I would be in favour of a new openness toward the use of Latin. Latin in
the Mass has come meanwhile to look to us like a fall from grace. So
that, in any case, communication is ruled out that is very necessary in
areas of mixed culture... Let's think of tourist centers, where it
would be lovely for people to recognize each other in something they
have in common. So we ought to keep such things alive and present. If
even in the great liturgical celebrations in Rome, no one can sing the
Kyrie or the Sanctus any more, no one knows what Gloria means, then a
cultural loss has become a loss of what we share in common. To that
extent I should say that the Liturgy of the Word should always be in
the mother tongue, but there ought nonetheless to be a basic stock of
Latin elements that would bind us together. Cardinal Ratzinger, God and the World, SF, CA: Ignatius, 2002, pp. 417-18
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