From what I understand, a significant portion of the Protestant Reformation was due to the refusal of the Catholic Church to approach or teach in the vernacular...it was Latin, by G-d!, or else.
Quite. Interesting when you think that Latin was actually 'the vernacular' in its day, Scripture being written, as you say, in the Greek!
On the one hand, perhaps there is something to the pomp and pageantry, of which Latin would be a significant portion.
It is the mystery, for me, and the very precise symbolism.
I might have mentioned elsewhere, I think they should have got a poet, or a lyricist, to 'fine-tune' the translation, someone with an ear for language. Someone who could make it accessible (that being the point) without it being mundane to the point of banal.
But that was a big selling point for Protestantism, bringing "the Word" to the masses in their own language.
Agreed, but there was a huge debit. The robes went, the 'bells and smells' ... but the pastor replaced the priest in every other respect, and proved themselves no better.
Eamon Duffy's "The Stripping of the Altars" traces the Reformation in England. A key point he makes is that there was no "substantial gulf" between the religion of the clergy and the elite, and the mass of the population. The more well off had better religious books, nicer churches or private chapels, how they worshipped and what they believed was near identical with the peasant in the field.
Nor was the mass of the population in ignorance while the ruling class had knowledge – documentary evidence shows a far wider knowledge of church doctrine than many suppose. On the eve of the Reformation, there were some 50,000 Books of Hours in circulation, albeit cheap editions aimed at a mass audience.
Life in rural villages, for example, revolved around the liturgical calendar. There were nearly 70 days when adults were obliged to fast, numerous feast days when work was not permitted, the laity expected to attend services. The religious dynamic, its calendar, its sequence of services, was central to how people lived. As Duffy notes, "for townsmen and countrymen alike, the rhythms of the liturgy ... remained the rhythms of life itself."
The Reformation, especially in England, was linked to the changes taking place in the English economy.
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, for example, universally described as places of sin, corruption, mismanagement, etc. was supposed to pour money into Henry VIII's exchequer to fund his foreign wars. Precious little did. Most went to the aristocracy, the dukes and barons, who took over often well-managed and profitable estates. The English Reformation was driven by class interest, Henry himself was quite a traditionalist, and the Anglican Church is a long way removed from his vision of English Catholicism (echoes in 'high anglicanism' exist).
There can have been few if any communities in which Protestants formed anything like a majority. The reform stemmed from the need of social and economic prestige of its more prosperous and articulate adherents. The real influence of Protestants was making itself felt via key figures in the English state. This is why the Reformation could proceed even though Henry was a traditionalist and why it was reversed only briefly during Mary's reign. When revolt did break out, the ruling class took up arms to suppress it.
Reformation takes time. Changes driven through did not abolish the beliefs in peoples heads. Uder Mary saw worshippers gladly return to traditional practise. Hidden statues were dug up, church cloth and candlesticks came out of hiding. The Reformation eventually transformed England because it was closely linked to the development of a new socio-economic system. By the 1570s, the instincts and nostalgia of the elder generation was giving way to that of a generation who had known nothing else, who believed the Pope to be Antichrist, the Mass a mummery.
The past was another country.
England kept the Protestant faith as its state religion because its proponents where the new ruling class. The first son inherits, the second was bought a rank in the military, the third went into the church. The state established its church, and the church reflected the state.
