A Latin Revival?

Dr. Robert Moynihan of the magazine Inside the Vatican has written an absorbing little book on our new Pope, just published by Doubleday called The Spiritual Vision of Pope Benedict XVI: Let God's Light Shine Forth. The first part of the book consists of an overview of the life and views of the former Cardinal Ratzinger. Moynihan bases his work, in part, on various conversations he has had over the years with Ratzinger. Moynihan was obviously chosen to author this book because of his longstanding personal contact with former Cardinal Ratzinger.

At one point, Moynihan quotes the former cardinal on Latin as a liturgical language:

He [Ratzinger] insisted that the Council statements allowed "the vernacular, as is right, but the Council also said that the primary language of the liturgy is and will always be Latin." . . . . [He also] believes that along with the new, the old Latin liturgy "must always be protected."

Moynihan, pp. 70-71 (quoting Ratzinger).

As usual, Ratzinger put his finger exactly on the problem created in the aftermath of Vatican II--a problem in direct contradiction with the text of Vatican II and a 1974 directive under Paul VI mandating a minimum repertoire of Latin Gregorian chant in the modern liturgy ("Letter to Bishops on the Minimum Repertoire of Plain Chant, " April 14, 1974):

[E]ven from a purely sociological point of view, if a society regards something that a short time ago was the thing that was most holy, and most essential, and most to be venerated in this society, if from one day to another this venerated thing is prohibited, and comes to be considered the thing most to avoid and most to exclude: this is the self-destruction of the society!

Ratzinger, quoted in Moynihan, pp. 70-71.

I expect some changes in the not too distant future.