From One Tongue to Babel: Why Leo Killed Latin

A forgotten 1919 defense of Latin shows why the old arguments for a universal sacred language suddenly sound prophetic

When I wrote the article below for The Remnant back in September of 2014, I treated “the official language of the Church is Latin” as a kind of fixed point. It was one of the few things that still seemed immune to the post conciliar revolution. Whatever chaos reigned in the average parish, you could still say that the official texts of the Mass, the law, the dogmatic definitions, the curial decrees, all had a home address: Latin.

This week Rome quietly took a wrecking ball to that assumption.

On November 24, Leo XIV’s Vatican published new Regulations of the Roman Curia and new Regulations for Curial Personnel. Buried in the fine print is Article 50, which rewrites the old language regime. Where John Paul II’s norms required curial acts to be drafted “as a rule in Latin,” the new text blandly states that acts are to be drafted “as a rule in Latin or in another language.” In other words, Latin is no longer the rule. It is an optional ornament, politely acknowledged and practically sidelined.

The Catholic Herald reports that Vatican officials themselves admit what this means in practice. With Italian, English, French and other modern languages now permitted for routine use, Latin will simply cease to be the ordinary working language of the Curia. The creation of a “Latin Office” in the Secretariat of State is little comfort when the real decision has already been made: the day to day business of governing the Church will increasingly be conducted in fluid, evolving vernaculars rather than in the fixed language that once anchored doctrine and law.

I made a similar point in a short post on X:

Another X poster followed up with an important reminder:

Why heresy prefers the vernacular

Catholic tradition never praised Latin just because it is beautiful or ancient. The popes explicitly said that its very “deadness” protects the faith. Pius XII wrote in Mediator Dei that the use of Latin “is a manifest and beautiful sign of unity, as well as an effective antidote for any corruption of doctrinal truth.” Even John XXIII, in Veterum Sapientia, repeated the same idea almost word for word, calling Latin both a sign of unity and a safeguard against the corruption of true doctrine. The point is simple. A language that no longer shifts in daily speech is much harder for innovators to bend. If you define transubstantiation, or the indissolubility of marriage, or the nature of the Church in Latin, those words are nailed to the page in a way that does not change with every fashion in psychology or politics.

History shows the opposite strategy at work whenever reformers want to smuggle in new teaching without saying so plainly. In sixteenth century England, Thomas Cranmer replaced the Mass with a vernacular communion service in the Book of Common Prayer. Scholars of the period note that the 1549 book was deliberately left with “ambiguity” in key Eucharistic phrases while Cranmer tested how far he could push the theology of the Real Presence. Later revisions stripped away more explicitly Catholic language, but the pattern is clear. First you move from a fixed sacred idiom into the flexible speech of the people, then you hide the doctrinal change inside phrases that can be read in more than one sense. The average layman hears familiar wording in his own language. Meanwhile the theologian with an agenda hears something quite different.

Exactly the same battle reappeared in the late twentieth century. The new Catechism was drafted first in French rather than Latin, and very quickly the English translators tried to “update” its doctrine with inclusive and neutralized language about God and man. Vatican officials eventually had to intervene, insisting on norms for translation after they discovered that the proposed vernacular versions were quietly altering Catholic teaching under the pretext that “language has changed.” Rome actually had to remind bishops that doctrinally weighty words must be anchored to the Latin editio typica, precisely because the vernacular is so easy to manipulate.

So when the older popes insisted that Latin was a “safeguard against the corruption of true doctrine,” they were not being romantic classicists. They were describing a very practical firewall against the usual tactics of error. Heresy thrives on mental reservations, on double meanings, on phrases that can be read one way in a pious parish leaflet and another way in a theological journal. A fixed sacred language makes that game much harder. It forces everyone, orthodox and heterodox alike, to wrestle with terms that have been hammered into place by councils, fathers, and centuries of magisterial use. Which is precisely why those who are impatient with dogma, or who wish to keep “controversial” questions permanently unresolved, will always feel an instinctive hostility toward Latin and an instinctive love for the endlessly elastic vernacular.

