Pope to purge the Vatican of modern music

[chris_molter]

I think a couple quotes from Sacrosanctum Concilium would add to the discussion:

1. The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman Liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.

But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action, as laid down in Art. 30.

1. In the Latin Church the pipe organ is to be held in high esteem, for it is the traditional musical instrument which adds a wonderful splendor to the Church’s ceremonies and powerfully lifts up man’s mind to God and to higher things.

But other instruments also may be admitted for use in divine worship, with the knowledge and consent of the competent territorial authority, as laid down in Art. 22, 52, 37, and 40. This may be done, however, only on condition that the instruments are suitable, or can be made suitable, for sacred use, accord with the dignity of the temple, and truly contribute to the edification of the faithful.

It seems to me that in the US, the exception has, unfortunately, become the rule. I believe the Holy Father’s emphasis on expanding the use of Gregorian and Polyphonic chant is meant to encourage ALL the Bishops of the Latin Rite to do the same. I pray that they pay attention and do their part to bring the liturgy back into a more “universal” (Catholic!) form

 

[Nohome]

My comments are as a musician.

The Catholic Church is in possession of some of the greatest musical treasures of mankind. Some of this sacred music is an even greater pleasure to sing than which it is to listen. My favorite, an ancient arrangement of Ubi Caritas has an “amen” that is eight measures long and changes from 4/4 to 6/8 and back again. Sung well with talented vocalists, it can move people to tears (in a good way).

The problem I see is that a lot of this music doesn’t sound right in the architecture of a modern church. It was written for unamplified voice bounced of tall stone walls. You start singing this in the typical carpet factory of today and you can’t make it sound right unless you have a sound system expert that can electronically create the reverb you would get from a gothic church.

So bring back the traditional music, but bring back the traditional church too!

Nohome

 

[Muzhik]

fjacks;3008117:

Everyone should know that in the older rite there was barely any music. Parishes did not employ gregorian chant except by exception. Almost all Masses were so-called low Masses in which the emphasis was on efficiency. It was not at all unusual for a Sunday Mass to be “celebrated” within 30 minutes or less.

OH MY GOD…THIS IS NOT TRUE!!!

'Fraid so. Remember, it used to be that the Communion fast wasn’t just an hour before Communion, or even three hours before Communion. When my Mom converted and married my Dad back in the '40s, Catholics couldn’t eat or drink anything from Midnight the night before. Everyone went to early Mass because you couldn’t have breakfast until after Mass, and when you’ve got hungry kids, you don’t want to hang around for the singing and organ music no matter how beautiful it is.

As an aside, when I went to college, there was a church just a few blocks from the university called Saint Patrick’s. One of the priests there probably put himself through college by working as an auctioneer. On Holy Days of Obligation, the church was full of professionals and students for the “7:00 AM St. Pat’s Mini-Mass!” Fifteen minutes from the time the priest walked in until the last blessing – 20 if he took his time during the homily. Enough time to go to church, grab something to eat after, and still make it to your 8:00 English Lit class.

 

[peary]

The problem I see is that a lot of this music doesn’t sound right in the architecture of a modern church. It was written for unamplified voice bounced of tall stone walls. You start singing this in the typical carpet factory of today and you can’t make it sound right unless you have a sound system expert that can electronically create the reverb you would get from a gothic church.

So bring back the traditional music, but bring back the traditional church too!

Nohome

**NOTHING sounds right in a modern architectural church these days…in more ways than one **

 

[DWPC]

I There has been life after the medieval and renaissance periods and with it the development of various forms of music which people have used well in the worship of God, including our experience in the Catholic Church in the US since Vatican II. Many are the calumnies which paint all parishes with a wide condemnatory brush as if there are not many, many parishes using various styles of music to sincerely give thanks and praise to God. Mine is one of them. The people sing the entire Mass with great gusto and devotion and reverence. We know many different settings of the Mass which have been committed to heart. We do employ other songs and hymns but do so with an eye towards following sound liturgical principals. We don’t always succeed, but we try very hard. We employ some latin and some chant. We are looking to develop this further.

Now, I have a question for you: If we all began wearing bobby sox and rolled up dungarees, and if we found a source for Ozzie and Harriet episodes in order to watch them regularly…would doing so bring back “the fifties” in all their glory? Why anyone thinks that wearing old-fashioned vestments, celebrating Mass in latin, and using gregorian chant will bring back the “glory days” of the Church of the 50’s is beyond my grasp. It is not going to happen, and we shouldn’t even want to go back to the future.

