Well, I am almost done the book, and I have to say that it lives up to its claims. Its purpose is to give the student the ability within a year to read Church Latin (especially the Vulgate). I am definitely "almost there". The one problem though is that books like this that give passages from the Bible and liturgy to read and translate make it a little too "easy" for the student if he already knows the Bible. In other words, he thinks he knows the language better than he does. But give him Luke's Gospel and he's fine; give him St. Augustine or Cicero and he struggles a lot!
I found this when I studied Greek in seminary. In college Greek (classical Greek), we used a secular text, and I think that helps one learn the language a little bit better. Thus, when I slacked off Greek for a few years it was pretty easy to come back to. Now in seminary Greek (koine Greek) we used a book similar to this Latin one that was built around the Bible. That's fine, but again it made it "easier" to get through the book rather than really learn the language. Thus, when we read through some apocryphal Greek texts (e.g. the Gospel of Peter) to see how well we could really read Koine Greek we definitely were humbled a bit!
So in retrospect I would probably go with Wheelock's Latin, or some other book that does not revolve around the Bible because I think it would force me to learn the language better. Now if I did not know the Bible at all, I would be fine with relying on this text, but since I do not it I feel like I am cheating.
Once one is finished studying a language either on his own or in class he must stay with it, otherwise the whole venture is just a waste of time. What I do is read through the Sunday propers in Greek and Latin when working on my sermon, and that helps me "stay with it" a little bit.
