Mass in Latin "not nostalgia"

An interesting comment in a book review in today’s A2 section of The Age (not online). Andrew Rutherford is reviewing “Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin”. At the end, he makes this comment:

But it is wrong to mention in the same breath such frivolities as Finnish Latin news broadcasts or Harrius Potter (why not Henricilius?) and the “nostalgia of the Catholic Church”.

Worship is a serious thing and the desire for continuity a powerfully attractive adjunct: “You are here to kneel where prayer has been valid”, as T.S. Eliot said in Four Quartets.

The Pope’s letter accompanying his decree last year affirming the right of priests of the Roman Rite to say Mass in Latin according to the earlier form mentions its attraction to youth who would not remember the all-Latin days, a demand his predecessor had not anticipated. This is not nostalgia.

And this is one book reviewer who seems to know what he is talking about.

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2 Responses to Mass in Latin "not nostalgia"

  1. Perpétua says:

    Hooray!

  2. Schütz says:

    I found today this oddly connected link to Archbishop Piero Marini’s interview with John Allen on the First Things blog–where Marini makes exactly this same accusation (ie. that desire for Latin in the liturgy is “nostalgia”).

    http://www.firstthings.com/blog/2008/01/17/why-the-%e2%80%9cnostalgia%e2%80%9d/

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