While we recognize that the [fourth century] decision of Rome at that time to go over from the Greek to the Latin liturgy was unquestionably the right one, we cannot overlook the fact that this decision marked the beginning of the separation between East and West, which was to a very great extent a linguistic and liturgical problem. Language is a factor of much greater importance than we generally realise. At this hour therefore [1966] when the Church is girding herself for another stage in her journey through history, she must remember that while the translation of the liturgy into the vernacular is dictated by the circumstances of the time, it should not be made a pretext for the destruction of everything which comes to her from the past. There is a law of continuity [cf. Ratzinger's hermeneutic of continuity vs. that of rupture] which we transgress at our peril.
All this means that the liturgical reform calls for a very generous measure of tolerance within the Church [e.g. Summorum Pontificum's magnanimous breadth of liturgical freedom!], which in the given situation is only another way of saying that it calls for a great measure of Christian charity. And the fact that this charity is often so little to be found is perhaps the real crisis for the liturgical renewal in our midst. The "bearing with one another" of which Saint Paul speaks, the diffusion of charity of which we read in Saint Augustine--it is these alone that can create the setting within which the revival of Christian worship can grow in maturity and achieve its true flowering. For the real divine worship of Christianity consists in charity.
Joseph Ratzinger, "Catholicism After the Council," A lecture delivered to the Katholikentag of 1966 in Bamberg. Translated by Father Patrick Russell; The Furrow, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Jan., 1967), pp. 3-23.
