Losing the Key

An article on Bringing Back Latin, by Mark J. Clark. A snippet:

I have put off until now answering an obvious question, namely, why does all this matter? Just as the academy and the educated world outgrew Latin, why not allow the Church to do the same? I respond that, even if, Deo gratias, the Church should encompass the globe and become literally catholic in language and culture, and even if, Deus vetet, the Catholic Church in Europe should wither on the vine, it would still be true that the vast majority of Roman Catholic culture and tradition grew up and was formed speaking Latin. It is, as it were, the native language of the Roman Catholic Church, and were we to let it die we would in fact suffer the loss of our mother tongue. We would have access to our patrimony, that wonder-filled treasury that now lays unseen in the Church’s attic, only in bits and pieces and then only in translation. We would become foreigners to our own tradition, to our own thoughts. This is a potentially grievous loss for a Church that holds Tradition sacred. Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have recently reminded us that the Church needs Latin for this very reason.

Via Ecclesia Latina.