A Portsmouth Catholic

I really loved the Catholic Church of my childhood. At school we had a half hour of religious education every day. O Yes WE HAD A BIBLE. We learned all about Jesus and the stories of his life and miracles. But what I really liked was our visits to the chapel next door, especially when there was adoration for the Blessed Sacrament was exposed in the monstrance and there were not just candles on the altar but on stands all around the altar. It was so wonderful and with the flowers around also how could I not fall in love with Jesus. On Sunday there was the childrens Mass where we sat at the front and a teacher from our school explained what was happening and what the priest was doing. Yes the Mass was in Latin but we knew what was going on for we were bought missals where the Latin was changed into English. SO WE UNDERSTOOK WHAT THE MASS WAS ABOUT. On the question of the use of Latin, it is probably more welcome today when people can afford to travel all over the world but have little understanding of the Mass in French Italian or any other language. Documents are published in Rome in Latin so that when they are sent to Catholic countries they can be translated into the language of that country. BUT THEE NEVER AS ANY PROBLEM WITH LATIN. The real difficulty was that many of these countries did not translate the Latin properly and this helped dissenters take Catholics away from their faith. Vatican II was a prime example where the Latin texts of Vatican II were corrupted and a new understanding of the teachings of the Church were brought to the people. The fruits of this dissention was the loss of thousands of young people, the sudden fall in vocations, and Catholics being subject to a Protestantisation of their Churches. I will close now but I will continues this theme next time