Liturgical Language

LITURGICAL LANGUAGE. - The idiom officially admitted in a given liturgical rite.

I. NOTIONS

The human word, with all its value as a precise expression of thought and will, exercises a preponderant function in Catholic liturgy, divided among all the participants in the various ceremonies: celebrants, assisting priests, ministers, singers, bystanders, whose part it is, according to the norms established by the Church, to pronounce or to hear the same word, with the most perfect possible understanding of its meaning.

But in fulfilling this function, the community acts with respect to the Church, to Christ-as-Man, to God himself, in the manner of an "instrumental" cause, and, under this threefold aspect, the liturgical words, pronounced by men, are truly words of the Church, of Christ, of God. It is therefore no wonder that to the Church and, more precisely, to the Roman Church, mother and teacher of all the others, is reserved the right to determine a detail of such importance as is the language in which the ritual word must be expressed. Liturgical is the language, and it alone, which the Church establishes or recognizes as such. A liturgical language can be dead or living, learned, literary or vernacular, not only according to the use made of it outside worship, but also by its very forms, which, in turn, can present, in the vernacular, more or less cultivated aspects. With respect then to the region where it is used, a liturgical language will be national, or foreign in origin and national only by adoption, or else totally foreign, because it has remained entirely extraneous to vernacular use. Finally a liturgical language can be natural, or instead more or less artificial, that is to say more or less reworked to adapt better to its particular destination. Moreover every liturgical language undergoes to a certain extent such adaptation, without this stylization ever reaching that undergone by the other liturgical things (gestures, vessels, buildings, etc.).

II. LITURGICAL LANGUAGE IN USE

The languages currently in use in the various Western and Eastern rites, both Catholic and dissident, are these: 1) In all rites: Hebrew for certain words, such as alleluia, amen, hosanna, etc. 2) In the three Western rites still in force, the Roman, the Ambrosian and the Toledan (or Mozarabic): Latin, except in a few Greek formulas, such as Kyrie or Christe eleison, the trisagion of Good Friday, the Epistle and the Gospel of the solemn papal Mass, which are sung successively in Latin and in Greek. Other more important exceptions are listed in the historical part. 3) In the Greek Byzantine-Constantinopolitan rite, Catholic or dissident: principally the Greek language, but also Arabic, alone or with Greek, Turkish, Albanian, Hungarian. In the Catholic Melkite rite: principally, or almost exclusively, Arabic. In the Slavic-Byzantine rite, Catholic and dissident: the ecclesiastical Slavonic language, Ruthenian or Russian, with Cyrillic characters, but also, together with the latter, among the dissidents, White Russian, Bulgarian, Czech, Estonian, Finnish, Latvian, Polish, Ukrainian, and, in the internal and external missions of the Russian Church, Chinese, Eskimo, Japanese, Hindi, English, Tatar, German and a few other minor ones. Furthermore Georgian and Romanian, both alone, but with some differences between Catholic and dissident Romanian. 4) In the Armenian rite, Catholic and dissident: the ancient Armenian language, with a few rare Greek words such as: orthio, proschume, prosedhess, etc. 5) In the Syriac rite: the Syriac language, as the principal language, together with Arabic in the Syro-Catholic Church; with Arabic, Turkish or Kurdish in the Jacobite Church; with Malayalam among the Catholic and dissident Malankarese of Malabar. 6) In the Maronite rite: principally the Syriac language, with Arabic. 7) In the Chaldean and Malabarese rites: the Syriac language, together with modern Syriac in the former rite, among the dissidents. 8) In the Coptic rite: the Coptic language, together with Arabic, besides many Greek formulas. 9) In the Ethiopic rite: the Ge'ez language exclusively (for further details and the relevant documentation cf. A. Raes, Introductio in liturgiam orientalem, Rome 1947, pp. 207-27).

Entirely dead languages are Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopic or Ge'ez, Georgian, Greek, Syriac, Slavonic; Latin too is a dead language, although it has remained largely in use in the documents of the supreme magisterium and government of the Church and in the teaching of the ecclesiastical sciences. Of these eight languages, exclusively national are: Armenian, Coptic, Ge'ez and Georgian; partially national and partially foreign are the other four. Latin can be considered as a language equally national in all the Latin nations, outside and inside Italy, as is shown by the fact that, after the abandonment of the Greek language, the ancient Gallican or Hispanic liturgies never knew any languages other than Latin. All eight of these same languages were, at the time of their admission into the liturgy, living languages, but literary or at least cultivated ones. Liturgical Arabic, Chinese and English, without being dead languages, are nevertheless not vulgar or spoken languages, but learned or literary ones. They are, however, national, at least in the broad sense of the word. All the other liturgical languages of today are closer to the spoken languages, and have a more national character.

