In light of the recent
Motu Proprio of Pope Francis
limiting the use of the extraordinary form of the Latin mass, I thought I would repost something I wrote for
First Things a dozen years ago:
Liturgy and archaic language. An excerpt:
I myself am of two minds about updating liturgical language. As an heir
of the Reformation, I believe it is generally best for Christians to
worship in a language they can easily understand. Even the most
conservative protestant congregations have largely abandoned the King
James Version of the Bible, substituting instead the New King James Version or possibly the English Standard Version. Most other churches now use the NIV or the NRSV. There is good reason for this, since we all should wish to see God’s word proclaimed in comprehensible form.
At
the same time, it would be a pity if English-speakers were to lose
their grasp of the Elizabethan forms altogether. Who would the Copts be
if they were to lose their ancestral Coptic language? Or the Maronites
without Aramaic? Without Church Slavonic would Russians be forced to
change, say, the cities of Volgograd and Kaliningrad to Volgogorod and Kaliningorod, just so people could continue to understand their meaning?
Read the entire piece here.
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