The Recovering Choir Director

While reading some of Dale Price’s greatest hits—most dyspeptic mutterings, perhaps?—I came upon a post titled, “The Intolerance of the Liturgy People in the American Church.” The following passage caught my attention:

The only real die-hard opposition to Latin in the liturgy anymore comes from the aging-hippie set. Many such people have a virulent hatred of Latin or anything that smacks of tradition. I recall an incident I witnessed at a parish some time past: A parishioner innocently approached the parish music director and asked if we could have “some Latin at Mass”. She literally threw back her shoulders and declaimed in her most authoritative voice “We don’t do Latin at this parish. Latin isn’t accessible to the people.”

Being the geek I am, I looked up the definition of “accessible”. Courtesy of Merriam-Webster, here it is:

Main Entry: ac·ces·si·ble
Pronunciation: ik-’se-s&-b&l, ak-, ek-
Function: adjective
Date: 15th century
1 : providing access
2 a : capable of being reached <accessible by rail>; also : being within reach <fashions at accessible prices> b : easy to speak or deal with <accessible people>
3 : capable of being influenced : OPEN
4 : capable of being used or seen : AVAILABLE
5 : capable of being understood or appreciated <the author’s most accessible stories>

Hmm. Looks like the parish music director was completely right. Latin was inaccessible in that particular instance because while she may have based her reasoning on something like, “The people in the pews won’t understand or appreciate Latin, so why bother?”, she herself rendered it inaccessible (”They won’t have the opportunity to understand or appreciate it because I won’t give it to them”).

So, putting the anecdote and the definition together:

Usage of Latin in the liturgy makes a vast part of our liturgical past accessible (definition 1 and 2a), and people could be taught to make Latin personally accessible (definition 5) in some manner through its usage. However, due to parish music directors (or those from whom they get their marching orders, etc.) who do not make themselves accessible to the idea of using Latin in the liturgy as intended (definition 2b and 3), Latin is rendered “not accessible” (definition 4) though the Church documents and Roman liturgical tradition explicitly state otherwise.