Wow, talk about hubris. Nice example of why the American Church is in the state its in, fjacks.

A couple points you apparently aren’t acquainted with:

1. What you read about rapid-fire Low Masses was no more true then than it is now with N.O. masses. Sure, some weekday masses get rushed, but in the Sunday Low Mass in Latin generally include all the readings, a homily and announcements. Communion lines were shorter due to fasting and somewhat old fashioned view of the state of grace. Averages probably ran around 50-55 minutes. You need to stop taking the worst examples usually repeated by those with an axe to grind as the norm in the “old days”.
2. Mass used to be a concelebration with the congregation and priest following the liturgy. See, we were sufficentlydeveloped to learn to understood what was happening even though it was in that strange alien tongue. The choir’s job at High Mass was to sing the liturgical responses WITH THE PRIEST; they didn’t sing hymns (except during Communion), and certainly not Greg. Chants (except at Solemn High Mass for Easter and Xmas). The introduction of congregational singing has utterly destroyed the relationship between the congregation and the priest, turning us into mere spectators occasionally asked to sing childish songs that remove us even further from the celebration of the Eucharist.
3. Your parish isn’t singing “the Mass”. Far from it. You’re singing in competition with the Mass. Year-by-year, your kind of musical vanitiy is corroding the Mass, turning it into a “service”.

Your snarky “Ozzie & Harriet” question is a spit in the faces of those who seek not a return to the 50s, but rather the abandonement and loss, and now open ridicule, of centuries of stability, beauty and grace. You think its about a “style” of music or vestments. You’ll never get it. Too bad. You don’t what you’ve got…'til its gone. Maybe you can sing that at Mass someday.

 

[Arnobius]

fjacks:

Now, I have a question for you: If we all began wearing bobby sox and rolled up dungarees, and if we found a source for Ozzie and Harriet episodes in order to watch them regularly…would doing so bring back “the fifties” in all their glory? Why anyone thinks that wearing old-fashioned vestments, celebrating Mass in latin, and using gregorian chant will bring back the “glory days” of the Church of the 50’s is beyond my grasp. It is not going to happen, and we shouldn’t even want to go back to the future.

First let me preface my remarks by saying I do not have any special devotion to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, nor any scorn for the Ordinary form. I think the Ordinary Form, when properly done (without the travesties) has a form I prefer.

However, I do think this argument is a real straw man, seeking to misportray the argument in support of the traditional actions as nostalgia or seeking to “bring back the past.” I don’t believe the proponents think it will either. Rather, I think this is is a reaction to the dwindling respect for the Mass shown where it seems to become more of a performance or show.

We do need to recognize that what Sacrosanctum Concilium called for and what we got in America under the guise of “The Spirit of Vatican II” are two entirely different things, and there are hymns such as “We come to share the story” and “As a fire is meant for burning” which are lyrically inappropriate for Church, whatever one may think about the music.

If “The Spirit of Vatican II” was supposed to be what it was all about, why does the Church seem determined to remove all of these elements as abuses?

 

[johnstown_johnn]

Does this mean no more Marty Haugen tunes?

My diocese has what amounts to Lutheran songs throughout the missalette. The bishop here is overboard with ecumenism.

 

[peary]

My diocese has what amounts to Lutheran songs throughout the missalette. The bishop here is overboard with ecumenism.

**Remember: this too shall pass. **

 

[repo_man]

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, god bless pope benedict and give him many more years as our holy father.

 

[johnstown_johnn]

The Responsorials that are for the congregation have no melody; are flat and out of harmony…like something from some deep-forested primitive tribe that is still undiscovered.

IMO, God is NOT praised with a cacophony of sound that has no inner reach to a single person present. My guess is either incompetents are conjuring up the inharmonious resposorials or some other influence.

I would not think God is being praised by off-key and totally unpleasant dips of flats. It is almost offensive. And this is “music” to praise God?

If they were put on a CD I wonder what kind of sales would there be.

 

[Wolseley]

What has caught my attention - at least here in New England - is the large number of Catholics who have left the Church, either to embrace some form of Protestantism or to ignore religion altogether.

And what does this tell us?

I can say that in the case of my very own wife, that she left a hideous “rock Mass” in tears one Sunday, and flatly refused to set foot inside a Catholic church for upwards of two years, because the liturgies were just so god-awful.

