A Letter to the Pope: How To Do Latin Right

The Vatican recently announced a return to the Latin Mass for congregations that wish to use it. Much of the world was bewildered or bemused. Oh great, old-fashioned religionists will be listening to sonorous noise that nobody understands.

Ah, but what if they did!

I believe the Pope’s decision is a great opportunity, both for spiritual enlightenment and educational advances. Perhaps I should mention that I’m not a Catholic or someone who goes to religious ceremonies of any kind. I write as an education activist; in that context, let’s acknowledge that Catholic parochial schools have saved millions of children from the educational dumbing down so prevalent in public schools since “progressives” took over a century ago. Parochial schools usually do a better job with half the budget; so I’m a big fan of these places. And it’s this record of educational achievement that I want to extend. With Latin’s help. Here’s how:

Basically, Catholics should not settle for sonorous noise. The goal should be that worshippers not only hear Latin but also understand Latin. “Pax vobiscum.” Just strange sounds? Why settle when we can all hear “Peace be with you,” whether we normally speak Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Zulu, or whatever.

When these Latin speeches were written centuries ago, they were universally understood, That was the point. And it should be so again. It’s odd to me that the Church settled for so long. One sign of this was putting (as I believe is usually the case) the two languages on facing pages. It takes a clever person to make the connection across separate pages. But with interlinear texts, one starts to see what means what. Back that up with bits of instruction in Sunday school, evening classes, etc. In a year or two, most Catholics will know what the main passages mean. They will have the best of both world--sonorous, majestic Latin, and clear, reverberant meaning--all around the world.

Now let’s consider the educational dividends. For every child, learning a second language is a plus. Note: children don’t need to master a language to learn important lessons about grammar, vocabulary, linguistics, not to mention history. Any second language helps; but Latin is especially positive because it’s the root of so much English and of most European languages. Latin pulses today throughout the legal and medical professions. Less known is this bombshell: more than 300 common English words are actually pure Latin! (More on this in a moment.) Latin is the dead language that refuses to play dead. It continues to stage comebacks in finer schools everywhere. Let me just mention this happy, totally unexpected news: You can now have your Google homepage in Latin!!

Experts say the younger that children learn a second language, the better. But guess what our progressive educators have done. They have nearly stopped foreign-language instruction in the early grades. I’ve puzzled over this a great deal. Why do such a dumb thing? And here’s the best answer I have. Our educators, for 75 years, have been pushing a bogus reading pedagogy called Whole Word (a/k/a sight reading and other names). I’ve been studying this thing for several years and here’s my bottom line: a scam from start to finish (exactly what Rudolph Flesch claimed in “Why Johnny Can’t Read.”) So imagine the problem for the scammers: children learning French phonetically in one class, then learning English non-phonetically in the next class. It won’t fly. Every child, every parent, would feel immediately that something was rotten in PS 101. What to do? Our educators, in their infinite wisdom, ditched second languages for kids.

Now the Catholic Church can subvert both the misery of Whole Word and the bad tactics of public school educators. Catholic kids, via Latin, will be exposed to a second language early and often! Lovely, huh? In learning to understand the Mass, Catholic kids will get a jumpstart in all their studies.

I’m proud to say I’ve been pushing Latin for decades--ever since I realized that I had taken three years of high school Latin but nobody had bothered to tell me that we are surrounded in our daily lives by pure Latin words. Words like arena, exit, forum, bonus, professor, transit, pelvis, ratio...I wrote to the classical association and said they ought to put out a booklet that capitalizes on this dramatic fact. Talking about etymologies and cognates doesn’t have the same emotional impact. Identicals, that’s the key. Words that children use that Caesar also used! Well, the people-in-charge didn’t seem to get it. In frustration, I compiled my own list and published an article called Latin Lives On--A List of 333 Common Words Letter-For-Letter Identical in Latin and English. (This first appeared in 1985, and can be found on Google now.)

And here I am today presuming to advise the Pope. Some at the Vatican might say, “But, Mr. Price, we really don’t care about the educational trickle-down; our concern is with spiritual truths, the teachings of Jesus, etc.” And I’m saying, it’s not a matter of achieving this or that; take everything! You can help Catholic kids do better in school. You can help defeat the klingons from the ed schools. And you can deepen the spiritual truths--experiencing them in two languages has to be higher, better.

In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Truth and beauty is, as Keats tells us, all you know and all you need to know. A stately language, searching for God--seems to me that everything comes together in the Latin Mass when worshippers know what those mysterious words mean.

Note: “Latin Lives On” can be found on Improve-Education.org (the third article).