was the Carolingian Empire, which is considered the first phase in the history of the Holy Roman Empire. He was canonized by Antipope Paschal III—an act later treated as invalid—and he is now regarded by some as beatified in the Catholic Church.

Early modern period

Early modern period

The early modern period of modern history spans the period after the Late Middle Ages of the post-classical era to the beginning of the Age of Revolutions. Although the chronological limits of this period are open to debate, the timeframe is variously demarcated by historians as beginning with the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the Renaissance period in Europe and Timurid Central Asia, the Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent, the end of the Crusades, the Age of Discovery, and ending around the French Revolution in 1789, or Napoleon's rise to power.

Martin Luther

Martin Luther

Martin Luther was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation whose followers became known as Lutherans.

Deutsche Messe

Deutsche Messe

Deutsche Messe was published by Martin Luther in 1526. It followed his work Formula missae from the year 1523, pertaining to the celebration of a Latin mass. Both of these masses were meant only as suggestions made on request and were not expected to be used exactly as they were, but could be altered. The function of the mass, according to Luther, is to make people hear the word.

Geneva

Geneva

Geneva is the second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situated in the south west of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the capital of the Republic and Canton of Geneva.

Consistory (Protestantism)

Consistory (Protestantism)

In Protestant usage, a consistory designates certain ruling bodies in various churches. The meaning and the scope of functions varies strongly, also along the separating lines of the Protestant denominations and church bodies.

Comparison with Classical Latin

See also: Latin spelling and pronunciation § Ecclesiastical pronunciation, and Latin regional pronunciation

There are not many differences between Classical Latin and Church Latin. One can understand Church Latin knowing the Latin of classical texts, as the main differences between the two are in pronunciation and spelling, as well as vocabulary.

In many countries, those who speak Latin for liturgical or other ecclesiastical purposes use the pronunciation that has become traditional in Rome by giving the letters the value they have in modern Italian but without distinguishing between open and close ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩. ⟨ae⟩ and ⟨oe⟩ coalesce with ⟨e⟩. ⟨c⟩ and ⟨g⟩ before ⟨ae⟩, ⟨oe⟩, ⟨e⟩ and ⟨i⟩ are pronounced /t͡ʃ/ (English ⟨ch⟩) and /d͡ʒ/ (English ⟨j⟩), respectively. ⟨ti⟩ before a vowel is generally pronounced /tsi/ (unless preceded by ⟨s⟩, ⟨t⟩ or ⟨t⟩). Such speakers pronounce consonantal ⟨v⟩ (not written as ⟨u⟩) as /v/ as in English, not as Classical /w/. Like in Classical Latin, double consonants are pronounced with gemination.

The distinction in Classical Latin between long and short vowels is ignored, and instead of the 'macron' or 'apex', lines to mark the long vowel, an acute accent is used for stress. The first syllable of two-syllable words is stressed; in longer words, an acute accent is placed over the stressed vowel: adorémus 'let us adore'; Dómini 'of the Lord'.[14]

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Latin regional pronunciation

Latin regional pronunciation

Latin pronunciation, both in the classical and post-classical age, has varied across different regions and different eras. As the respective languages have undergone sound changes, the changes have often applied to the pronunciation of Latin as well.

Italian language

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about 85 million people (2022), Italian is an official language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, and Vatican City. It has official minority status in Croatia and in some areas of Slovenian Istria.

Gemination

Gemination

In phonetics and phonology, gemination, or consonant lengthening, is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from stress. Gemination is represented in many writing systems by a doubled letter and is often perceived as a doubling of the consonant. Some phonological theories use "doubling" as a synonym for gemination, others describe two distinct phenomena.

Macron (diacritic)

Macron (diacritic)

A macron is a diacritical mark: it is a straight bar ¯ placed above a letter, usually a vowel. Its name derives from Ancient Greek μακρόν (makrón) "long", since it was originally used to mark long or heavy syllables in Greco-Roman metrics. It now more often marks a long vowel. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the macron is used to indicate a mid-tone; the sign for a long vowel is instead a modified triangular colon ⟨ː⟩.

Apex (diacritic)

Apex (diacritic)

In written Latin, the apex is a mark with roughly the shape of an acute accent ◌́ which was sometimes placed over vowels to indicate that they are long.

Language materials

The complete text of the Bible in Latin, the revised Vulgate, appears at Nova Vulgata - Bibliorum Sacrorum Editio.[15] New Advent[16] gives the entire Bible, in the Douay version, verse by verse, accompanied by the Vulgate Latin of each verse.

