A number of translations of the current version of the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani – but not the Latin text – is available on the Vatican website. (I have no idea why they give the ungrammatical title "Institutio Generalis Missale Romanum" which means "general instruction the Roman Missal" perhaps somebody was spooked by the fact that the genitive of Missale – Missalis – has an identical ending to the nominative Generalis). This is known in English speaking circles by the acronym GIRM for General Instruction of the Roman Missal The almost twenty year old website Christus Rex provides the predecessor of the current GIRM, promulgated in 1975. Helpful, for reasons hinted in the title to this post.
To be and know oneself
When the Vatican revamped its Latin journal, the Catholic Herald published a story about it in Latin.
Mirabile dictu! Latinitas redit
Civitas Vaticana editionem primam actorum diurnorum Latinorum recreatorum, Latinitatem, aperuit. Editio nova praefationem a Francisco Papa adscribit, qui 180,000 sectatores eius tabularii Latini, Strepitus, habet.
Latinitas quater quotannis vulgatur et litteras de historia, libris, lingua et scientiis continet. Acta diurna in parte, Diarium Latinum, quoque continet. Ad ecclesiae linguam publicam promendam in MCMLIII fundata est. Editio nova litteras in lingua Italica Anglicaque primum habebit.
Editionem novam nuntians, Cardinalis Gianfrancus Ravasius Italicum Communem, Antonium Gramscium, interpretatus est, dicens, “Linguam Latinam aut Graecam non studes ut eas dicas. Id facis ut cum populorum duorum, qui societatis novae fundamenta erant, humanitate convenias; id est, eas studes ut tu sis et te cognoscas.”
They invited people to offer translations in the comments. Most of them are fairly literal. This is an attempt in the journalistic mode.
Latin makes a stunning comeback!
The Vatican has unveiled the first edition of a journal for Latinists – Latinitas. The new edition includes a preface by Pope Francis, who has 180,000 followers of his Latin Twitter feed.
Latinitas is published four times a year and contains articles on history, literature and science. It also contains a day by day news section "Diarium Latinum" (Latin Diary). Latinitas was founded in 1953 to promote the universal language of the Church. For the first time the new edition will have articles in Italian and English.
Announcing the new edition, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi cited the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci. "You do not study Latin or Greek to speak them. You do it to meet the humanity of those peoples, that is, you study them to be and know yourself."
Notes:
sectatores eius tabularii Latini, Strepitūs. Strepitus ("noise, din") is the Latin word for Twitter. It is fourth declension and the sentence only makes sense if it is in the genitive. Literally the phrase means "followers of his Latin archive of Twitter".
Acta diurna in parte…quoque continet. Acta is plural. It is possible that the draftsman thinks it can take a singular verb. This would give a much smoother rendering "The journal (acta diurna) also contains a "Latin Diary" in one section." According to Kennedy (§199) where two nouns making up a composite subject form a single notion, then they can take a singular verb, e.g. Senatus populusque Romanus. Nevertheless, from a cursory glance over Perseus it seems that the Acta Diurna (an official publication in Ancient Rome) always take a plural verb.
Italicum communem. Catholic condemnations of communism (often by means of a condemnation of the teachings of communists) use the coinages communismus and communista. For the former this goes back at least as far as the encyclical of Pius IX Qui pluribus of 1st November 1846 (DS 2786). For the latter, Leo XIII warns the audience of his encyclical [English] Quod Apostolici muneris (18th December 1878, ASS 11 (1878) [pdf] p.372) against the doctrine of those "qui diversis ac pene barbaris nominibus Socialistae, Communistae vel Nihilistae appellantur" – "who are known by diverse and almost barbarous names, as Socialists etc." Pius XI points out that the "communistarum effata" – literally "axioms of the communists" – impoverish the human person in his encyclical Divini Redemptoris of 19th March 1937 (DS 3773). In both those instances note the use of italics to show that the word itself is not Classical. The Holy Office issued a decree on 1st July 1949, DS 3865, in answer to a question whether it is permitted to join a communist party – "partibus communistarum nomen dare" (answer in the negative). On that occasion the questioner apparently chose the term communista without the "scare italics". For what it is worth, in the OCR scan of AAS 41 (1949), p.334 [pdf] no italics appear at that point. Finally, John XXIII in his encyclical Mater et magistra of 15th May 1961, talks of "communistarum, qui dicuntur" (as per the OCR AAS 53 (1961) p.408 [pdf], cf. DS 3939). Without going into the thorny grammar of that sentence, it is clear that there the word communista is held at a certain stylistic arm's length "those who are called "communists"" – just as Leo XIII referrred to it as a pene barbarum nomen. In fact one could avoid translating "qui dicuntur" altogether and just use quotation marks. Latin, like Greek, prefers to allow the grammar to govern the sense. For one thing the ancients did not have any full blown system of punctuation. In any case communis cannot mean "communist". It is an adjective and per Lewis & Short (s.v. I B) it is used substantively for nothing more specific than "that which is common".
interpretatus est. A number of the commenters at the Catholic Herald render this "he quoted". This is clearly wrong. It would be protulit, possibly making verba the object and putting Gramsci in the genitive. Interpretor means "I translate". There is a sense of the speaker providing some kind of explanation or exegesis of his source. Cito, unlike English "cited" has a more strictly legal, and legal-like meaning.
The passage cited by Cardinal Ravasi is derived from Gramsci's notebooks as given by Stanley Aronowitz in "Gramsci's Theory of Education: Schooling and Beyond"*
Pupils did not learn Latin and Greek in order to speak them, to become waiters, interpreters or commercial letter-writers. They learnt in order to know at first hand the civilization of Greece and of Rome—a civilization that was a necessary precondition of our modern civilization; in other words, they learnt them in order to be themselves and know themselves consciously.
