Cancelling David Haas

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Tis_Bearself

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So I understand that GIA Publications has dropped David Haas’ songs and many dioceses are also banning his music due to many credible accusations that he sexually harassed and sexually abused adult women and underage girls as young as 13. I was trying to figure out if this would actually impact any music I hear at church, and discovered in reviewing his works that the only songs of his I’ve actually heard at Mass were “You are Mine” frequently, “We are Called” once in a while, and his Mass of Light.

He has a bunch more songs with familiar names like “Bless the Lord My Soul” and “Sing a New Song” and “Servant Song”, but when I listened to them on Youtube, I discovered they were not the same songs I remember by those names, two of which were written by members of the St. Louis Jesuits and the other written by an OSM sister. I was relieved. I know the St. Louis Jesuits aren’t everybody’s cup of tea and that some of them have done some questionable things, but at least they haven’t sexually abused anyone to my knowledge.

Anyway, probably the only Haas songs I might miss are the ones from "“Mass of Light”, since I never really liked “You are MIne” and I’ve only heard “We are Called” infrequently. (There is another song that starts out “We are called, we are chosen” that I do like but it’s again some other song by someone else.)

Is anybody actually going to miss this guy’s works? Given that I’ve heard so few of his songs at Mass over several decades, I’m kind of wondering how he got to be such a bigshot in the first place.

By the way, I’d appreciate thoughtful responses, not the “Guitars at Mass are bad, that music sounds terrible, we should all be using Gregorian chant, good riddance” variety.
 
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I love “You are Mine.” My daughter had it sung at her wedding. The words were perfect for her and her husband.

But…I can see where it’s a little “mushy” on the theology for the Mass. It always struck me as a love song between a man and woman more so than a love song about God and humans. But I still think it’s lovely.

I guess…I think there are plenty of good hymns–hundreds of them in the Gather Hymnal alone, let alone all the other Catholic hymnals–that are sound in theology, singable by a non-musical congregation, uplifting to listen to by those who cannot sing for some reason–that we shouldn’t be too upset over the loss of the Haas hymns.

What a shame about his personal life, but I have been guilty of many sins, too.
 
So you know if the Lutherans are banning his hymns? Or any of the other Protestant (mainline, mainly!) denoms are banning them?
 
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I agree, “You are Mine” always sounded to me like maybe a song for a wedding, if that. For all I know, it was played at my wedding. I know we had a guitarist but at this point I do not remember exactly what hymns we had. I remember they played “Just You and I” and “The Wedding Song” while the guests were coming in and being seated and while I was trying to get into my massive dress in the bride’s room, and that’s about it.

I am sorry he went off the rails too, but the number of accusations make him sound very, very creepy. Apparently his own former wife, whom he met when she was a teenager, is among those making the accusations. It’s pretty bad.
 
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Well… it would solve at least one or two problems :crazy_face:
 
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Peeps said:
So you know if the Lutherans are banning his hymns? Or any of the other Protestant (mainline, mainly!) denoms are banning them?
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I don’t know. He was primarily known as a Catholic composer to my knowledge, and I have no idea how Protestant churches even select their music. I didn’t see anything about it in the articles I read, which apart from the NYT article I posted were mostly Catholic media, but you could Google, I guess.
 
Hymns come, and hymns go. The best of each generation remain. If GIA wants to drop him, that is their business. I am not going to worry about the credits at the bottom of the page in the meantime, and since we have fairly new hymnals, we will not change soon.

I bet almost no on reads the credits anyway.

Also, I have no intention of boycott. The article has this:
No criminal or civil complaints have been filed…
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No need for rash judgment on my part.
 
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I like “You are Mine”. It has been sung at a lot of my relatives funeral’s. It is comforting to me when I hear it, it reminds me of them.
 
I don’t think anyone will miss Haas, even fans of this kind of music. The point of that style is being simple and sing songy with certain general themes without too much depth. That’s why we assume all the stuff is from the same guys and it’s hard to keep straight which one did what. Even without Haas songs, the GIA books will have no problem being filled with essentially the same stuff.