In 1976, the Latinitas Foundation[17] (Opus Fundatum Latinitas in Latin) was established by Pope Paul VI to promote the study and use of Latin. Its headquarters are in Vatican City. The foundation publishes an eponymous quarterly in Latin. The foundation also published a 15,000-word Italian-Latin Lexicon Recentis Latinitatis (Dictionary of Recent Latin), which provides Latin coinages for modern concepts, such as a bicycle (birota), a cigarette (fistula nicotiana), a computer (instrumentum computatorium), a cowboy (armentarius), a motel (deversorium autocineticum), shampoo (capitilavium), a strike (operistitium), a terrorist (tromocrates), a trademark (ergasterii nota), an unemployed person (invite otiosus), a waltz (chorea Vindobonensis), and even a miniskirt (tunicula minima) and hot pants (brevissimae bracae femineae). Some 600 such terms extracted from the book appear on a page[18] of the Vatican website. The Latinitas Foundation was superseded by the Pontifical Academy for Latin (Latin: Pontificia Academia Latinitatis) in 2012.

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New Advent

New Advent

New Advent is a website that provides online versions of various works connected with the Catholic Church.

Latinitas Foundation

Latinitas Foundation

The Latinitas Foundation was an organisation dedicated to furthering the education of Latin and the publication of articles in the language. It was established on 30 June 1976 by Pope Paul VI and was superseded by the Pontifical Academy for Latin which was established on 10 November 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI.

Pope Paul VI

Pope Paul VI

Pope Paul VI was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 21 June 1963 to his death in August 1978. Succeeding John XXIII, he continued the Second Vatican Council, which he closed in 1965, implementing its numerous reforms. He fostered improved ecumenical relations with Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches, which resulted in many historic meetings and agreements. In January 1964, he flew to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. This was the first time a reigning pontiff had flown on an airplane, the first papal pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and the first time a Pope had left Italy in more than a century.

Vatican City

Vatican City

Vatican City, officially Vatican City State, is an independent city-state, microstate and enclave within Rome, Italy. It became independent from Italy in 1929 with the Lateran Treaty, and it is a distinct territory under "full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction" of the Holy See, itself a sovereign entity of international law, which maintains the city state's temporal, diplomatic, and spiritual independence. With an area of 49 hectares and a 2019 population of about 453, it is the smallest state in the world both by area and population. As governed by the Holy See, Vatican City State is an ecclesiastical or sacerdotal-monarchical state ruled by the Pope who is the bishop of Rome and head of the Catholic Church. The highest state functionaries are all Catholic clergy of various origins. After the Avignon Papacy (1309–1377) the popes have mainly resided at the Apostolic Palace within what is now Vatican City, although at times residing instead in the Quirinal Palace in Rome or elsewhere. The Vatican is also a metonym for the Holy See.

Eponym

Eponym

An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include eponymous and eponymic.

Lexicon Recentis Latinitatis

Lexicon Recentis Latinitatis

The Lexicon Recentis Latinitatis is a New Latin dictionary published by the Vatican-based Latinitas Foundation. The book is an attempt to update the Latin language with a definition of neologisms in Latin.

Pontifical Academy for Latin

Pontifical Academy for Latin

The Pontifical Academy for Latin is an organization established in 2012 to promote appreciation for the Latin language and culture. The Academy replaced the Latinitas Foundation, which Pope Paul VI erected in 1976, and is linked to the Dicastery for Culture and Education on which it depends. Its headquarters is located in Vatican City.

Current use

See also: Canon law of the Catholic Church

Latin remains an oft-used language of the Holy See and the Latin liturgical rites of the Catholic Church.[19] Until the 1960s and still later in Roman colleges like the Gregorian, Catholic priests studied theology using Latin textbooks and the language of instruction in many seminaries was also Latin, which was seen as the language of the Church Fathers. The use of Latin in pedagogy and in theological research, however, has since declined. Nevertheless, canon law requires for seminary formation to provide for a thorough training in Latin,[20] though "the use of Latin in seminaries and pontifical universities has now dwindled to the point of extinction."[21] Latin was still spoken in recent international gatherings of Catholic leaders, such as the Second Vatican Council, and it is still used at conclaves to elect a new Pope. The Tenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in 2004 was the most recent to have a Latin-language group for discussions.

Although Latin is the traditional liturgical language of the Western (Latin) Church, the liturgical use of the vernacular has predominated since the liturgical reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council: liturgical law for the Latin Church states that Mass may be celebrated either in Latin or another language in which the liturgical texts, translated from Latin, have been legitimately approved.[22] The permission granted for continued use of the Tridentine Mass in its 1962 form authorizes use of the vernacular language in proclaiming the Scripture readings after they are first read in Latin.[23]

In historic Protestant churches, such as the Anglican Communion and Lutheran churches, Ecclesiastical Latin is occasionally employed in sung celebrations of the Mass.[1]

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Canon law of the Catholic Church

Canon law of the Catholic Church

The canon law of the Catholic Church is "how the Church organizes and governs herself". It is the system of laws and ecclesiastical legal principles made and enforced by the hierarchical authorities of the Catholic Church to regulate its external organization and government and to order and direct the activities of Catholics toward the mission of the Church. It was the first modern Western legal system and is the oldest continuously functioning legal system in the West, while the unique traditions of Eastern Catholic canon law govern the 23 Eastern Catholic particular churches sui iuris.