It appears that Cardinal Ravasi was speaking in Italian. What he said is quoted in Zenit's report of the press conference (the English version of that bulletin includes no reference to Gramsci):
Non si impara il latino e il greco per parlarli, per fare i camerieri, gli interpreti, i corrispondenti commerciali: si impara per conoscere direttamente la civiltà dei due popoli, quindi il passato, ma presupposto necessario della civiltà moderna, cioè per essere se stessi e conoscere se stessi, consapevolmente.
The Italian website gramscisource.org provides the complete works of Gramsci, or perhaps only his obiter dicta. (He seems to have been a great filler of notebooks). This passage, I think is the source of Cardinal Ravasi's citation, from (so far as I can judge) notebook 12, § 2:
Non si imparava il latino e il greco per parlarli, per fare i camerieri, gli interpreti, i corrispondenti commerciali. Si imparava per conoscere direttamente la civiltà dei due popoli, presupposto necessario della civiltà moderna, cioè per essere se stessi e conoscere se stessi consapevolmente.
* Carmel Borg, Joseph A. Buttigieg, Peter Mayo (edd.) Gramsci and Education (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), ch.5, pp.109-120, at p.114.
He dispensed himself from Mods
In 1414 the Emperor Sigismund convened an Ecumenical Council at Constance, with Pope John XXIII presiding. This of course was the anti-Pope. Baldassare Cossa not Angelo Roncalli who convened the Second Vatican Council. Constance is famous for the resolution it brought to the problem of three men simultaneously claiming to be Pope. (Until 2013 it was the most recent example of a Pope resigning). However Sigismund also sought condemnation of the teaching of Jan Hus. He asked the Fathers of the Council date operam ut illa nefanda schisma eradicetur – "take care that that unspeakable schism be uprooted". He assumed from its termination that schisma is feminine. In fact it is neuter since it is a Greek word belonging to the Greek third declension. It goes like σῶμα body. One of the Cardinals pointed this out and Sigismund replied:
Ego sum Rex Romanus et super grammaticam.
"I am the King of the Romans and above grammar." Thomas Carlyle tells the story in his History of Friedrich II of Prussia vol. 1, book ii, ch. xiv, p.153 (Boston, Mass.: Dana Estes & Charles E. Lauriat, 1884). He cites Wolfgang Menzel's Geschichte der Deutschen which can be found on Google books here (scroll to p.477, footnote) and in translation here. Menzel does not provide a source.
From Carlyle it appears that this speech was delivered on 25th December 1414, which means this Christmas will be the 600th anniversary.
Twerketai he Kyros.
Fr John Hunwicke, formerly an Anglican, now an Ordinariate priest, considers the task of Latinists turning Pope Francis' homilies into Latin for the Acta. It is just a fantasy. The Holy See has been happy for a while now to produce official documents in languages other than Latin. St Pius X's Instruction on Sacred Music, Tra le Sollecitudini, was addressed to the Cardinal Vicar of the Diocese of Rome and so written in Italian. The current norms on translation of liturgical texts into the vernacular are contained in Liturgiam Authenticam, issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments in 2001. This replaced the decree of the Consilium for Implementing the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (which put together the new Liturgical books), Comme le Prévoit (1969) issued in French.
So it does not seem likely that gangs of Latinists are occupying the empty Papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace. But I was struck by Fr Hunwicke's suggestion of a Greek, and therefore Latin — the Romans often adopted Greek words — translation of "twerking" . (If you do not know what Twerking is, lucky you).
Fr. Hunwicke suggests the name of a salacious dance mentioned in various comedies: the kordax. It is mentioned in many places. Aristophanes has the chorus refer to it in Nubes 540 (English translation here). A scholiast says ἡ κόρδαξ δὲ κωμικὴ αἰσχρῶς περιδινοῦσα τὴν ὀσφῦν the kordax is a comic dance of shamefully twirling the loins around. The New Pauly suggests (how astonishing that one can get such a book for free on the internet) that the Kordax might have been a solo dance. Twerking by definition requires a partner. Also the word twerking is a participle but κόρδαξ a noun. So a certain amount of, er, tweaking, is required.
It cannot begin with Latin
Via Chant Café, the blog of the Sacred Music Programme (oh, all right, Program) at the University of Notre Dame has published the first part of an interview with Jeffrey Tucker. Much as we might regret it, we cannot just launch straight back into Latin everywhere, more's the pity:
JJ: One of the things that we are constantly asking ourselves at Notre Dame is how to take the repertoire that Catholics have grown up with since Vatican II and use what’s already there to build off of towards a full experience of the Church’s musical tradition. Where do you think the inroads are?
JT: I think what we are doing has to build off of the current experience and repertoire. I can tell you from long experience, because the question you are asking right now has been at the core of my strategic and theoretical thinking for the last ten years. It cannot begin with Latin; it has to begin with English. The reason is that language is absolutely essential to the way we think, who we are, and how we regard ourselves as a people. It’s so closely tied to our identity that it’s non-negotiable at this point in history. The church gave us the gift of vernacular with the Second Vatican Council, and it’s not a point to regret, but something we have to deal with. For me, the ideal is always Latin, but it’s ridiculous to think you could start there. You can try to implement the singing of the Mass in Latin and there will be a core of people that will love everything you’re doing, but it will not last because there will be a different core of people that will be deeply offended because they just aren’t ready for it. This is the great mistake, I would say, that was made in the years following the council. There’s a reason why this didn’t happen, but there’s also a tremendous confusion about how the vernacular applies in the liturgy. On one hand you had Vatican II clearly elevate the role of Gregorian chant above which it had ever been elevated in the history of the Church. On the other hand, you had the council give permission for the vernacular, but it was left open exactly how this was to be applied. It is obvious to me that the tension between these two things was not fully anticipated and the Council Fathers were not aware of the tremendous difficulties this would create. Suddenly all the Gregorian chant seemed irrelevant, mainly on the grounds of language.
