That's all very well, Joe, and to be sure, Latin isn't used very much as a medium of contemporary communication, these days.
However, it is a very living - and lively - language in Vatican City. The inhabitants therein are from all over the world, and Latin is still the lingua franca for most of the people who work there. The resident population is just over 800 but there are round about 3000 people who work there, but live elsewhere. A significant proportion of these, I think, will have to speak Latin to some extent. And the language is evolving to cope with the modern world, including all sorts of neolisms. There are Latin words and pgrases for television, automobiles, zip-fasteners, smart phones - you name it!
So, to call it a "moribund language," as the article does, is not strictly true
Continuity is what the use of Latin is all about.
The magnitude of this event transcends casual wordings. Christianity with it's message of unequivocal love for sinners and believers alike is why we are free. May God bless The Pope and Billy Billy Graham and maybe Mohammed.
I ran across this BBC Radio 4 chat on how the Catholic Church is "into social media in a big way". Includes two different renderings of "tweet" in Latin: (the Vatican's)
pagina publica breviloquentis and (Peter Jones)
pipiatio (
link).
A phrase from back in my 8 years of Latin:
It killed Caesar and it's killing me.
I had in my Latin book:
Ubi,ubi sunt meum sub ubi.
My used Latin book had the phrase eat more possum written in the back cover. I still haven't really translated that one to my satisfaction. The closest I've gotten is "If he go by means of custom, I can."
That's interesting about Latin's use in Vatican City. I didn't think that moribund was all that appropriate, either, since Latin gives birth to new words.
Official notices from the Vatican to the world's
bishops as well as letters to the world regarding
Theological issues are written in Latin.
The Church's seminaries in Rome teach seminarians in Latin.
Which is why so few of them know the rules ...
I hear you on that one mate!