My home Catholic church has been doing the “Lamb of God” prayer in Latin often in the last few months. Other Catholic churches I’ve been to recently have done either the “Holy Holy” or “Gloria” prayers in Latin–while the rest of the service is in English. Is there some push in the Catholic church, whether up high or at the parish level, to put more Latin in the modern mass? Are there any limits to how much of the service must be in the vernacular?
My wife has been leading the music at our parish for the past several years, and we have tried to incorporate more Latin. There has been a lot of pushback from the “old guard”, and our Priest has been…less than fully supportive.
My wife recently resigned from that position due to family obligations, and we will be attending a Latin mass parish about an hour away for at least the next few months.
I think that as the baby boomer generation loses influence, we will see Latin make a resurgence. At least that’s my hope.
It seems that younger people are tired of the Protestantization of the mass and want a more fully Catholic experience.
If there is, I haven’t noticed it. My wife is the main person who goes to church in this family, but I go once every month or so with her, and we rotate through five or six parishes. I have not noticed any latinization at any of them. The parish I grew up in (in the 80s and 90s), would sometimes do the “Agnus Dei” Latin version of the Lamb of God. Personally, I don’t like the idea of Latin mass, but, like I said, I’m not much of a Catholic anymore, so my opinion doesn’t matter. (Back when I was a strong Catholic, understanding the mass fully was really important to me. I grew up speaking Polish in the house, but I wasn’t very well versed in religious and other more “adult-conversation” level words, so I once went to Christmas mass twice, because I felt I didn’t have the full experience with the Polish mass my family attended. I don’t get why anybody wants a Latin mass again.)
To answer your question…
This is by no means scientific, but my impression has been that most of the hierarchy is unsupportive or even somewhat hostile towards Latin.
My hope is that this will change as the “V2” generation ages out of power.
https://liturgyguy.com/2018/02/04/time-to-let-go-of-vatican-2/
On a slightly related note, my grandmother died somewhat recently and her funeral was the first time I attended Mass in quite some time. It probably was too for some other family members who are of a more scholastic bent. Anyway, we were somewhat surprised at how many of the English words had been changed to something more akin to their direct Latin translation than what they had been before, which was a translation that sounded better in English. Most prominently the priest saying “Dominus vobiscum” was replied with “Et cum spiritu tuo”, which was “The Lord be with you”-“And also with you”; but now the response is the more literal “And with your spirit”.
I’m pretty sure I remember the phrase “and with your spirit” being used in the mass when I was a kid in the 1960s.
Most of the push towards Latin, such as it is, is from the old-timers who are starting to die out. And every generation from here on is a “V2 generation”, at least until such time as there’s a new Ecumenical Council.
Latin is a dead language.
It died across the sea.
It killed the ancient Romans,
And now it’s killing me.
MS found in a Boy’s Life magazine at a Goodwill store c. 1965
My experience has been pretty much the exact opposite.
I was referring to the generation that influenced the implementation of V2.
Must be regional or perhaps you just run in very conservative Catholic circles. I know not of a single person my generation (X) or younger who want a Latin mass. I think a Latin mass would just further alienate people like me and other on-thee-cusp Catholics from ever attending mass again.
I am ever impressed with how hard American Catholics took and still take the whole Latin vs. Vernacular thing. I suppose it’s one of those things that happens when you are conscious of not only not being the majority, but also of cultural pressures against you and fissures within the community, and if you grow up inmersed in a culture where Catholicism is taken for granted it’s like, why make things harder?
As to my experience of traditional-language usages in the US English vernacular Mass, I recall as far back as my first exposures to it in 1979/80 sometimes when the *Kyrie *was sung, it was done so in the Greek, but that was it.
Y’see, some among those of us whose cradle language was *not *English did not have to deal with that particular bit of back-and-forthing. The Francis-era changes make Vernacular English Mass sound more like the Spanish version I grew with, where it was ALWAYS “y con tu espíritu”.
OTOH I wonder who decided that we needed to port “consubstantial” raw and straight into the recitation of the Creed in English. I’m pretty sure this is a word no anglophone layperson had used in conversation in ages.
Vernacular Mass always sounded to me just fine; even more so in my childhood’s Spanish, not to a small degree because the common latinate roots allowed some of the phrases to retain a resemblance of the cadences, and modern Spanish retains the thou/thee/thy second-person-intimate form of address (which is how the classic liturgy addresses God) and can fit itself better to some of the turns of phrase.
Same here. Pretty much all the changes that happened recently made the English version closer to the Polish mass I grew up with. In Polish, it was “i z duchem twoim,” also meaning “and with your spirit.” Why English ended up with “and also with you” I don’t know. Somebody got just a little too casual, I guess! 
Another one I remember is the Penitential Rite, in the beginning of the mass, the one that starts with “I confess to Almighty God.” The Polish version had this lovely poetic repetitive phrase, where everyone bows their head and strikes their chest with their hand, moja wina, moja wina, moja bardzo wielka wina. The previous English version of this completely skipped it, but now it follows what’s in the Polish mass with the lines "through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. "
Nice of you to bring in this enlightened viewpoint, from a place with such a storied history of religious tolerance.
And which in Latin is “mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa”. Which is how that particular Latinism made its way into English usage.
Some notes:
The bureaucracy of the Vatican would like all the vernacular translations to agree as closely as possible with the Latin version (which itself is post Vatican II). Some languages (such as Spanish) turned out to be closer to the Latin, some farther away. Thus in English, for example, the Nicene Creed underwent some significant changes a couple years ago. Instead of beginning “We believe” it now is supposed to be “I believe”, which is the direct Latin translation of “Credo”. All these language changes are decided upon by committees of old geezers in robes.
There is a small group of Catholics devoted to the Mass being said in Latin not the vernacular. There is no issue with this per the Church. But it is always a small group, because, duh, nobody understands what is being said. Some but not all of these folks want the Church to repeal all the Vatican II reforms. They are not all old by any means. But they are all very very conservative.
I spent 25 years doing liturgical singing under the watchful eye of the diocesan director of liturgy and music. I learned a whole lot about how liturgy in the Church changes and who changes it. The short answer is, it’s a huge church with many disparate and conflicting strands and many opinions. There is a huge amount of top-down control but even so, the flavor of each parish is going to be created by the pastor, ministers, and congregation’s collective cultures.
Also, the Kyrie is very often sung in Greek. It is the only part of the Mass of which this is true. If you listen to Mass settings from the Baroque or Classical eras, they are all in Latin except the Kyrie. Even when everything else is in the vernacular, the Kyrie may be spoken or sung in Greek.
This. And as jrd mentioned in the next post, everyone I talk with would like the word consubstantial and the “under my roof” changes to go back to something easier to say and understand.
Altar Boy 1: What’s the Pope’s phone number?
Altar Boy 2: Et cum spiritu tuo.
And several times into my posts. Gotta use it or you’ll lose it. 
But Consubstantiation is heresy! I miss things being heretical. It made going to a Lutheran church feel daring.
They’re welcome down the street with me. Liturgy’s the same, but more tolerance of women and the gays so it’s a better environment for children. However Swedish, Norwegian, and German food sucks, so go back for the St Joseph’s Table.