Liturgical abuses at Mass today

[bear06]

stanley123:

However, is it true that the Pope has excommunicated every Catholic who sings something other than the Gregorian chant: ?

“Therefore, we command under sentence of excommunication that, in the singing and reading of your churches, you carry them out in no other way than that which Pope St. Gregory handed down with all your powers. For if, which we hardly believe, anyone should try, now or in the future, in any way whatsoever, to lead you back or turn you aside to any other tradition beside the one which we gave to you, we not only command that he be excommunicated from the holy body and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, but we declare by our authority and also the authority of all our predecessors the he shall remain in perpetual anathema for his presumptuous audacity.”

Pope Leo IV in Una Res

And that evil Pius XII said this in Mediator Dei:

1. It cannot be said that modem music and singing should be entirely excluded from Catholic worship. For, if they are not profane nor unbecoming to the sacredness of the place and function, and do not spring from a desire of achieving extraordinary and unusual effects, then our churches must admit them since they can contribute in no small way to the splendor of the sacred ceremonies, can lift the mind to higher things and foster true devotion of soul.

Now don’t go jumpind down my throat here. I’m a lover of chant and can’t stand drums which I think would probably fall under profane or unbecoming. All I’m saying is that one pope cannot bind another in matters of discipline. Yes, that also means the Papal Bull Quo Primum does not bind Benedict XVI.

 

[Teresita]

On the ‘holier-than-thou’ accusation, a pertinent analysis on the CWN blog:

cwnews.com/offtherecord/offtherecord.cfm?task=singledisplay&recnum=2559

It is, of course, perfectly possible to go to Mass in a pharisaical spirit, carefully storing up deviations from the rubrics and words in a sort of ‘I-thank-God-I-am-not-like-this-priest’ spirit. However, I think that for most of us, liturgical abuses strike us like false notes in a performance of a well-known and beloved piece of music, or (even more) as if someone with whom we are dancing - I’m thinking of a folk-style dance here - suddenly changes the movements of the dance. Our reaction is not so much disapproval as discomfort, even pain. Instead of entering into the flow of the music or the pattern of the dance, we’re forced to think about particular elements in it. Thus with liturgical abuse: creativity on the priest’s part is a misunderstanding of what the liturgy is, even if he is very well-intentioned; and it takes our mind away from worshipping and adoring the living Christ sacrificed for us, focusing us instead on that individual human being and what the heck he’s up to now.

Sue