As an aside, I have some friends in the liturgical music world who call refer to GIA as “Gosh, it’s awful” and I can’t not think of that whenever I see the acronym…

Pope Francis often criticizes Catholics for a rigidity he defines as “intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past”. What you describe is definitely the worst and most prevalent variety…
 
pnewton said:
Also, I have no intention of boycott. The article has this:
No criminal or civil complaints have been filed…
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The thread is not about you personally boycotting. GIA Publications and about a dozen dioceses have pulled his music. It’s not up to you or me. The Catholic Church apparently finds the many accusations credible, although no doubt many of them are barred by the statute of limitations because they happened decades ago, and in other cases the women managed to remove themselves from the situation before it reached the point of a criminal act.

If your diocese says “no more David Haas songs”, that’s it, they won’t be allowed.

Edited to add, I found one article in AwakeMilwaukee (I don’t want to post it here because it contains a lot of graphic abuse details) that says 58 dioceses out of 174 surveyed said they would ban use of his music. Going to Peeps’ question above, I see upon re-reading the article I posted that a Mennonite hymnal that used his works also dropped him.
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Tis_Bearself said:
Servant Song
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Richard Gillard composed the Servant Song. It is a lovely song. If we are thinking of the same hymn.


David Haas should be subject to a criminal trial before the GIA pulls the trigger on this. He does have some nice hymns. It is going to be quite costly to redact, print and then offer new hymn books, and find some new hymns to fill the redact. It will also be quite costly for the smaller parishes and institutions ( hospital chapels) to buy the required set of new books. Depending on results of the trial, then let the Ordinaries or the Bishops conferences make the decisions on his body of work.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
I know the St. Louis Jesuits aren’t everybody’s cup of tea
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They’re okay. I figured out that I am a charismatic traditionalist.
Tis_Bearself said:
but at least they haven’t sexually abused anyone to my knowledge.
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Mine either
Tis_Bearself said:
not the “Guitars at Mass are bad, that music sounds terrible, we should all be using Gregorian chant, good riddance”
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I’d be fine with Gregorian Chant guitar Masses.
I think you are making good points, so, now what?
 
I’m aware Richard Gillard wrote a song called “Servant Song”.

David Haas also wrote a completely different song called “Servant Song”.

However, the “Servant Song” of which I am aware, and frequently hear played at Mass, is this one by Sister Donna Marie McGargill OSM. I am glad this one is not getting banned as I like the “Jesus” chorus a lot.

 
GIA already decided to pull the hymns.
As I mentioned, it will be difficult to prosecute him because of statute of limitations problems and because in some cases the women or someone else managed to end the situation before anything criminal occurred, or they just gave in because he wore them down, etc.

I didn’t want to post the whole report but it really seems like some of you guys don’t understand the seriousness of the accusations and the fact that there are a very large number of them. So here it is.

 
So until I read this thread I imagined composers of liturgical music sitting at their keyboards composing, and maybe holding small performances to judge responses before sending their work off to publishers or providing it to musicians.

But it seems there are big events and composers can become celebrities. Can someone tell me more about this? Is it a big money-making industry? Is it sponsored by dioceses or religious orders? Are there sites where music-makers hand out and discuss or review work?

(Not asking for more details of these particular allegations or the use of the composer’s work - I have heard enough!)
 
If you become a “name” in the relatively small world of Catholic liturgical composition, you can make a very comfortable living and have ongoing work giving concerts, giving music workshops, running educational programs for music ministers, etc as well as just writing, publishing, recording and releasing songs and getting royalties.

As explained in the David Haas report I posted, many women and girls were seeking some type of work/ career in the liturgical music field, and got involved with this guy based on his promises that he could help advance their career.

Frankly it often annoys me that this field is so small and seems to feature the work of the same 10 people over and over, because a lot of the liturgical music being written and released in the last few decades seems to be just plain boring and basically warmed-over St. Louis Jesuits.
 
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