A cornucopia for copy and paste
My current project requires the transcription of large slabs of text, specifically Magisterial documents of the Catholic Church. I recently discovered a French website, catho.org which has the 1917 Code of Canon Law in Latin and French as well as the 1996 edition of Denzinger's Dogma. So I was able to save myself typing out DS 1247-1279 (the questions to be posed to those accused of the Hussite or Wycliffite heresies, decreed by the Council Of Constance 22nd February 1418). Also Catho.org gives the older paragraph numbers of Denzinger right next to the current number. This is useful for using pre-1963 works of theology. From the home page you navigate to the French versions but there is a little button ("Latin" hand written with a mouse it looks like) to switch to the original. It does not provide the Greek texts of the early councils. Also it only provides French texts of the Fathers. Clicking on the pair of blue semi-circular arrows (looks like a refresh button) within a given text takes you to citations of the passage which you are reading. As they say on the home page:
Un système UNIQUE AU MONDE, issu de la technologie exclusive du logiciel Ictus, permet de savoir immédiatement où un document est cité. Ainsi, vous découvrirez comment les Pères de l'Église commentent un passage des Saintes Écritures, ou bien comment un texte du Magistère (concile, encyclique) est utilisé par un autre document. … Grâce à Internet et aux techniques les plus modernes appliquées à ce trésor de textes, ayez l'érudition d'un vrai moine!
Quite so.
Meanwhile I am agog at developments on Newman Reader. Although they have adopted a rather odd looking font (looks like Papyrus) for the front page we can forgive all that because they have put PDF scans of all 32 volumes of Newman's Letters and Diaries (it would cost thousands to assemble a collection of printed copies) as well as of modern collections of Newman's miscellaneous papers. They seem to have done an OCR job on it so the text is searchable, at any rate it is as searchable as something on Google books (presumably Google did the work, since "snippet view" and "preview" versions of L&D are available on Google books). I cannot find Newman's preface to Hutton's Anglican Ministry, but I just gave you that. Nor is there the full version of his ejaculation in favour of the Papacy beginning "Deeply do I feel…"
Last, but not least, (via Chant Café) the complete four volume Missale Romanum cum lectionibus is now online. Each volume is split into four files. They take an age to download. They have been gone through a first run with optical character recognition so you can copy and paste up to a point. It is not very accurate however. But it is better than nothing. Much better.
On re-translating Humanae Vitae
Just as the draftsmen of Papal documents are usually unknown – except in exceptional circumstances – so are the translators, although I noted an exception yesterday.
In 'On Retranslating Humanae Vitae' John Finnis talks about his experience preparing a new version of Paul VI's encyclical. This is on p.344 of his Religion and Public Reasons (Volume 5 of his collected works). You may be able to see this paper at the book's page on Google (it is blocked to me now, it was available earlier). But buy a copy anyway.
Now write it out 100 times
The Vatican website has a separate page for the table of contents of John Paul II's Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia Pastor Bonus, in all the the different languages (English, German, Italian, Latin, Portuguese, Spanish – plainly the French just don't need to know). Only on the English page do we find anything like the following.
Copyright 1998 for the English-language translation of the Apostolic Constitution "Pastor bonus" by Francis C.C.F. Kelly (Ottawa), James H. Provost (Washington) and Michel Thériault (Ottawa). Posted on the Vatican Web Site by permission of the copyright owners. The translation was first completed in 1993. In 1997, it was revised by Michel Thériault; subsequently, it went under a new revision by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Secretariat of State. After a final revision by Michel Thériault, the translation was considered to be faithful to the letter and spirit of the original text and its publication was authorized by the Secretariat of State.
I wonder what happened. Perhaps in this trabslation, the CDF was mandated to come to its decisions only after informal bongo sessions. The Internet Archive goes no further back than 1998 when only the Italians could know what "the Vatican" was up to.
(For the title: Romans go home).
A very loving problem
In a footnote to a review of a book about the possibility of married priests, Canon Lawyer Edward Peters (mentioned in these parts several times) discusses a translation problem:
Cattaneo repeats a very common mistranslation of Presbyterorum ordinis 16 when he quotes it as saying that Vatican II “permanently [sic: lovingly (peramanter)] exhorts all those who have received the priesthood and marriage [sic: the priesthood in marriage (in matrimonio presbyteratum)] to persevere in their holy vocation …”.
The relevant passage (leaving out a reference to the practice of married clergy in the eastern Churches) of PO 16 is:
Sacrosancta haec Synodus … omnesque illos peramanter hortatur, qui in matrimonio presbyteratum receperunt, ut, in sancta vocatione perseverantes,
The Vatican translation:
This holy synod … permanently exhorts all those who have received the priesthood and marriage to persevere in their holy vocation…
Peters refers us to his own article [PDF] in the Catholic Scholars Quarterly (Summer 2011), which includes the following discussion of PO 16 and the Vatican translation.
Plainly, the English translation proposes two grammatically equivalent direct objects of the verb “received,” namely, “priesthood and marriage,” While the Latin original proposes only one direct object for the verb “receperunt,” namely, “presbyteratum,” while referring to marriage in a prepositional phrase “in matrimonio”. A correct English translation of the Latin original should read something like “This holy synod … exhorts all those who have received the priesthood in marriage [or ‘while married’ or ‘in the married state' or ‘after marriage’] to persevere in their holy vocation.”
