Pope to purge the Vatican of modern music

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I’m guessing it would be more accurate to say that the Pope is purging the Vatican of poorly written, unworthy and/or unsuitable music. It’s not his fault that most modern Catholic music falls into this category. 🙂
 
I think it’s great. I personally love modern Christian music, but when at Mass I want the atmosphere to be prayerful and respectful. I love the old mass and music, and hope my parish implements changes.
 
AMEN! I agree that music at mass should be respectful, appropriate and sacred. I too, LOVE contemporary christian music, but I DO NOT want to hear it at mass!

I do not like our church’s Saturday evening mass. Tambourines, guitars, drums and a vocalist that sounds like a bad jazz lounge singer. Worse yet, I have to sing along with her! I avoid this mass at all costs. I don’t understand why churches have to have a musical taste for everyone. Music at mass should sound like music at mass! If our church desires to express their love for Our Lord in another form of music, why cant we have a monthly concert with various forms of music?

I think it would be wonderful if the US Bishops would bring back sacred music at mass. Let’s see what the Pope does…
 
Where does the belief that the only music suitable for mass was written between 1600 and 1900 come from? What is special about that particular window of musical composition that elevates it above all others? Isn’t it really just subjective judgment?

Having said that, I agree that any music played at mass should be respectful, and in keeping with liturgical requirements. Just hearing a cool song, and deciding to play it at mass just because you like it isn’t right either.
 
mainusch said:
Where does the belief that the only music suitable for mass was written between 1600 and 1900 come from? What is special about that particular window of musical composition that elevates it above all others? Isn’t it really just subjective judgment?

Having said that, I agree that any music played at mass should be respectful, and in keeping with liturgical requirements. Just hearing a cool song, and deciding to play it at mass just because you like it isn’t right either.
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I would guess it comes from an idealization of that time period (for other reasons as you can read on CAF). Part of it is just the personal preferences of Joseph Ratingzer/BXVI. When a new Pope assumes office it can change back or to something completely different.
 
mainusch said:
Where does the belief that the only music suitable for mass was written between 1600 and 1900 come from? What is special about that particular window of musical composition that elevates it above all others? Isn’t it really just subjective judgment?
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First, your dates are strange. I’ve never heard anybody claim that the golden era of Catholic sacred music was from 1600 to 1900. Where did you get them?

Second, the Church has told us again and again the standards by which she judges sacred music. It must be holy, true art and universal, and further, the more closely a composition for the Church approaches the Gregorian form in its movement, inspiration and savor the more sacred and liturgical it becomes; and the more out of harmony it is with that supreme model, the less worthy it is of the temple.

Judged by those standards, most modern Catholic music is not very worthy of the temple.
 
NewUlm1976_2000 said:
I would guess it comes from an idealization of that time period (for other reasons as you can read on CAF). Part of it is just the personal preferences of Joseph Ratingzer/BXVI. When a new Pope assumes office it can change back or to something completely different.
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You’re vastly uninformed if you think that Pope Benedict XVI is saying something new here. Popes have been saying the same thing for over a hundred years.
 
Why is it that you can either attend a MASS where the ONLY music played is from between 1600 and 1900, OR you can attend a MASS where there is NO music from between 1600 and 1900?

Wouldn’t it be better if we … you know… checked out the middle ground, and learned to appreciate both types of music?

Anyone who says a song like “Breathe” is misplaced in the MASS is, IMO, out of their mind. IT’S A SONG ABOUT RECEIVING THE EUCHARIST, PEOPLE!!! There is nowhere where such a song is more appropriate! (“This is the air I breath. Your Holy Presence, Living in me. This is my daily bread. Your very Word, Spoken to me. And I’m desperate for you, I’m lost without you.”)

At the same time, HELLO to everyone who thinks that in order to appreciate Breathe at MASS we need to get rid of the Latin - it’s really quite breathtaking when the Agnus Dei, in Latin, is done well and the parishoners and the choir participate together.

Believe it or not, there’s good music both in the traditional repetoire, and in the contemporary repetoire, and both forms of music when used well and when used together could really only help us to worship in the MASS, as opposed to causing a hinderance.

Believe it or not, there are some people who would hear the Latin stuff, and not be moved at all - feel excluded by the MASS from it - and those people, hearing a song like Breathe or something on a similar line - might be moved to participate and might feel like THEY also had something to offer to the worship.

and Believe it or not, the tradies have a point when they want to hear the Latin stuff back because it does grow on you - and it does really exclaim, “Hey this is Holy”.

Whatever happened to the idea of virtue being the median?

Pax Christi,
Esther
 
Neophyte_Rose said:
Why is it that you can either attend a MASS where the ONLY music played is from between 1600 and 1900, OR you can attend a MASS where there is NO music from between 1600 and 1900?
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Again those strange dates, 1600 to 1900.

But I’d offer this answer to your question, that “blended” Masses are aesthetically unpleasing and unappealing and probably condescending to most people, whatever their musical tastes.
 
I don’t understand why.

I think we might be suprised how many people enjoy BOTH types of music, in the context of the MASS.

Pax Christi
Esther
 
NewUlm1976_2000 said:
I would guess it comes from an idealization of that time period (for other reasons as you can read on CAF). Part of it is just the personal preferences of Joseph Ratingzer/BXVI. When a new Pope assumes office it can change back or to something completely different.
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It is precisely as Pope that Joseph Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, has taken many of the issues that he has addressed and is now turning them into action. Inasmuch as he is not acting as swiftly as many would like, he is very deliberate and highly astute in his actions. Furthermore, John Paul II had also addressed (even though, indirectly) concerns regarding Music in one of his writings.