Holy See

Holy See

The Holy See, also called the See of Rome, Petrine See or Apostolic See, is the jurisdiction of the Pope in his role as the bishop of Rome. It includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of Rome, which has ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the Catholic Church and sovereignty over the city-state known as the Vatican City.

Latin liturgical rites

Latin liturgical rites

Latin liturgical rites, or Western liturgical rites, is a large family of liturgical rites and uses of public worship employed by the Latin Church, the largest particular church sui iuris of the Catholic Church, that originated in Europe where the Latin language once dominated. Its language is now known as Ecclesiastical Latin. The most used rite is the Roman Rite.

Seminary

Seminary

A seminary, school of theology, theological seminary, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students in scripture, theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as clergy, in academics, or mostly in Christian ministry. The English word is taken from the Latin seminarium, translated as "seed-bed", an image taken from the Council of Trent document Cum adolescentium aetas which called for the first modern seminaries.

Pedagogy

Pedagogy

Pedagogy, most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken as an academic discipline, is the study of how knowledge and skills are imparted in an educational context, and it considers the interactions that take place during learning. Both the theory and practice of pedagogy vary greatly as they reflect different social, political, and cultural contexts.

Second Vatican Council

Second Vatican Council

The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the Second Vatican Council, or Vatican II, was the 21st ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The council met in Saint Peter's Basilica in Vatican City for four periods, each lasting between 8 and 12 weeks, in the autumn of each of the four years 1962 to 1965. Preparation for the council took three years, from the summer of 1959 to the autumn of 1962. The council was opened on 11 October 1962 by John XXIII, and was closed on 8 December 1965 by Paul VI.

Papal conclave

Papal conclave

A papal conclave is a gathering of the College of Cardinals convened to elect a bishop of Rome, also known as the pope. Catholics consider the pope to be the apostolic successor of Saint Peter and the earthly head of the Catholic Church.

Pope

Pope

The Pope, also known as supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome, head of the worldwide Catholic Church, and has also served as the head of state or sovereign of the Papal States and later the Vatican City State since the eighth century. From a Catholic viewpoint, the primacy of the bishop of Rome is largely derived from his role as the apostolic successor to Saint Peter, to whom primacy was conferred by Jesus, who gave Peter the Keys of Heaven and the powers of "binding and loosing", naming him as the "rock" upon which the Church would be built. The current pope is Francis, who was elected on 13 March 2013.

Latin Church

Latin Church

The Latin Church is the largest autonomous particular church within the Catholic Church, whose members constitute the vast majority of the 1.3 billion Christians in communion with the Pope in Rome. The Latin Church is one of 24 churches sui iuris in communion with the pope; the other 23 are referred to as the Eastern Catholic Churches, and have approximately 18 million members combined. The Latin Church traditionally employs the Latin liturgical rites, which since the mid-twentieth century are very often translated into the vernacular language. The predominant liturgical rite is the Roman Rite, elements of which have been practiced since the fourth century.

Mass (liturgy)

Mass (liturgy)

Mass is the main Eucharistic liturgical service in many forms of Western Christianity. The term Mass is commonly used in the Catholic Church, Western Rite Orthodoxy, Old Catholicism, and Independent Catholicism. The term is used in some Lutheran churches, as well as in some Anglican churches. The term is also used, on rare occasion, by other Protestant churches.

Tridentine Mass

Tridentine Mass

The Tridentine Mass, also known as the Traditional Latin Mass or the Traditional Rite, is the liturgy in the Roman Missal of the Catholic Church published from 1570 to 1962. Celebrated almost exclusively in Ecclesiastical Latin, it was the most widely used Eucharistic liturgy in the world from its issuance in 1570 until the introduction of the Mass of Paul VI.

Anglican Communion

Anglican Communion

The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Founded in 1867 in London, the communion has more than 85 million members within the Church of England and other autocephalous national and regional churches in full communion. The traditional origins of Anglican doctrine are summarised in the Thirty-nine Articles (1571). The archbishop of Canterbury in England acts as a focus of unity, recognised as primus inter pares, but does not exercise authority in Anglican provinces outside of the Church of England. Most, but not all, member churches of the communion are the historic national or regional Anglican churches.

Church Latin kana

In the hymnbook used in the Catholic Church in Japan, there are some special kana characters. To represent the /l/ sound in the Latin language, the R column kana letters with ゜(the handakuten diacritic) are used (such as ラ゚ for [la], レ゚ for [le], リ゚ for [li], ロ゚ for [lo] and ル゚ for [lu]).