Cattaneo, of course is simply using the translation on the Vatican website. That would be the same Vatican website which notes that Pastors "understand that it is their noble duty to shepherd the faithful and to recognize their miniseries…" (Lumen Gentium n.30). That is why my Parish Priest always looks for copies of Brideshead Revisited, Band of Brothers and so on, when he comes to visit.
Hazing for scriptural scholars
Why the Biblical Languages Matter—Even if You Forget Them (via Rod Decker).
In another month or so, a new crop of seminary students will begin the grueling month-long experience of Summer Greek. And, like all seminary students before them, they will begin to ask the question of why studying these ancient languages even matters. After all, a few years after graduation all will be forgotten. In the midst of a busy pastoral life, who could possibly maintain proficiency in the languages? As a result of these questions, some students decide (very early on) that the biblical languages are just something to be endured. They are like a hazing ritual at a college fraternity. No one likes it, but you have to go through it to be in the club. And then it will be over.
He means seminarians for Protestant Churches of course. Catholic Seminarians having all availed themselves of the many opportunities to learn Latin and Greek (as well as Hebrew, Syriac and the rest) available in Catholic schools. Stop laughing at the back.
On the usefulness of Latin (again)
The Public Orator at Oxford (and Cambridge) is responsible for the public Latin of the University: for speeches in Latin at the awarding of honorary degrees, for addresses by the University to people like the Queen or other members of the Royal Family and so on. At present the Public Orator at Oxford is Richard Jenkyns.
Back in April, Jenkyns published an article in Oxford Today (a puff magazine they send to graduates) prompted by that journalist who scooped the world on the Papal resignation because she knew Latin.
Having paid attention in class at school, she realised what he was saying; the rest of the press had to wait for translations. Judging from their blank faces, the cardinals present did not know what was going on either.
It is an interesting piece but that typically Oxford swipe against the Cardinals' Latinity is most unjust. Cardinal Arinze makes it plain that they understood what was happening (from 0:43).
Gus and Tommy Latine
Augustinus.it provides the complete works of St Augustine in Latin and Italian. They are organised according the Augustine volumes in Patrologia Latina (PL 32-46). For some reason PL 46 is not included in the "elenchus" on the left but the sermons in that volume can be found by searching "PL 46" in the Tavola Cronologica. Unfortunately it does not include the prefatory material found in the printed volumes. This means it is no help in deciphering the PDF of this discussion of the text of sermones inediti.
There is also a page of links to English translations of his works. Apart from those listed there, I don't know of any others.
Corpus Thomisticum is a site with the complete works of St Thomas Aquinas, courtesy of the University of Navarre. There is also a collection of links to volumes of the Leonine edition on archive.org.
New Advent only has a translation of the Summa Theologica, done by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province in 1920. The Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. offers the complete works of Aquinas in more recent translations. (Bookmark that link because there is no obvious way to navigate there from the homepage). It was novices at the DHS who produced that charming work Lives of the Dominican Saints. I wouldn't mention that, except that it always makes Dominicans squirm when I do.
The Pride of Place
Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, General Instruction of the Roman Missal (2003).
41. All other things being equal, Gregorian chant holds pride of place because it is proper to the Roman Liturgy. Other types of sacred music, in particular polyphony, are in no way excluded, provided that they correspond to the spirit of the liturgical action and that they foster the participation of all the faithful.*
Since faithful from different countries come together ever more frequently, it is fitting that they know how to sing together at least some parts of the Ordinary of the Mass in Latin, especially the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, set to the simpler melodies.**
* Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 116; cf. also Sacred Congregation of Rites, Instruction Musicam sacram, On music in the Liturgy, 5 March 1967, no. 30.** Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 54; Sacred Congregation of Rites, Instruction Inter Oecumenici, On the orderly carrying out of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 26 September 1964, no. 59: AAS 56 (1964), p. 891; Sacred Congregation of Rites, Instruction Musicam sacram, On music in the Liturgy, 5 March 1967, no. 47: AAS 59 (1967), p. 314.
Remember Anamnesis
Behold the homepage of Anamnesis, the bulletin of the liturgical commission of the Polish Bishops' conference. ("Anamnsis" at the top of the page is simply a typo, it is of course simply the Greek word for the memorial sacrifice of Num 10:10, alluded to in Lk 22:19 and 1 Cor 11:25).
In 2004 I discovered that the editio typica tertia of Missale Romanum included some new saints in the calendar. This is the Universal Calendar, also called the General Calendar. Local churches at the diocesan or national level are expected to modify the calendar usually by adding local saints or sometimes by increasing the importance of the celebration.
This being the Missal – to be used at Mass – it does not have texts for the Liturgy of the Hours (the "Divine Office", often simply just the "Office"). Using as a search text the collect (which is the same as the concluding prayer in the Office) of one of the additions to the calendar, I discovered that the Polish Bishops had put the Latin texts of additions to the Divine Office online. Additions to the liturgical books are published in the journal of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, Notitiae which was not, and is not, published online. However all the decrees from the Congregation pertaining to the Universal Church, including such additions to the calendar are, as a matter of course, published in Latin in Anamnesis.
Go to Komisja Kultu Bożego i Dyscypliny Sakramentów Episkopatu Polski (that takes you to the Anamnesis page). Look at the column on the left hand side of the screen. Indeksy numerów 1-26 takes you to indexes for the first 26 issues. These are not very helpful as they are not hyperlinked. Issues 1-7 are not online. Click on Numer 8 to find out why. "Od Redakcij" means "From the Editor", this issue was published on 1st November 1996. When I refer to the "Editorial" of a given issue of Anamnesis in what follows, I mean whatever you read by clicking on "Od Redakcij".
