Is this a forbidden hymn?

[McCatan]

Recently our priest, relatively new to the parish, laid down the law during a homily and said the hymn “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” is verboten, never to be sung at our Catholic Church. He cited that it was written by Martin Luther who was challenging the Church. Is this a widespread belief by the clergy?

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

As the chief liturgist for his parish the pastor certainly has the right to restrict certain hymns that he considers to be inappropriate or incompatible with what he is trying to accomplish.

However, there is no church wide ban on that particular hymn. In fact, the hymn appears in the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Catholic Book of Worship.

A hymn being non-Catholic in origin has not traditionally led to it being automatically banned from liturgy. Many Catholic parishes use Hark the Herald Angels at Christmas time.