Source: "Ecclesiastical Latin", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, March 15th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastical_Latin.

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Further Reading

Roman Missal

Sacrosanctum Concilium

Mass of Paul VI

Tridentine Mass

Sacred language

New American Bible

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

Missal

Nova Vulgata

Liturgy of the Hours

Latin liturgical rites

Catholic Bible
References

Citations

  1. ^ a b c d e f Cross, Frank Leslie; Livingstone, Elizabeth A. (2005). The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Oxford University Press. p. 961. ISBN 9780192802903. The Second Vatican Council declared that the use of Latin was to be maintained in the liturgy, though permission was granted for some use of the vernacular; in the outcome, the use of the vernacular has almost entirely triumphed, although the official books continue to be published in Latin. In the Church of England the Latin versions of the Book of Common Prayer have never been widely used, though, for instance, John Wesley used Latin text in doctrinal writings. The option of using traditional Latin texts in sung worship has been retained by choirs in both the Anglican and Lutheran Churches.
  2. ^ a b "On the Western Rite Liturgy | Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese". antiochian.org. Retrieved 2017-12-30.
  3. ^ a b c "CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Church Latin". www.newadvent.org. Retrieved 2018-11-27.
  4. ^ Collins, Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin, pg. vi
  5. ^ Wright, Roger (1982). Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France. ARCA (Classical & Medieval Texts, Papers & Monographs). Vol. 8. Liverpool: Francis Cairns. ISBN 9780905205120.
  6. ^ a b Collins, Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin, pg. vi
  7. ^ Leonhardt, Jürgen (2013). Latin: Story of a World Language. Munich: Harvard University Press. p. 94. ISBN 978-0-674-05807-1.
  8. ^ Wright, Roger (1982). Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France. Liverpool: Francis Cairns. pp. 44–50. ISBN 0-905205-12-X.
  9. ^ Janson, Tore (2007). Natural History of Latin: The Story of the World's Most Successful Language. Oxford University Press. p. 126. ISBN 978-0199214051.
  10. ^ a b c d Waquet, Françoise (2002). Latin, Or, The Empire of a Sign: From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries. Verso. p. 78. ISBN 9781859844021.
  11. ^ "Second Vatican Council | Roman Catholic history [1962–1965]". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2018-11-27.
  12. ^ See it at the Catholic News Service channel.
  13. ^ "Tra Le Sollecitudini Instruction on Sacred Music". Adoremus Bulletin. November 22, 1903. Archived from the original on February 9, 2020. Retrieved July 22, 2019.
  14. ^ Roman Missal
  15. ^ "Nova Vulgata - Bibliorum Sacrorum Editio". www.vatican.va.
  16. ^ "HOLY BIBLE: Genesis 1". www.newadvent.org.
  17. ^ "Latinitas, Opus Fundatum in Civitate Vaticana". www.vatican.va.
  18. ^ "Lexicon Recentis Latinitatis, parvum verborum novatorum Léxicum". www.vatican.va.
  19. ^ Official documents are frequently published in other languages. The Holy See's diplomatic languages are French and Latin (such as letters of credence from Vatican ambassadors to other countries are written in Latin Fr. Reginald Foster, on Vatican Radio, 4 June 2005]). Laws and official regulations of Vatican City, which is an entity that is distinct from the Holy See, are issued in Italian.
  20. ^ Can. 249, 1983 CIC
  21. ^ Cross, Frank Leslie; Livingstone, Elizabeth A. (2005). The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Oxford University Press. p. 961. ISBN 9780192802903.
  22. ^ Can. 928 Archived December 4, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, 1983 CIC
  23. ^ ["Apostolic Letter: On the Use of the Roman Liturgy Prior to the 1970 Reform". Archived from the original on 2015-01-01. Retrieved 2015-03-27 – via vatican.va. Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, article 6

Sources

  • Baumeister, Edmund J. The New Missal Latin. St. Mary's, KS: St. Mary's Publishing.
  • Byrne, Carol (1999). "Simplicissimus". The Latin Mass Society of England and Wales. Archived from the original on 25 February 2014. Retrieved 20 April 2011. (A course in ecclesiastical Latin.)
Further reading
  • A Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin by John F. Collins, (Catholic University of America Press, 1985) ISBN 0-8132-0667-7. A learner's first textbook, comparable in style, layout, and coverage to Wheelock's Latin, but featuring text selections from the liturgy and the Vulgate: unlike Wheelock, it also contains translation and composition exercises.
  • Mohrmann, Christine (1957). Liturgical Latin, Its Origins and Character: Three Lectures. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.
  • Scarre, Annie Mary (1933). An Introduction to Liturgical Latin. Ditchling: Saint Dominic's Press.
  • Nunn, H. P. G. (1922). Introduction to Ecclesiastical Latin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 186.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
External links
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