Judge Andrew Peter Napolitano is unabashedly a traditional Catholic who attends the EF Mass (not sure where in New York). Last night (Wednesday) he was at the EF Mass, as he described this morning on Fox and Friends and his phone went off and he met someone in the vestibule.
They tell you to turn off your phone--he didn't; he answered and talked in the vestibule (might have been an interview?). The Judge said this was a venial sin!
Then later in the program someone else was being interviewed from Las Vegas, Nevada and toward the end of the interview he said he had to correct the good judge that it wasn't a venial sin, but a mortal sin.
Then they started discussing the fact that Judge Napolitano was at Mass last night, an all Latin Mass (I presume the EF Mass) and one of the hosts asked if the judge understands Latin and the other said yes, he knows everything.
What an uplifting program Fox and Friends is! I vote for them in the morning!
2 comments:
"Then they started discussing the fact that Judge Napolitano was at Mass last night, an all Latin Mass (I presume the EF Mass) and one of the hosts asked if the judge understands Latin and the other said yes, he knows everything."
But whether or not one understands Latin has nothing to do with worship in the Latin Mass. Because its essence lies in actions, not words.
When I first encountered--and was converted by--my first Catholic Mass as a young Methodist student in the 1950s, I understood not a word of Latin. But the realization that something was actually happening up there on the altar, something beyond words, made a profound and immediate impression on me.
Only after my retirement as a math. professor a half century later, did I finally study Latin grammar systematically. Now I understand readily not only the simple street Latin of the Scriptures and the easy Latin of the Order of Mass and the Roman Canon, but am especially fond of the elegant classical Latin of the collects. But none of this in itself makes me pray the Mass any better. I still do it mostly in my native language, following the English in my hand missal.
"When I first encountered--and was converted by--my first Catholic Mass as a young Methodist student in the 1950s, I understood not a word of Latin. But the realization that something was actually happening up there on the altar, something beyond words, made a profound and immediate impression on me."
The effect was the same on me, even as a life long Catholic. The simple and sincere reverence and *respect* has captured me.
For my part, I thought the 'allowing oneself to be distracted during Mass' was basically a venal sin depending of course on what caused the distraction.
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