III. THE ORIGINS

It may be taken as certain that as long as they dwelt in Jerusalem, the Apostles and, with them, the community of the first Christians ordinarily celebrated the sacred rites in the national Aramaic language, and the other Jewish-Christian communities of Palestine made use of it as well until their extermination around the year 70. In the other provinces of the Roman Empire and in foreign regions, into which the new cult soon spread, it was celebrated everywhere in the Greek language called koine, that is, common, and it may be affirmed that for two centuries the Catholic Church had, through the work of the Apostles, a single principal liturgical language, just as it had a single calendar (the Jewish one) and a single ceremonial form.

This state of affairs changed progressively, when Christianity began to spread from the great cities also into the smaller cities and into the countryside; then Armenian, Coptic and Syriac penetrated into the liturgical use of the Eastern Churches; and Latin into that of the African Church and of the other Western Churches. The rapid, total, universal and definitive victory of the latter is due to the fact that, because of the ever deeper division between the Eastern and Western Empires, it had become, throughout the whole extent of the latter, the language of civilization (cf. G. Bardy, La question des langues dans l'Église ancienne, I, Paris 1948). Moreover, from the end of the 4th century, it was the liturgical language of Rome and of Milan. In all the Churches, the parts of the liturgical formulary first expressed in the various vernacular languages were those which by their nature had to be and could simply be translated, and which it was particularly important to make intelligible to all, that is to say those drawn from the Sacred Scriptures. For the other parts the change, much more profound, generally consisted in the substitution of new formulas in a literary language for the ancient ones.

IV. CONCESSIONS FOR THE MASS

While the other Latin rites remained totally closed to any admission of new languages, the Roman rite, by reason of its universality, had to show itself more accommodating, even in Rome itself. Of these concessions, the most notable for its religious, national and political aspect, for its dramatic and still very obscure vicissitudes, for its importance and duration, was certainly that of the Slavic language with the Glagolitic script, made in favor of the Slavs of Great Moravia and Pannonia. Admitted as a secondary language by Adrian II (870) for the reading of the Epistle and the Gospel, repeatedly forbidden by John VIII (years 873, 879; PL 126, 850) in the celebration of the Mass itself, approved shortly thereafter almost without restrictions by the same (year 880; PL 126, 904-906), the Slavic language with its Glagolitic script was finally once more and entirely prohibited by Stephen V (years 885-87; PL 129, 803-804). In Bohemia, however, and in Dalmatia, the use of the ancient Slavic, or Slavonic, language with the Glagolitic script has been maintained, with alternations of advances and regressions, of suppressions and restorations, down to the present day, but only as a local privilege reserved to certain centers or churches (S. Congregation of Rites, 13 Feb. 1892; 5 Aug. 1898; 14 Aug. 1900; Osservatore romano, 13 June 1920; v. JUGOSLAVIA, V. Liturgia).

Another concession, which could have had a decisive influence on the conversion of China, had it been put into effect, was the one that, according to the favorable opinion of the Holy Office (26 March 1615), Paul V made to the Jesuit missionaries of Peking, permitting them to celebrate the entire Roman liturgy in the Mandarin Chinese language (Collect. S. Congregat. de Prop. Fide, 1907, I, 70 in note). Among the various reasons that prevented the execution of the singular privilege, not the least seems to have been the hesitation of other missionaries, also Jesuits, but animated in this perhaps by excessive attachment to their own nation. Already in the years 1670-75 the Sicilian Father Luigi Buglio had completed the complicated and gigantic work of translating into Chinese the entire Roman Missal and Ritual, plus a large part of the Breviary (cf. L. Pfister, Notices biographiques et bibliographiques sur les Jésuites de l'ancienne mission de Chine, I, Shanghai 1932, p. 240 [cf. Enc. Catt., III, coll. 189-90]), but repeated steps taken with the Congregation of Propaganda Fide (established in 1622) and with the Pope himself (1661, 1667, 1673, 1676-78, 1681-88,