We didn’t have a bishop at the time, the priests were overwhelmed with too few of them for too many parishes, and as a result, the “parish administrators” and “professional liturgists” more or less just ran amok and instituted whatever was trendy in that week’s issue of Liturgy Today, and the Masses everywhere in the deanery were just pathetic.

So, what your comment above tells me is that in far too many cases, good, decent, Catholic people have been literally driven out of the Church due to this friggin’ “Spirit of Vatican II” balderdash that we’ve had rammed down our throats for the last 40 years. People got to the point where they just couldn’t take it any more, and they just up and left. In their defense, it can be said that they didn’t leave the Church—the Church left them.

Thank God it’s finally starting to change around at long last. In my opinion, though, in light of the number of people who were driven out of our churches, there will be an awful lot of people who were in authority in our parishes during this period who will have an awful lot to answer for in the next world.

Talk about millstones…

 

[OriginalJS]

Well, Benedict XVI can certainly dictate music in the Vatican and I think it is about time. The volume of acceptable sacred music in the public domain is immense.

Whether an attempt to dictate local music should be made is a difficult question as there are regional differences. What may be sacred to Ugandans may not be acceptable in Dortmund, Germany.

I too am tired of the following: accordians, handbell choirs, guitars, electric guitars, snare drums, cymbals, jazz, polka masses, inane hymns, and anything else that does not have a sacred sound to it or is theologically deficient.

I don’t like looking at the credits in the our new hymnals and seeing the large number of modern hymns for which the church has paid for permission to publish.

To show you how mossbacked I am, I would ban any music from the church that was composed less than 150 years ago. Over that kind of time the chaff will be blown away.

 

[Godi]

I agree, but how do I get the guitars, keyboard, drums, and hammond organ out of our church? LOL

**
Don’t forget the spoons!**

 

[Wolseley]

I would ban any music from the church that was composed less than 150 years ago. Over that kind of time the chaff will be blown away.

I agree with that, 10,000%!

 

[PassthePeace1]

Don’t forget the spoons!

And the windchimes!

 

[fermat]

I still like my parish. They have different music ministries. The regular organ for the traditional folks, a solo cantor for an early mass, a children’s choir and a piano guitar mass. You get your choice for which one you want to got to. There is plenty of good modern worship music. It’s not all bad.

I agree, there should be a variety of music. The critical part is that the music be there to support the liturgy and that it be performed in a respectful and dignified way. I’m not saying that I would bring a washboard and jug to mass, but music is a language of God. Everyone hears the Lord in different ways. We in the laity and the clergy need to find the balance that is most appropriate to the local congregation.

 

[edwest2]

As a priest was saying on Catholic radio, it’s about reverence. The music should be about praising God and not about satisfying individual taste. Change is not always good or beneficial. What the Pope is doing is long overdue.

God bless,
Ed

 

[MH84]

Why are some people so intent on modernising the Mass anyway. Many things around us are now cutting edge. Why can’t we leave technology behind for one hour a week and let God be the centre of attention. We are too quick in bringing outside trends into our churches. What also annoys me, is that most likely the inspiration for the rock music or whatever is from people who have witnessed protestant services and then must of thought its normal or okay to bring to Mass.

 

[MusherMaggie]

While I wouldn’t want to see all modern liturgical music dissappear, most of it is tiresome to me; I heard a lady on the radio refer to 7/11 songs–7 words sung 11 times. I would prefer to see all modern liturgical composers reach for the quality of the old masters, as well as ressurecting traditional pieces. This can be done!

 

[sneakers]

Well, Benedict XVI can certainly dictate music in the Vatican and I think it is about time. The volume of acceptable sacred music in the public domain is immense.

Whether an attempt to dictate local music should be made is a difficult question as there are regional differences. What may be sacred to Ugandans may not be acceptable in Dortmund, Germany.

I too am tired of the following: accordians, handbell choirs, guitars, electric guitars, snare drums, cymbals, jazz, polka masses, inane hymns, and anything else that does not have a sacred sound to it or is theologically deficient.

I don’t like looking at the credits in the our new hymnals and seeing the large number of modern hymns for which the church has paid for permission to publish.

To show you how mossbacked I am, I would ban any music from the church that was composed less than 150 years ago. Over that kind of time the chaff will be blown away.

And the ukelele! DON’T forget the ukelele!! We actually had somebody playing a ukelele at mass! Sounded like a grade-b Italian movie!!