Read without ads and support Scribd by becoming a Scribd Premium Reader.
See Premium Plans
 
THE SYNERGY BETWEEN LATIN AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCHBYEDEM MATTHEW(Kufre_tony@yahoo.com)INTRODUCTION
Just as oil is responsible for the smooth mobility of any vehicle, so is the functionof the Latin Language to the Church. The Church used herein, refers to the HolyRoman Catholic. This language has been at the heart of every catholic teaching,dealing and other activities all over the world. O wonder a famous Latin aphorismgoes thus:
 Latina lingua ecclesia
. The role of the Latin Language in the churchcannot be overemphasized either can it be litotized. Just as language is veryimportant in every communication, so is the one used by the Church. Withoutlanguage, there can be no communication. As such, language is very important for the progressive success of any human assembly and relationship. Unlike any civilstate that operates on the use a national language, the Catholic Church is a singleinstitution with members all over the world. This diversity poses a difficulty incommunication within the church. But with use of Latin, this fear of break incommunication is allayed. This explains why the early church texts before theVatican II council were written and read in Latin. Against this backdrop, this essaytends to present an erudite representation of the close affinity between the Latinlanguage and the Catholic Church. To achieve this, this paper shall comprise of thefollowing: the church and Latin, Church uses of Latin and an evaluative conclusion bringing to bear the relevance of the language in view to the church.
 
THE CHURCH AND LATIN
Latin is the official language of the Church whose headquarters is situated in theVatican City. With the influence of the church on Vatican City, the increasing useof the language by the people in the Vatican City, Rome, also grew. Latin has beenwidely used by the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church in all periods for ecclesiastical purposes. This language came as a late and was otherwise called
 sermo humilis
, used to preach and otherwise communicate to the people inordinary language. It is distinguished from classical Latin through some lexicalstructures and pronunciation which sound more like that of an Italian. It appears invarious contexts, including theological works, liturgical rites, and dogmatic proclamations, and in various styles: as syntactically simple as in the Vulgate, ashieratic as in the Roman Canon of the Mass, as terse and technical as the languageof Aquinas' Summa Theologica, and as Ciceronian as in Pope John Paul II'sencyclical letter Fides et Ratio. In late antiquity and in the Low Middle Ages theintended audience or use determined the style the ecclesiastical writer employed; inmodern times it depends on the context. Christian Latin refers to the Latinemployed in their preaching and writing by Christians of ancient times.
CHURCH USES OF LATIN LANGUAGE
Throughout the history of the church, there has been a continuous use of the Latinlanguage at one period or the other. For example, in the early church, ancientwritings of the early church fathers were being written in Latin. St. Jerome, a
 
 prominent catholic scholar, translated the bible from Hebrew to Latin. Thistranslation is what is known as the Latin Vulgate. In 1976, the Latinitas Foundation(
Opus Fundatum Latinitas
in Latin) was established by Pope Paul VI to promotethe study and use of Latin. Its headquarters are in the Vatican City. The foundation publishes an eponymous quarterly in Latin. Other initiatives of the LatinitasFoundation include the publication (in Italian) of the 15,000-word
 Lexicon Recentis Latinitatis
(
 Dictionary of Recent Latin
),One of the chief reasons for the survival of Latin resulted from the empire'sdomination over much of Europe for about 500 years. Even when the empire wasgone, the use of Latin remained because it had been for so long the language of theruling classes. An even more significant reason was the presence of the Christianchurch—still headquartered at Rome—as the dominant social and religious forceof the whole medieval period.Till today, Latin remains the official language of the Holy See. This does not meanthat no other languages are used for other official purposes in Vatican City. As it isnow, The Holy See's diplomatic languages are French, English and Latin (e.g.,letters of credence from Vatican ambassadors to other countries are written in Latin[Fr. Reginald Foster, on Vatican Radio, 4 June 2005]). Laws and officialregulations of Vatican City, which is an entity quite distinct from the Holy See, areissued in Italian.All church documents, (by this I mean documents from the church in Rome) arefirst written in Latin before they are translated into other languages. For example,
Mysterium Fidei
written by Paul VI in 1965 was first written in Latin. More
Search
Search History:
Searching...
Result 00 of 00
00 results for result for
  • p.
    • Notes
    Load more