In issuing a motu propio (“his own opinion”), overturning his predecessor’s Summorum pontificum that permitted usage of the Latin Mass, Pope Francis I evinces a flawed grasp of linguistics, logic and history. But so does Kenneth J. Wolfe (“Let loyal Catholics pray in Latin,” op-ed, Aug. 3) in stating that the Pontiff’s new directive “is a product of what happens when a papal document is obviously written by Italian, liturgical amateurs.”
As a learned student of history, Wolfe should not be demeaning the scions of Italy. The Argentine son of Italian immigrants — the erstwhile Jorge Mario Bergoglio — should recognize the centrality of Latin. The vernacular of Virgil, Seneca and Horace still echoes across the sea of time. Indeed, it remains the lingua franca of the rule of law, sound governance, science and medicine.
The English language employs the Latin alphabet. All 12 months of the year are Roman in origin. Moreover, the English-speaking world embraces the concepts of liberty, citizenship, urbanization and governance that began with Julius Caesar’s crossing of the English Channel and continued beyond Emperor Claudius’s conquest of Britain. As Mary Beard notes in SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome: “The main reason London is the capital of the United Kingdom is that the Romans made it the capital of their province Britannia.” Blighty’s Magna Carta is written in Latin.
Moreover, on a planet bereft of what Pliny described as the “Immensa Romanae pacis maiestas” (Immense Majesty of the Roman Peace), there would be no concept of a United Nations. And Pope Francis would be wise to remember that the Pax Romana began under the auspices of the original Pontifex Maximus — Caesar Augustus, the small-town Italian boy who became Rome’s first emperor. -RAI
[Published as a letter in the NY Daily News, 8 Aug 2021]
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