Dear Editor, What an excellent piece on Latterday Latin Classics by your books editor (IC 20/2/14).
But I have to disagree with your editor that Catholic lovers of Latin see the language only as a way of preserving religious tradition. A knowledge of Latin is also vital to understanding the source of English words, such as video or bus, or the jocular origin of tandem for a two-person bicycle. And what about those Latin phrases which are still used, such as habeas corpus?
It’s true that tradition is preserved by a dead language, precisely because the older terms are immutable. But far from undermining religious belief, Latin today serves to uphold it.
Of course Pope Francis tweets in Latin (@Pontifex_In), and the Holy See is keeping up the use of the Latin Language today (http://www.vatican.va/latin/latin_index.html). Your editor should also recall the words of the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy: “The use of the Latin language, with due respect to particular law, is to be preserved in the Latin rites”, and of Blessed John Paul II, in his 1980 document Dominicae Cenae: “The Roman Church has a special obligation towards Latin, the splendid language of ancient Rome, and she must manifest them whenever the occasion presents itself.”
That’s exactly what’s happening at St Kevin’s church in Harrington Street, Dublin, where classes are just beginning in Latin for youngsters after Sunday Mass. Everyone is welcome. Maybe your books editor would like to go along?
Yours etc.,
Kieron Wood,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 16.