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Comment by bombcar | Hacker News Reader

The church Latin used in “the Latin Mass” is relatively simple and pretty easy to learn; and it’s very rare to find one that does the readings and homily in Latin; most of those are in English (or the local language) even at an FSSP parish.

Of course if it’s “really” done in the ancient way then it’s done at such a high speed that you need five or six Jesuits and advanced recording equipment to even figure out what is being said. ;)

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I recall some of the Orthodox denominations still do mass in Latin. I visited an Antiochian Orthodox Church for a class where this was the case. I think (it has been a long while) the key phrase you'd look for is 'Western Rite'.

Latin (and other "old" languages) can still be found in various ways and places, though that starts to get deep into it, as the "New Catholic Mass" can be said in any language, one of which is Latin.

Some Eastern Orthodox use (for all dialogue, they do celebrate mass) a language that's now only referred to as Church Slavonic. [1] Though going down this tangent I can't help but think of that Emo Phillips skit on religion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANNX_XiuA78

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Slavonic

Antiochian (eastern rite) and Assyrian Orthodox both do at least some of their masses in Aramaic, which can be interesting, though there may be a mix of others as well (note that Assyrian is fully independent, whereas Antiochian is in full communion with the broader Easter Orthodox church).

"Western Rite" would be those that adopted Latin or local western languages and traditions- think organs or other musical instruments, unleavened bread, crossing yourself from left to right, etc. The Catholic and Protestant churches are like this, along with a relatively small number of Orthodox churches. "Eastern Rite" are those that follow the Eastern Orthodox traditions, chanting the divine liturgies in older languages, no musical instrumentation, leavened bread, crossing yourself from right to left, etc.

While I've never been to a mass with the homily in Latin, I've had a few with the readings in Latin (including Monday's mass two days ago), which always annoys me a little because it's immediately followed by the translation in the local language.

Personally I prefer the Latin mass, but one change I'd like to see would be for all the texts for that day to be read in the local language, not just the Epistle and Gospel (among other changes).

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