All of which brings me back to the essay below. Long before Leo XIV, Father John Francis Sullivan had already explained why the Church adopted Latin, why she kept it, and how a common, stable sacred language protects both the unity of worship and the clarity of doctrine. His 1919 text reads almost like a rebuke to the current moment. It reminds us that Latin is not an aesthetic hobby or a nostalgic taste, but a providential safeguard for the faith.

In light of Rome’s decision to downgrade Latin in its own house, I am reposting that article for my readers here. The arguments Father Sullivan makes are even more urgent now than when I introduced him to Remnant readers eleven years ago.¹

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Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Why Is the Mass Said in Latin?

Written by Chris Jackson | Remnant Columnist

We have all heard the arguments from liberals and Neo-Catholics alike as to why saying Mass in Latin is a preposterous and antiquated idea. They tell us that nobody understands Latin anymore, that it is a dead language, and that there is absolutely no merit in keeping it in the liturgy. In the following text from 1919 the Rev. John Francis Sullivan answers these arguments, except in his day the arguments were coming from those outside the Church. Yes, it is true that Fr. Sullivan wrote the following explanations to equip Catholics with ready answers to give their non-Catholic friends. How times have changed! I give you Fr. John Francis….Chris Jackson

(Chapter XIX of the book The Externals of the Catholic Church (1919) written by the Rev. John Francis Sullivan.)

THE official language of our Church is Latin. It is used in her services in the greater part of the world. It is employed in nearly all the business correspondence of the Holy See. Encyclicals and briefs of Popes, decrees of General Councils, decisions of the Roman Congregations, acts of national and provincials councils, synodal regulations of dioceses – all these are expressed in the ancient tongue of Rome.

The works of many of the great Fathers of the Church after the first three centuries and the countless tomes that treat of theology, Scripture, Church law and liturgy, all use the same majestic language.

Why Latin Is Used

“Why does the Catholic Church use Latin? Why does she not conduct her services in a language which can be understood by all those who are present at them?” These are sensible questions, frequently asked; and every Catholic should be able to give a satisfactory answer.

The Church makes Latin the language of her liturgy because it was the official language of the Roman Empire, and was generally understood and spoken throughout a considerable part of the civilized world, at the time when Christianity was established. St. Peter fixed the centre of the Christian faith in Rome, the capital city of the Empire, and the Church gradually adopted the language of the Romans, and finally used it in many parts of the world over which she extended her dominion.

Latin, however, was far from being the sole language of the Roman Empire. At the time of Christ and for two or three centuries afterwards many other tongues were spoken extensively in various provinces, and Latin, as a vernacular, was confined more or less to central Italy. In northern Italy, Gaul and Spain there was a kind of Celtic; in Germany, Teutonic; but the widest spread language was Greek. It was spoken in Greece, Thessaly, Macedonia and Asia Minor, in Marseilles and the adjacent territories, in southern Italy and Sicily, and in parts of Africa.

Moreover, Greek was everywhere the language of culture, and every educated Roman was supposed to know it. Latin remained the language of worship, of the law, the army and the government; but Greek became the great medium of communication among the various parts of the mighty Empire. The fact that it had become common among the Jews, both in Palestine and elsewhere, led to the making of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament and the writing of nearly all the New Testament in Greek – for even the Epistle to the Romans was written in that language, although one would think that Romans would better understand Latin. The first Fathers of the Church all wrote in Greek ­- even those who were addressing Roman readers or the Roman Emperor; and the Popes of the first two centuries used the same language when they wrote at all.

The Official Language of Rome

All this goes to show that, contrary to the opinion usually advanced, Latin was not spoken generally throughout the Empire at the time of the establishment of Christianity, and it was not adopted by the Church because “she wished to worship in the language of the people.” But, as said above, it was the language of worship, of government and of law; and the Church, which had fixed her seat of government in the imperial city, took it as her official tongue for the same purposes.

How did this come about? Because any other course would have been impracticable, and perhaps impossible.

The great centre of missionary enterprise in the west of Europe was Rome, and the priests who went to preach the Gospel were accustomed to say Mass in Latin. When they began their work in any country they had to learn the language; and when they had succeeded in doing so, they often found it too crude, too wanting in words, for the purpose of religious service. Therefore it was necessary to employ the Latin tongue for the public ceremonies of the Church, and the local language or dialect was used only for the instruction of the people.

