The Catholic Church had good and rational reasons for adopting a vernacular Mass, a popularly intelligible and flexible service far more accessible than the rumbling, mysterious Latin that sometimes seemed more like glossolalia on the lips of a hurried priest. But many traditionalists who understood the Latin Mass regarded its translation as equivalent to redesigning Chartres or Notre Dame along the lines of a functional Manhattan office building. The Latin version, with a patina of centuries, had a majestic ritual quality that the vernacular often turns into a godforsaken flatness.
Perhaps it is part of the current fashion of nostalgia, but...
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