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Comment by MisterBastahrd | Hacker News Reader

Imagine going to church every Saturday or Sunday and sitting through a 1 hour service that you don't understand. The conservative side of the church has decided that it hates change, and since the Latin services were mostly cast aside, that's a bad thing to them.

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The dozen or so TLMs I've ever been to have had their readings in the vernacular. All the other parts are either the same every time (or have only a few variations) or are propers (specific to each day).

I never studied Latin, but I don't find it difficult at all to keep up. A lot of churches that have TLM have the missal booklet with Latin on one page and vernacular on the facing page.

While I do appreciate the richness of the daily propers and miss understanding them, it doesn't bother me enough to avoid the TLM.

Modern catholics and protestants are the exception in regards to "understanding" their rites. For centuries religions have maintained "sacred languages" or at the very least sacred dialects, with the intention of emphasizing continuity between generations. Also, you don't really seem to understand how the Latin Mass works. The Ordo is repeated the same way every mass, so anyone that remotely cares knows what it says. The proper, including the readings, changes most days, but many are repeated throughout the year, like the mass of the virgins, and also repeats every year in the exact same way, so there's no reason for a concerned faithful not to buy a book with them if they care so much. Readings are frequently read in vernacular before the sermon, if pertinent, but they are not core to the mass so there's not much reason to care

Understanding the Mass and uniting in prayer with the Eucharistic sacrifice are one thing, being fluent in Latin is another thing.

One does not necessarily imply or require or constrain the other.

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