The Tower of Babel (Wikipedia Commons)
In a recently published article, Dr. Joseph Shaw, chairman of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales, highlights a worldwide phenomenon in the Catholic Church five decades after the close of the Second Vatican Council: the loss of a common language:
The world’s bishops are not diplomats or linguists, and they have no common language. In Roman synods they are divided into language groups, which means that they will never effectively communicate with those they may most need to hear: those with significantly different cultures, experiences, and insights. The melding together of different views is not done by the bishops in discussion, but by the synod secretariat, in drawing up draft documents in Italian, which are then translated into various other languages. Hearing a translation of a translation of other bishops’ views, which may have been expressed in a second language the first time round, is a hardly a meeting of minds. This process is a terrible way to form a consensus, or draft a theologically precise document.
Proposing Latin as a means of communication may seem quixotic, but the problem with it—that many people would have to learn it—would not be avoided by choosing a modern vernacular. Should we work for the day when seminarians, and other educated Catholics, can exchange ideas in Italian? English? Spanish? We might as well learn Latin.
Read the entire article here.
