Monday, August 28, 2006
Et Tu, Reggie?
Eyewitness account of Father Reginald Foster, the papal Latinist and tireless promoter of the language of Rome, and his speaking engagement at Notre Dame. On one topic the Catholic Right wished he had left alone:
At some person's request, however, he did talk, but this is not the topic on which you want to hear Reggie discourse, because his liberal ideology leads a very smart man into saying stupid things like, for one, defending the older translation of the Novus Ordo Missae as, for example, on the grounds that "Et cum spiritu tuo" just means "And also with you." Which is a complete pile of garbage, and the Latin certainly doesn't mean that, and the expression is so obviously a Christian one, and so obviously a theological one - do you think that Cicero went around greeting his neighbors, "Et cum spiritu tuo!" - "And with your breath!" "And with your wind!" or some other such nonsense?And Rock asks:
However, it raises an interesting question: if the Holy See sought accurate, faithful, doctrinally precise and aesthetically pleasing translations of the editio typica in the native language of the church's leading Latinist, then why on earth was said Latinist not consulted?Good question.