Also in issue 8, "Przygotowanie do wprowadzania katecumenatu w diecezjach - materiały z Sympozjum Katechumenalnego Sandomierz - 16 i 17 września 1996" is the proceedings (I guess) of a conference held on and 17th September on the history of the rites of initiation. "Informacje" means "Information". "Spis treści means "table of contents". Click on that and you will get links to two pdfs, one of which is in dear old English, and we read:
After publication of seven issues of Anamnesis (1994-1996) – Bulletin of the Polish Episcopal Commission for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments which was designed for the Polish Bishops – a new edition of Anamnesis is being started which is addressed to people responsible for liturgy and liturgical pastoral care in the Church in Poland, anxious for more intense renewal of the Church by more conscious, active and deepened participation of all the Christians in the Liturgy. The editorial design is to create a meeting forum for the two directions of the liturgical renewal: the one “from above” (institutional) and one “from below”.The editorials are often undated so it is hard to determine the frequency. The editorial for issue 20 is dated 28th November 1999.
The important thing for our purposes (well, OK, my purposes) is what is usually the first section of an issue of Anamnesis: Dokumenty Stolicy Apostolskiej - Documents of the Apostolic See. These are typically decress from the Congregation DWDS. Number 22 contains the authorisation for the Polish texts for the office of Blessed Pius of Pietrelcina (as he then was, i.e. Padre Pio). The decree from the Vatican is dated 26th November 1999, but the editorial is dated 1st June 2000. The series is clearly not regular since issue 26 has an editorial dated 2nd June 2001 and there is clearly a lag between the promulgation of the decree and its publication in Anamnesis. Issue 31 has an editorial dated 18th May 2002 but its URL suggests that it has been linked to by mistake because the filename for the PDF is "Anamnesis30-0aRed" which is also what you get when you click through from "Od Redakcij" for issue 30. Issue 32 has an editorial dated November 16th 2002.
I labour over Anamnesis 31 because the second pdf among the Dokumenty Stolicy Apostolskiej in that issue is Dodatki do Liturgii Godzin - Additiones ad Liturgiam Horarum. This is the text in Latin of the additions to the Liturgy of the Hours made with the 3rd edition of Missale Romanum by a decree of the Congregation dated 18th December 2001. The next issue (32) contains the texts for the Mass and Office of Padre Pio decreed by the Congregation on 26th June 2002. Finally on 12th February 2004 the Congregation published texts for the Liturgies of St Juan Diego Cuauhtlotoatzin and Our Lady of Guadalupe.
So far as I can tell there have been no additions to the Universal Calendar since 2004. Granted you have to wrestle with Polish but Anamnesis is a useful resource.
The Jesuit Pope
Francis, Bishop of Rome, Servant of the Servants of God, is a member of the Society of Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits.
Let's watch Cardinal Tauran again (1:06:46), followed by the Pope (1:16:45). You should be able to drop the scrubber quite easily.
Read MoreQui sibi novum nomen imposuit
Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum; habemus Papam: Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum, Dominum Georgium Marium Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem Bergoglio qui sibi nomen imposuit Franciscum.
With these words did Jean Louis Cardinal Tauran announce the election of Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio SJ, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, about 8pm on 13th March 2013.
Round here I heard two channels (Fox News and Sky News) solemnly say – after the habemus Papam – "we had not yet been told" what name he would take. Come on! It is literally the very first question he is asked once he accepts the election (UDG n.87). It is written down in the Ordo Rituum Conclavis as part of the formula for the announcement. If they were going to diverge from that it would be (a) very hard to pull off in the time available and hence (b) very obvious. I had already switched off the ABC (that's the Australian government funded broadcaster, not the US network) on principle when they wheeled on an ex-priest, so I could not be sure, but certainly the news ticker did not contain the name.
Pace the media, he did not take the name "Francis I" and, unless you are travelling in time from the future and are a little confused, he will not be known as "Francis I" until there is a Francis II. John Paul I was announced as such – "Ioannis Pauli primi" – although the same Proto-Deacon a few months later announced that Cardinal Wojtyła had taken the name "Ioannis Pauli" without a numeral.
First Pope from the Jesuits. First Pope to take a name that did not exist in the first millennium. Apparently Pietro Bernadone gave his son the name Francesco (he had been baptised Giovanni; actually he had probably been baptised Ioannem, but you get the idea) because of mercantile connections with France.
First time in 50 years that the Proto-Deacon got the grammar right. Since Cardinal Ottaviani said "Paulum sextum" in 1963, this is probably the first time in 55 years that he got the grammar right and did not use an unnecessary numeral. I cannot find video of the announcement of John XXIII but Cardinal Canali probably avoided saying "vigesimum tertium". Mind you he might have made a point of it, to underline the rejection of Antipope John XXIII.
UPDATE: The last Pope to come from a religious order was Gregory XVI (1831-1846), the immediate predecessor to Blessed Pius IX (I am not suggesting that is his only distinction, just locating it in time for you). Gregory XVI was a Camaldolese monk.
UPDATE II: Of course what name the Pope will take is the first thing the Cardinal Dean asks. The Pope acts juridically, like every other sovereign, by signing his name. He cannot do anything until he has a name. Choosing a name is not something that can be postponed.
UPDATE: The last Pope to come from a religious order was Gregory XVI (1831-1846), the immediate predecessor to Blessed Pius IX (I am not suggesting that is his only distinction, just locating it in time for you). Gregory XVI was a Camaldolese monk.
UPDATE II: Of course what name the Pope will take is the first thing the Cardinal Dean asks. The Pope acts juridically, like every other sovereign, by signing his name. He cannot do anything until he has a name. Choosing a name is not something that can be postponed.
Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum: the word for blessed!
[The actual sedes vacans, courtesy of Charles Cole].
At the time of writing, the Vatican website still has a separate page on the election of Pope Benedict XVI (if that link dies you can go here).
Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum; habemus Papam: Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum, Dominum Josephum Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem Ratzinger qui sibi nomen imposuit Benedictum XVI.
Now that is not what Jorge Cardinal Medina Estévez actually said.
Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum; habemus Papam: Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum, Dominum Josephum Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem Ratzinger qui sibi nomen imposuit Benedicti decimi sexti.
He clearly uses the genitive "Benedicti decimi sexti".
There are two things wrong with this. Firstly the Latin for "sixteenth" is sextus decimus not decimus sextus. If you search the Perseus database using Philologic you can use lemmas to show this. At Perseus under PhiloLogic put
The other thing wrong is indicated by the "official transcript". The Protodeacon should have used the accusative ending (-um) instead of the genitive (-i). The accusative is what was used in the past. It agrees with nomen, which is a neuter accusative (object of imposuit) and with which Benedictum is in apposition. When a noun is in apposition to another (typically a name as in "the orator Cicero", where Cicero is in apposition to orator) it agrees, so far as possible, in gender, case and number. Cicero, in his second speech against Verres, describes Syracuse in Sicily:
in hac insula extrema est fons aquae dulcis, cui nomen Arethusa est, incredibili magnitudine… (Ver. 2.4.118)
At the very end of this island is a fountain of sweet water, of which the name is Arethusa, incredible in size…
Arethusa agrees with nomen in case (nominative) and number (singular) . It does not agree in gender because there is no neuter form of Arethusa.
Camillo Cardinal Caccia Dominioni was Protodeacon at the conclave of 1939 when Pius XII was elected.
He clearly says "qui sibi nomen imposuit Pium". He also brings his hands together which strongly suggests (Italian stereotype) he has finished speaking and is not going on to say "duodecimum", although the video does immediately cut to a shot of the new Pope on the sedia gestatoria. It is somewhat nonsensical to mention the ordinal number. Papa Pacelli's name was not "Pius The Twelfth" but "Pius". The ordinal simply allows us to distinguish him from other popes of that name.
I cannot find footage of the relevant part of the announcement of John XXIII by Cardinal Canali in 1958. Here is Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani announcing the election of Paul VI in 1963 (beginning at 2:40):
He says "…qui sibi nomen imposuit Paulum sextum". The numeral creeps in (the name "Paulus V Burghesius" of course was inscribed straight above his head on the facade of St Peter's [large jpeg]) but he preserves the accusative.
Pericle Cardinal Felici got to announce a new Pope twice. Here he is announcing the election of John Paul I on 26th August 1978 (from 0:55):
"…qui sibi nomen imposuit Ioannis Pauli primi". It is clear that he uses the genitive.
(You can add a wrinkle to the "John Paul I was murdered" conspiracy theory by noting that Cardinal Felici used an ordinal – "the First" – when there was no need, since no other Pope had ever had that name…unless he knew that there would soon be another. Note the uploader inadvertently suggests this is the announcement of Pope St John I (523-526). One of the commentators in this video of the announcement of the election of John Paul II (at 4:14) says that John Paul I chose to have the numeral inserted.)
Cardinal Felici was back on the evening of 16th October 1978 to announce the election of John Paul II. The fullest coverage is from this capture of the live broadcast by ABC News in the United States. Some journalists like to insert themselves into any story (the BBC coverage of the funeral of John Paul II was egregious in this regard) but these blokes just manage not to obscure what he says. The Cardinal gets to the name at about 2:05.
"…qui sibi nomen imposuit Ioannis Pauli." Again he uses the genitive but this time he leaves out the ordinal (conspiracy!).
I have the Ordo rituum conclavis (you never know when you will need to run a Papal election) which at n.74 at the beginning of chapter 5 has the following for the Cardinal Protodeacon to say:
Annúntio vobis gáudium magnum;
habémus Papam:
Eminentíssimum ac Reverendíssimum Dóminum,
Dóminum N …… ,
Sanctæ Románæ Ecclésiæ Cardinálem N …… ,
qui sibi nomen impósuit N. ……
So that is no help on the case to put the name in. The text at the Vatican website suggests that someone with enough power over the website at least, thinks that the accusative to agree with nomen is correct.
So far as I can tell the formula used three times since 1978 – nomen + genitive – means, apart from the obvious (So-and-so's name), "a reputation for" or "the word for". For obvious reasons (a search for any form of nomen returns 1251 answers from the Perseus database, for Cicero alone) it is practically impossible to dig out every example of nomen taking the genitive. Somewhere I made a note of the fact that in Cicero nomen amicitiae (genitive) means "the word for friendship". In the De Natura Deorum i.122 he has:
carum ipsum verbum est amoris, ex quo amicitiae nomen est ductum.
There is something attractive in the very sound of the word 'love,' from which the Latin term for friendship [amicitiae nomen] is derived. (Loeb [facsimile]).
In the De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum ii.78:
quid autem est amare, e quo nomen ductum amicitiae est, nisi velle bonis aliquem affici quam maximis, etiamsi ad se ex iis nihil redundet?
What is the meaning of 'to love' — from which our word for friendship (nomen…amicitiae) is derived — except to wish some one to receive the greatest possible benefits even though one gleans no advantage therefrom oneself? (Loeb).
And again in De Amicitia 92:
…delet enim veritatem, sine qua nomen amicitiae valere non potest.
…it utterly destroys sincerity, without which the word friendship (nomen amicitiae) can have no meaning. (Loeb).
On the other hand, there are examples of nomen plus genitive of X meaning "the name X" in passages when someone adopts a new name. Famously Octavian (the Caesar Augustus of Luke 2:1) took the name Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus on 16th January 27 BC, an event which is taken as the start of the Imperial Rome. I don't have access to "Imperator Caesar: A Study in Nomenclature" by Ronald Syme which is the most important modern work on Augustus' name known to me. So far as I know the chief literary source for this event (Syme presumably also drew on inscriptions and coins) is Dio Cassius, a Roman who wrote in Greek. According to Wikipedia his Greek is full of Latinisms. Dio discusses the process in 53.16. Where necessary I quote the Greek and mention the grammatical form used.
