"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
Friday, October 11, 2002 Remembering Good Pope John, Latin liturgist
Time Man of the Year, 1962
Pope John XXIII, who convened the Second Vatican Council 40 years ago today, was a defender of Latin, a point not emphasized by many who invoke his spirit and that of the council he summoned.
[T]he Catholic Church has a dignity far surpassing that of every merely human society, for it was founded by Christ the Lord. It is altogether fitting, therefore, that the language it uses should be noble, majestic, and non-vernacular.
In addition, the Latin language "can be called truly catholic." It has been consecrated through constant use by the Apostolic See, the mother and teacher of all Churches, and must be esteemed "a treasure ... of incomparable worth." It is a general passport to the proper understanding of the Christian writers of antiquity and the documents of the Church's teaching. It is also a most effective bond, binding the Church of today with that of the past and of the future in wonderful continuity.
-- Pope John XXIII, Veterum Sapientia, On the Promotion of the Study of Latin, 1962
Had Good Pope John lived longer, what shape might liturgical reform have taken?
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