Catholic World News : Italian politicians weigh in on Latin liturgy

[Three Italian politicans against the broader use of the classical Latin liturgy of the Church. Interesting that one, rather incorrectly, states that Latin is no longer the lingua franca of the Church. Clearly it is still the formal language of the Church.

As well, we yet again see a lack of distinction between what is the de facto state of the liturgy, and what, de jure was and is to be. We further continue to see the hermeneutic of rupture at work. Here, I suggest we see the fruits of the lack of information, or even misinformation, about the Council and the liturgy.

Further, the statement, "with these things one cannot turn back", beside not taking the above into account, as a principle becomes its own form of liturgical immobilism.]

Catholic World News : Italian politicians weigh in on Latin liturgy: "Italian politicians weigh in on Latin liturgy

Rome, Dec. 19, 2006 (CWNews.com) - Three prominent Italian politicians have voiced their opposition to a call for the broader use of the Latin Mass.

Responding to appeals that were published in the Italian daily Il Foglio and the French Le Figaro, former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti indicated that he had no enthusiasm for a restoration of the old liturgy. “With these things one cannot turn back,” he said; “Latin is no longer the lingua franca of the Church.”

A Christian Democrat legislator, Sen. Francesco D’Onofrio, took the same stance, saying that Latin would “hardly be comprehensible” to most parishioners. Consequently, he said, “it would make the content of the Gospel remote.”

Gerardo Bianco, a former cabinet minister, agreed. “The Church has a problem of unity in the liturgy, which cannot be reduced to a linguistic operation,” he said. If the intellectuals who signed the Foglio and Figaro manifestos are dedicated to restoring the Latin language, he suggested, “I would being with scholastic formation, not the Mass.” "