The Language of Medieval Literature

In course of time Latin became the literary language of western Christendom, because it was familiar to the clergy, who were the educated class and the writers of books; because it was the only stable language in a time of chaos; because it was equally useful in any part of the world, no matter what was the native tongue of the people; and because it was a convenient means of communication between the bishops and the See of Rome.

And so everybody was content to use it, and the people of every nation in western Europe worshipped in Latin, until in the sixteenth century the so-called Reformers began their destructive work-and the people of Germany, of England and of the northern nations were led away from the old faith and were formed into national churches, each holding its services in the language of the country.

Why not have Mass in English?

“But would it not be better for the Catholic Church to conduct its worship in a language understood by the worshippers?” Yes, and no. The advantages of so doing are plausible in theory; the disadvantages render the idea difficult and even totally impracticable.

We do not intend to deny that, in the abstract, a service in the language of the country would be very useful – possibly preferable to a service in an unknown tongue; but the difficulties in the way of such action are so great that the Catholic Church has wisely persevered in offering her public worship in one language over the greater part of the world. Any other tongue than Latin is used only in certain Eastern rites -in communities which were never in close contact with Rome, and which have used Greek or Syriac or Arabic from the beginning of their history. Even in these the language employed in divine worship is not the spoken language of to-day, but an older form which is as un intelligible to the worshippers as Latin is to the average layman of our parishes.

“But why cannot the Catholic Church use English in England and French in France?” etc. Because she is a universal Church. A small sect or a “national church “ can use the language of the country in its worship. But the Catholic Church is not a national church. She has been appointed to “teach all nations.” She is not the church of the Italian, or the Englishman, or the Spaniard. She could, of course, translate her liturgy into any tongue, but a Mass in the language of any one nationality would be unintelligible to all the rest.

At present a priest can say Mass, privately or publicly, in almost any church in the whole world. If Mass was to be said in the language of the country only, he could celebrate only in private, and he would be forced to bring his own Mass-Book and server. Such a system (or lack: of system) would be unworkable in the Catholic Church – because she is Catholic.

Although in the course of centuries the Latin of Gaul was gradually modified into French, that of Italy into Italian, and that of Iberia into Spanish and Portuguese, the Church did not attempt to follow these changes in her language of worship. Nor has she tried to translate her liturgy into the myriad tongues of the nations and tribes that have come into her fold. She has deemed it wise to retain the use of Latin in her worship and her legislation.

Unity of Speech and of Faith

How well, in the Catholic Church, her oneness of speech seems to typify her unity of faith. More than that – it not only typifies but helps to preserve it. We can readily understand that it is of the utmost importance that the dogmas of religion should be defined with great exactness, in a language that always conveys the same ideas. Latin is now what we call a “dead language” — that is, not being in daily use as a spoken tongue, it does not vary in meaning.

It is very convenient for the Church to have Latin as her official language, as a means of communication between her members and her Head. To legislate for the Church’s good it is necessary from time to time to hold a General Council, at which the bishops of the entire world assemble. They all understand Latin; no interpreter is required. Every bishop writes often to Rome and goes at intervals to visit the Holy Father; and if there were no common language used in the Church, the Vicar of Christ would need to be familiar with more than the tongues of Pentecost if he would understand the German, the Spaniard, the Slav, the Japanese, or the countless others of many races to whom he would be obliged to listen.

“But do not the people suffer by this method?” No; they are instructed in religion in their own native tongue, whatever it may be-and we venture to say that, on the average, taking them as they are all over the world, our Catholic people know their religion at least as well as the Anglican or the Baptist. But the ceremonial of the Church is carried out in the grand old language of imperial Rome, where the Prince of the Apostles established the central government of Christ’s kingdom upon earth – a government which has endured while other kingdoms have risen and decayed and died – from which the light of God’s truth has shone farther and farther, century after century, into the dark places of the earth.

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1. The original online article, along with over ten years of my prior online articles at The Remnant were surreptitiously deleted with no reason given. An archived copy of my original article can still be found here.