Thursday, September 24, 2015

Is singing in Latin wrong?

Panis angelicus, for singing in Latin,
with a Japanese translation.
This weekend's Catholic Universe draws my attention to a story which appears in The Times of Malta, about a priest who did not allow allow a Latin hymn - Panis angelicus, to be exact - to be sung at a funeral, because it was not in Maltese.

According to the Universe, the priest, Fr Carmelo Tanti, said that is wasn't right for something to be sung which the people wouldn't understand.

The Times of Malta is incredulous, and it appears that Archbishop Scicluna of Malta agrees with them.

A while ago I wrote a post on this blog about a Pastoral Letter from Archbishop Scicluna's predecessor, Archbishop Cremona, which appeared to be a veiled attack on the Traditional Mass. Let us hope that things look up under Archbishop Scicluna.

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3 comments:

  1. Of course, it matters not a jot that we don't perhaps understand word for word, what matters is that God understands!

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  2. Interestingly, the Japanese text in the image is not a translation at all but a transliteration of the Latin, that is, a pronunciation aid!

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