And when Caesar had actually carried out his promises, the name Augustus [τὸ τοῦ Αὐγούστου ὄνομα – genitive] was at length bestowed upon him by the senate and by the people. For when they wished to call him by some distinctive title, and men were proposing one title and another and urging its selection, Caesar was exceedingly desirous of being called Romulus [Ῥωμύλος ὀνομασθῆναι – passive verb with a nominative], but when he perceived that this caused him to be suspected of desiring the kingship, he desisted from his efforts to obtain it, and took the title of "Augustus," [Αὔγουστος … ἐπεκλήθη – passive verb with a nominative] signifying that he was more than human; for all the most precious and sacred objects are termed augusta. (Loeb).
Suetonius mentions how the Emperor Caligula got his name in Caligula 9.
Caligulae cognomen castrensi ioco traxit, quia manipulario habitu inter milites educabatur.
He took the surname "Caligula" (genitive) from a joke in the camp, because he was brought up among the soldiers and dressed in a private soldier's uniform.
I would like to think that Cardinals Felici and Medina Estévez had been reading the primary sources for the renaming of Caesar Augustus – even though one normally takes Cicero's Latin as an example above the Latin of Suetonius or the Greek of Dio Cassius – but I think they were simply mistaken.
Jean-Louis Cardinal Tauran is the current Protodeacon. If he is elected Pope, presumably it will be the next deacon in precedence, Attilio Cardinal Nicer. Cardinal Tauran should use the form given on the Vatican website, putting the name in the accusative, and not in the genitive like his predecessors in 1978 and 2005.
On the usefulness of Latin
I am shocked at what I am about to do: post a link to something from an Australian newspaper – from the Sydney Boring Herald no less – and not simply to mock it.
Latin helps journalist get scoop on Pope
At the end of the article, the journalist's boss remarks "This is a strong argument for culture in training future journalists". I'll say. Take the following story:
Pope Benedict xvi sent out his first tweet in Latin
Latin helps journalist get scoop on Pope
An Italian journalist who beat the world's media on Pope Benedict XVI's decision to resign got the scoop on the utterly unexpected news thanks to her knowledge of Latin.It's even a reprint from the AFP, bene ego nunquam.
At the end of the article, the journalist's boss remarks "This is a strong argument for culture in training future journalists". I'll say. Take the following story:
Pope Benedict xvi sent out his first tweet in Latin
The Pope finally sent out his first tweet in Latin from his Twitter account @Pontifex_ln on Sunday, January 20, 2013: “Unitati christifidelium integre studentes quid iubet Dominus? Orare semper, iustitiam factitare, amare probitatem, humiles Secum ambulare.”
The Pope immediately followed it up with translations into the languages of his other Twitter accounts. He translated the Latin via his English language account @Pontifex this way: “What does the Lord ask of us as we work for Christian unity? To pray constantly, do justice, love goodness, and walk humbly with Him.”The Guardian apparently took the phrase corruptio optimi pessima and … erm … corrupted it.
Take the UK’s Guardian newspaper. It is responsible for propagating an erroneous Latin phrase in its reporting on the Pope’s Latin Twitter account. Lizzy Davies in Rome wrote this paragraph for the Guardian, misquoting Roberto Spataro (secretary of the Pontifical Academy for Latin Studies, which Benedict XVI founded last year) and attributing the quote to L’Osservatore Romano:
“Twitter is a tool which requires rapid communication. In English you say ‘the corruption of the best one is horrible’; in Latin, three words suffice: ‘corrupt optima pessima. It is a language which helps to think with precision and sobriety. And it has produced an exceptional heritage of science, knowledge and faith.”
"The more barbarous Latinity of a Rhabanus Maurus" : On Ecclesiastical Latin
When taught to translate English into Greek or Latin (something I was never very good at) I was told to use the idioms of a classical author appropriate to the genre of the text. For example, if the text prescribed for translation came from a speech of Churchill, one would go to Cicero or Demosthenes. In many cases any prose writer would do, but if a piece of grammar only occurred in the poets then it was not to be used. At Merton we all had a terrible time with trying to translate something from Proust.
What would be the equivalent for somebody ordered to provide a translation into Latin of an extract from the works of Blessed John Henry Newman (for example) for his office? In other words what counts as Ecclesiastical Latin? Somewhere in volumes iii or iv of Liturgia Horarum is a sermon by St Leo the Great which uses a grammatical construction not found in classical authors. I'll track it down later but, for the purpose of this post, it is enough to remark that Cicero and co. need not be our only models for writing Latin now.
Leaving aside the question of models – examples of good style – if we want to know if something is Ecclesiastical Latin, what are the sources of the Language? An obvious such source would be the Vulgate and its predecessors – bearing in mind that some constructions are literal translations of the Hebrew. If you wanted to describe something made of individual parts as strongly compacted together, you would not say "cuius participatio eius in id ipsum" (Ps 121(122):3). Later on Jerome rendered that passage "cuius participatio eius simul". Pius xii gave us the elegant "in se compacta tota", but these days the Church has compromised with "sibi compacta in idipsum".
Presumably Jerome's other works are sources, as are those of Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine and Ambrose. St Irenaeus of Lyons wrote in Greek, but his only works to survive intact do so in Latin translations made during his lifetime. Presumably they could be a model. You would probably include Aquinas, Bernard of Clairvaux and Bernardine of Siena as well as all Papal documents at least up to the middle ages.