As I am now deep in Aggie country (for those who are Longhorns, you now know where my business trip is), I don’t have a chance to get the actual document. I’ll try to get this link posted later on this evening.
 
Neophyte_Rose said:
Anyone who says a song like “Breathe” is misplaced in the MASS is, IMO, out of their mind. IT’S A SONG ABOUT RECEIVING THE EUCHARIST, PEOPLE!!! There is nowhere where such a song is more appropriate! (“This is the air I breath. Your Holy Presence, Living in me. This is my daily bread. Your very Word, Spoken to me. And I’m desperate for you, I’m lost without you.”)
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Uh, actually, I heard that song in the independent “evangelical” Protestant litugy-less service that my parents go to. They certainly don’t believe that song is referencing the Eucharist! They don’t even believe in It!
 
Neophyte_Rose said:
I don’t understand why.

I think we might be suprised how many people enjoy BOTH types of music, in the context of the MASS.
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But not necessarily in the same Mass. I think that strikes most people as artificial and maybe even pandering.
 
Neophyte_Rose said:
I don’t understand why.

I think we might be suprised how many people enjoy BOTH types of music, in the context of the MASS.

Pax Christi
Esther
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You must also understand that it also isn’t purely about enjoyment of particular styles. Just because people in modern days might find rock music enjoyable, it is still not appropriate for Divine Liturgy. Rock music brings too much of the secular environment into something that is sacred - something that is simply not out of this world. During mass we participate we enter Heaven and participate in a mystery that makes God present on our altars. Mass should should radiate with a sense of mastery and this is not going to be achieved with guitars, drums etc. The Latin Church considers Gregorian chant as the music for it’s liturgy.

So ye, three cheers for Papa Bene! 🙂
 
I guess this is where I get confused;

I try to focus on God all day long. I have no division in my life, between secular and sacred, because in my life everything is Sacred, or serves a purpose to unite me with the Sacred, or it’s out.

I listen to Christian rock and Christian music only. I tend to read more Christian literature than not (and am working on purifying myself in this regard as well). I watch Christian movies or I don’t watch (with very few exceptions, again it’s a process).

I understand that certain songs don’t fit in the MASS - example, Aaron Shust’s My Savior My God. But others do, and I don’t understand why one type of music is considered less Sacred than another - isn’t the MASS primarily about worshipping God through moving our hearts, our souls, our wills into communion with God?

and if some types of music help some types of person to achieve this state of communion better - to order their passions towards the Eucharist along with their wills - then who are we to deny them?

I just don’t get it. Why is it that some music is considered more sacred than others? It’s not the instrument, either - the organ can be used in more contemporary music, and contemporary music can be done acapello as well - and the guitar can be used to acompany even the psalms, and other more traditional-leaning music.

Pax Christi
Esther
 
The Pope will have to put his money (our money actually, since Peter’s Pence is a large part of his budget) where his mouth is and commission some new liturgical music for use with vernacular masses. If he doesn’t he’s doomed to whining and hand-wringing over bad liturgical music for the rest of his life. I have asked repeatedly on this forum and no one has been able to provide information on new commissions for liturgical music issued by either local bishops or the congregation for the liturgy at the Vatican. Failing the purchase of competently written plain chant or more modern styles of music for liturgical use, the Vatican and the local churches will have to make do with the less well written works we have in the song books. And all of the complainers on this forum will be doomed to typing their fingers to nubs over it.
Maybe J. R. is looking for a renaisance of his country woman’s music (which was roundly condemned by her bishop at the time… funny how time changes our perception of the quality of music). Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot to mention her name: Hildegard von Bingen. I’m sure all of you have heard modern recordings of some of her many liturgical works for choir.
I’m still looking for a list of commissions from the Vatican. Where is the Church’s support of the arts?

Matthew
 
I think in the statement that the musical style doesn’t matter is wrong on 2 counts at least.

A) It is relativistic. There are the three transcendentals - the good (morals), the true, and the beautiful (art).

Moral relativism is the relativism of the good, the moral

The insistence that it just depends on whether you like it or not is relativism of the beautiful. You may like something, but that doesn’t make it beautiful, there is an objective beauty, and something is or isn’t beautiful, regardless of opinion. Just like there is objective morality, there is objective beauty.

B) It is gnostic. We aren’t disembodied souls standing back unaffected from our surroundings, but are physical beings. Music has an actual effect on us, and the affects vary. Some music has the objective effect of leading us to a attitude of prayer and devotion, and others away from it.

Something may be beautiful, but that doesn’t mean it is good Sacred Music. I am a fan of some heavy metal, there is some (believe it or not) that is objectively beautiful. Would I ever want to see it in the Mass, not at all.

I am a college student, I converted from non-denominational Protestant where hymns were seen as boring, and rock / CCM the only proper music for worship. I love Gregorian Chant, and wish it would once again become the standard of music in the Mass. I go to the local TLM partly because of the air of devotion and solemnity there that isn’t available in many of the other Masses around.
 
If Gregorian and Baroque is all that the Holy Father will permit, so be it. I’ll miss the Mozart, though…
 
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