When I was a freshman at a Catholic high school in the early 1990s, my first-year Latin teacher understood something: Latin is a dead language. No modern civilization speaks it. How then, was she to encourage new students to take Latin to fulfill their language requirement?
The instructor made the following assignment her first priority of the new academic year: “Create a concept, a slogan, or an ad extolling the value of taking Latin; put that on a poster and present it to the class.” To catalyze thought, the teacher engaged the class in a brainstorming session.
“Why Latin?” she asked. “People say it’s a dead language and is useless because no one speaks it. So let’s see if we come up with some good reasons to take Latin.” She searched the class for hands.
“It’s the basis of the five romance languages,” one student remarked, reiterating what the teacher told us the first day of class.
“Good. What else?”
“It helps with SAT scores,” said another student. She wrote that on the board underneath the first answer. She called on another student.
“It’s used in the medical and legal professions.”
Noting these reasons were all practical, the teacher encouraged us to consider the cultural aspects of the language. “It was the language of the Roman Empire,” she said.
“The language of Cicero, Seneca, and Vergil.” She received some confusing looks. “You’ll start reading those authors your third year,” she added.
Two weeks later the students presented their assignments, most of them a slight variation from the list developed by the class. The posters were hung outside the classroom for the entire school to see. The purpose was clear: encourage others, especially prospective students, to take Latin.
What effect this campaign had is unknown. The students taking the course did not require such lobbying, of course: they were already drawn to the ancient language, enthralled by various expressions like carpe diem and e pluribus unum. Soon they would be dazzled by the first declension, repeating agricola, -ae, ad infinitum.
But for others, especially those who took French, the teacher’s promotional exercise produced a litany of evidence. No significant portion of the Unites States population spoke French. Unlike Spanish, that language had no such irrefutable practical argument in its corner. The prima facie case for Latin had been made.
But beyond improved verbal SAT scores and a venture into ancient Roman civilization, taking Latin seemed futile. After meeting their language requirements, many students moved on, either to other elective courses or to a new language all together (typically Spanish), leaving the poor Latin magistra to ask, et tu, Brute?
My interest likewise faded. After switching to a non-Catholic school, I was forced through repeated secular correction to pronounce the -ae like a hard “i,” and the v like a “w.” And while my instructor did a fine job of dramatizing the death of Uncle Titus in our reading comprehension exercises, I concluded that, although it was long dead, it was time to re-bury Latin.
Several years later, and far removed from those days, I read a news article that discussed how, in 2002, Pope John Paul II set up a Vatican commission to restore the use of Latin in the Church. The occasion was the 40th anniversary of Veterum Sapientia, an apostolic constitution written by Pope John XXIII in 1962. In that document, John XXIII assessed the use of Latin in the Church, noting, among other things, the language’s impartial uniformity, one which he described as “set and unchanging” and “not only universal but immutable,” even as he acknowledged that certain Latin words acquired new meanings as Christianity developed throughout the centuries. Echoing this sentiment forty years later, Pope John Paul II called Latin the “indispensable condition for a proper relationship between modernity and antiquity, for dialogue among different cultures, and for reaffirming the identity of the Catholic priesthood.”
If language is a marker of cultural identity, as John Paul II suggested, then the current state of Latin in the Church provides a valuable insight into Catholicism in the early twenty-first century. What is of immediate concern, beyond the widespread disuse of Latin in the Latin Rite, is the unfortunate historical irony inherent in John XXIII’s apostolic constitution: this love of Latin extolled by the same pope who convened the Second Vatican Council, the very “spirit” of which is cited in efforts to discourage Latin’s use. Of course, as evident in his apostolic constitution, John XXIII intended no such result. But forty years later, that result apparent, the state of our Catholic identity compels reflection — and action — lest the mystical Body of Christ suffer further fracturing.
Fortunately, these days Latin continues to make its comeback in the Church who claims it as her official language. This is not only evident in the continued growth of the Traditional Latin Mass but also in the reincorporation of Latin into various elements of the Pauline (or “novus ordo”) Mass, such as the Agnus Dei, the Sanctus, and the Credo. However, few churches and priests offer the Pauline Mass completely in Latin, even though there was never an official Vatican document that forbade or discouraged it — quite the contrary: its continued use was anticipated.
What justification is there to teach and study Latin? Despite its quiet comeback, the reality is that no segment of American society, let alone the rest of the world, actively speaks Latin. Studies do suggest it helps with SAT scores, but there are certainly statistical exceptions. And even in professions like law and medicine, its relevance is far smaller than a Latin instructor would lead you to believe. Most Catholic schools do not even require its students to take it.
Latin is our common Catholic language, the official language of our Church and the daily sacrifice of the Mass. As we have lost this beautiful, poetic language, we have lost a part of our collective self.
It seems there are few better reasons to teach and study Latin than that.
© Copyright 2006 Catholic Exchange
Scott Noto received his B.A. in history from the University of Chicago and J.D. from Loyola University Chicago School of Law. He is a practicing lawyer who also writes on Catholicism and related issues. Mr. Noto resides in
Grand Rapids, Michigan. He can be reached at [email protected].