Veni sancte Spiritus, the Sequence for Pentecost, was written in the 12th century, probably by Innocent III (ob.1216) or by his friend from the Sorbonne, Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury. I would be inclined to include the acts of the council of Trent (not meaning to exclude anything else up to that point) as well as the Breviary (1569) and the Missal (1570).
Urban VIII (1623-1644), assisted by some learned Jesuits, replaced many of the hymns of the Breviary with new versions in a more Classical language and metre. These survived until 1969. The Catholic Encyclopedia remarks that
surprise may be expressed at the temerity that dared to meddle with the Latinity of a Prudentius, a Sedulius, a Sidonius Apollinaris, a Venantius Fortunatus, an Ambrose, a Paulinus of Aquileia, which, though perhaps lacking the purity of the Golden Age, has, nevertheless, its own peculiar charm. Even the more barbarous Latinity of a Rhabanus Maurus is not without its archaic interest and value.
But are these Classicised hymns Ecclesiastical Latin? And can they be used as models for modern compositions? Maybe but perhaps, by definition, no. How about the 1917 code of Canon Law? Perhaps. How about the 1983 code, composed from scratch in my lifetime (perhaps a little earlier)? The mere fact that an idiom is in St Leo the Great means it could be used in translating (say) John Henry Newman's sermon on the Roman See. What if it is in Vatican II and nowhere else?
I see very little evidence that any thought whatsoever has been given to this sort of question. Instead people are left to do their work with whatever Latin they happen to have picked up along the way. We end up with things like this, from the Office of Readings of Padre Pio (23rd September), translated from one of his letters (presumably in Italian):
Gratias, ergo, agite infinitæ pietati æterni Patris, qui sic animam vestram ad salutem deputatam gerit. Cur non gloriari benevolis his optimi ex omnibus patribus adiunctis?
I cannot construe the second sentence. I cannot see how dative plural benevolis his connects with omnibus patribus adiunctis nor what genitive singular optimi is doing unless it is nominative plural and subject of some understood verb. Perhaps somebody believes benevolo is a verb and that benevolis is its second singular.
Edward Peters, mentioned before, gives a list of books for studying Latin, in particular Ecclesiastical Latin. I for one would not turn up my nose at Vincent Huber's Latin for Sisters.
Via New Advent, Msgr Daniel Gallagher – apparently the successor to Fr Reggie Foster as one of the Pope's Latinists – discusses the return of Latin in the Church.
Proper Treatment of a Blessed Pope and a Blessed Cardinal
A few weeks ago I mentioned the Breviary Propers for the Diocese of Cologne. Blessed John Paul II has, with the consent of the Holy See, been inserted into the Liturgical Calendar of the United States as an optional memoria. That page has links to the Mass Propers in Latin and English (and Spanish) and to the Breviary Propers ditto, all from the Vatican website. These are all within the pages of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. Nevertheless there is no mention of these Propers on the English page. I mention that because in all the other languages of the Vatican site there is a link to all the material pertaining to John Paul II's beatification and liturgical cult: Italian, German, Spanish, French, and Portugese. Even the Latin page has a link to the decree of 2nd April 2011 De cultu liturgico in honorem Beati Ioannis Pauli ii, papae, tribuendo.
Anamnesis, the bulletin of the Liturgical Commission of the Polish Bishops has a pdf of the decree and another one of the Mass and Office Propers combined into a single document. ("Dekret o kulcie bł. Jana Pawła II, papieża" for the decree, "Teksty liturgiczne o bł. Janie Pawle II, papieżu" for the propers).
The Liturgy Office of the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales has inserted the optional memoria of Blessed John Henry Newman for October 9th. This is seen in the Recent Additions page last updated (it says here) on 24th September 2010. Newman does not appear in the National Calendar for England. The Recent Additions page links to a pdf, without preamble or explanation, of the liturgical texts in Latin and then in English of the Propers for Mass and the Divine office of Blessed John Henry Newman (pdf).
Recent Additions also has links to an index page for downloadable resources for Gregorian chant in the form of extracts from Jubilate Deo. Something seems to have happened in the Liturgy Office. It was thanks to a scathing review on its site that I discovered Laszlo Dobszay's The Bugnini-Liturgy and the Reform of the Reform (2003). From the reviewer's contempt it sounded like the sort of thing that would be just my cup of tea – and it was. From there it was a short step to Dobszay's recordings with the Schola Hungarica.
But if it is now publishing propers in Latin, as well as materials for Gregorian chant, there must have been some kind of change of attitude.
Anamnesis, the bulletin of the Liturgical Commission of the Polish Bishops has a pdf of the decree and another one of the Mass and Office Propers combined into a single document. ("Dekret o kulcie bł. Jana Pawła II, papieża" for the decree, "Teksty liturgiczne o bł. Janie Pawle II, papieżu" for the propers).
The Liturgy Office of the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales has inserted the optional memoria of Blessed John Henry Newman for October 9th. This is seen in the Recent Additions page last updated (it says here) on 24th September 2010. Newman does not appear in the National Calendar for England. The Recent Additions page links to a pdf, without preamble or explanation, of the liturgical texts in Latin and then in English of the Propers for Mass and the Divine office of Blessed John Henry Newman (pdf).
Recent Additions also has links to an index page for downloadable resources for Gregorian chant in the form of extracts from Jubilate Deo. Something seems to have happened in the Liturgy Office. It was thanks to a scathing review on its site that I discovered Laszlo Dobszay's The Bugnini-Liturgy and the Reform of the Reform (2003). From the reviewer's contempt it sounded like the sort of thing that would be just my cup of tea – and it was. From there it was a short step to Dobszay's recordings with the Schola Hungarica.
But if it is now publishing propers in Latin, as well as materials for Gregorian chant, there must have been some kind of change of attitude.