1695-98; cf. L. Pfister, op. cit., pp. 120; 310-11; 336; 360; 406-407) by the Jesuit and other missionaries, to obtain the renewal of the privilege of 1615, remained without effect. The concession of Paul V perhaps had a certain precedent in an analogous faculty, granted, it seems, to the celebrated Franciscan missionary Giovanni di Montecorvino, whom Clement V (1307) appointed first bishop of Peking (Raynaldus, Annales ecclesiastici, ad ann. 1305, XIX-XX; ann. 1307, XXIX-XXX). To the Dominican missionaries in Greece Boniface IX (1389-1404) permitted the celebration of Mass in the Greek liturgical language (Collectio Lacensis, II, 538). The Armenian association of the "United Friars," affiliated with the same Order, celebrated throughout the whole time of its existence (1330-1794) the Dominican liturgy in the classical Armenian language (Orientalia cristiana, I [1923], pp. 232, 240; Holy Office, 6 Sept. 1713; M. A. v. d. Oudenrijn, Annotationes bibliographicae Armeno-Dominicanae, Rome 1921, pp. 42-47; Collectio Lacensis, II, 538). The Carmelite missionaries of Armenia also made use of the same language in the Preface and in other parts of the Mass, but permission to extend its use to the whole Mass was denied them (Holy Office, 30 Jan. 1627; Collectanea S. Congregationis de Propaganda Fide, Rome 1907, I, n. 33, p. 11). To the missionaries of Georgia, on the other hand, a few years later, the privilege was granted of celebrating Mass in Georgian or in Armenian, if this use should powerfully aid the conversion of that people (Holy Office, 30 Apr. 1631; Collectio Lacensis, II, 502). The permission to use Georgian was renewed in the following century in favor of the Capuchin missionaries, but only for the reading of the Epistle and the Gospel (Holy Office, 10 Feb. 1757). Again, to the Carmelite missionaries of Persia it was granted "for the consolation of those recently converted peoples" to celebrate one Mass each day in classical Arabic (S. Congr. de Prop. Fide, 17 Apr. 1624; Collectio Lacensis, II, 501-502). For the use of the Malabarese, for the private celebration of Mass, the Third Council of Goa (1585; sess. III, decr. 7) and the Council of Diamper (1599; c. CXXIII, decr. 4) prescribed the translation into Syriac of the text of the Roman Mass. Since the end of the last century (4 Feb. 1895) the Catholic Ethiopians have been using provisionally the Roman Pontifical and Ritual, translated into ge'ez. Already from the beginning of the 15th century, the Czechs made wide use of the national language in liturgical ceremonies; by concession of Benedict XV this custom was regulated and legitimized (Osservatore romano, 13 June 1920). As for the ancient Greek, Slavic or Georgian texts of the Masses, called of St. Gregory or of St. Peter, it is difficult to determine to what extent they served to legitimize liturgical use (M. H. W. Codrington-P. de Meester, The Liturgy of St. Peter, Münster 1936).

V. IN THE RITUAL

While the aforementioned concessions concern almost exclusively the Mass, they make very rare mention of the Roman Ritual. This book in fact, by the nature of its rites, and because it had no existence before 1614, nor a typical edition before 1925, nor was it ever imposed on the other Latin Churches, admitted, along with many adaptations to regional customs, also the secondary use of several vernacular languages. Indeed, recently to the dioceses of France (28 Nov. 1947) and of Germany (21 March 1950; particular concessions already existed previously) the Holy See granted a Ritual of their own, by way of supplement to the Roman Ritual, in which, to a greater or lesser extent, the use of vernacular languages is admitted. Recently the faculty has been granted to pronounce in the vernacular the formulas of the renewal of baptismal promises in the new Easter vigil (AAS, 43 [1951], p. 136).

In 1941 and 1942 the missions of New Guinea, China, Japan, Indochina, India, Indonesia and Africa were granted the faculty to translate and to use the Roman Ritual in the vernacular, reserving Latin only for the essential formulas. The translations are carried out by a Commission under the presidency of the local pontifical Representative and approved by it "ad decennium." In 1949 China was permitted the use of Mandarin Chinese also in the Holy Mass, with the exception of the Canon, which must be recited in Latin (cf. S. Paventi, La Chiesa missionaria. Manuale di missionologia dottrinale, Rome 1949, p. 388).

VI. IN THE EASTERN CHURCHES

The multiplication of national languages in the Eastern liturgies is a fact too complex for its history to be summarized in a few lines (cf. A. Raes, Introductio in liturgiam orientalem, Rome 1947, pp. 219-27). Nevertheless, in readmitting the dissident Churches of the East into the bosom of the Catholic Church, the Roman See, rather than prohibiting the liturgical languages proper to the various rites, willed that they should remain integrally, but exclusively, practiced.

VII. THE QUESTION OF PRINCIPLE

But if the Roman Church, in admitting national and vernacular languages into the liturgical cult, has repeatedly shown itself accommodating whenever true necessities or great spiritual advantages seemed to require it, on the question of principles, by contrast, it has always shown itself intransigent. For it: 1) the use, even exclusive, in the liturgy, particularly in the Mass, of languages unintelligible to the people cannot be held to be an error contrary to the nature of the sacred rites; 2) it is contrary, on the other hand, to the nature of the liturgical language to serve as an expression or instrument of political or nationalist passions; indeed liturgical languages should serve, as far as possible, as a supranational bond between Catholic communities, and between them and the supreme authority of the Holy See; 3) a dignity of their own and a particular aptitude for liturgical use must be recognized in the ancient languages, today more or less dead, but consecrated by a liturgical use of many centuries.

This was certainly the mind of the Council of Trent in the face of the claims of the first reformers (sess. XXII, cap. 8 and can. 9; cf. H.-A.-P. Schmidt, Liturgie et langue vulgaire. Le problème de la langue liturgique chez les premiers Réformateurs et au Concile de Trente [Analecta Gregoriana, LIII], Rome 1950). Such was also the mind of Clement XI (Bull Unigenitus; 13 Sept. 1713) and of Pius VI (const. Auctorem fidei, 29 Aug. 1794) in the condemnation of the principles expressed by the Jansenists, as was that of Pius X in denying to the clergy of Hajdu-Dorogh the use of the Hungarian language in the liturgy (AAS, 4 [1912], pp. 430, 433). The same cann. 819 and 1257 of the CIC do nothing other than express the Tridentine dispositions, and the same must be said of the teaching of the encyclical Mediator Dei on the matter.

VIII. ACTIVE PARTICIPATION AND VERNACULAR LANGUAGE

Today in the Western Church the question of the liturgical language presents itself under a largely new aspect and stirs in vast portions of Christendom — it would be a great harm to ignore it — a deep and vital interest. Should the use of the vernacular be introduced into the celebration of the liturgical ceremonies, or should it not, in order to make active participation in them possible for the faithful, and, if so, to what extent should this be done? It is not our task, nor our right, to resolve this arduous and most delicate problem, but we limit ourselves to propounding it as clearly as possible, casting light on some of its aspects.

It would be to commit a most grave error, dogmatic as well, to claim that the use of the vernacular is essential to liturgical worship on the ground that the latter would draw its own efficacy from the fact of being the work of a community. In reality, as has been said above, this efficacy, wholly supernatural, comes to liturgical worship, as such, solely from the fact that it is the work of God, of Christ and of the Church. But it is likewise true that in celebrating the liturgical "offices" in the name and by deputation of the Church, in the name and by virtue of Christ, not only the priests and their ministers are employed, but the entire communities of those present; and if the performing of the sacramental actions is a thing reserved to the "ministers" of those Sacraments, these actions nevertheless not only often have as their term one or more of the other participants in the sacred function, but are expressly directed to them. Moreover these same sacramental actions, particularly that of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, are performed by the celebrant also in the name of the others present, and these associate themselves with them, not only by their presence and attention, but also by means of the secondary rites. Now, if under their first aspect the liturgical functions require a language that is as far as possible sacred, hieratic, immutable and one, under the other aspect, on the other hand, they would undeniably require the use of languages intelligible and speakable by all the participants, that is to say, of the vernacular languages.

This antithesis seems to have no other solution than that already repeatedly admitted in the practice of the Holy See, namely a partial use of the vernacular languages, limited, that is, to those functions which have a more distinct character of "office," with their invitations and greetings, collective prayers, exhortations and instructions, lessons, choral chants, while for the functions or parts of functions with a more sacramental and sacerdotal character the use of the Latin language would instead be maintained.

With this solution, in fact, there would be preserved for the more hieratic parts of the liturgy the majesty and the secrecy that inspire those sentiments of faith and reverence which are the foundation of Christian worship, and at the same time there would be procured for all those present the possibility of participating actively, with interest and devotion, in the liturgical celebrations. This indeed seems in our times an effective way of retaining in fidelity to the sacred functions those among the faithful who have not yet deserted them, and, possibly, of bringing back to them those who, in very great number unfortunately, have already more or less totally abandoned them. It is necessary, that is, to reawaken in all the sentiment that the liturgy is not the business of the clergy alone, at whose performance the faithful are compelled to assist, but is also their own affair, in which they are to take, with understanding and spiritual relish, a part entirely their own. The collective character of the Roman liturgy must be not only a reality, but a concrete and perceptible reality, open to common experiences.

But however happy the aforesaid solution of this most grave problem may appear, it is not fitting on the other hand to conceal its inadequacies, the irreparable sacrifices it demands, the dangers it cannot fail to cause: the superficial and arbitrary character of the distinction; an inelegant hybridism; ineffectiveness in rendering the liturgical formulary fully intelligible; an impairment of the noble gravity and concision, of the literary beauty of many formulas; the almost total repudiation of the traditional Gregorian melodies and of an immense treasure of religious music; the impossibility, for many formulas, of a literal version, and hence the danger of doctrinal distortions; increased division among nations and races; the ruin of the grandiose liturgical manifestations at international congresses and gatherings of Catholics; a slowing of the relations of affection and devotion between the Catholic Churches of the world and the Mother Church of Rome.

Giovanni Michele Hanssens