Save the church! (kill the organs)

[pnewton]

The answer is simple. It is more than my opinion as a lay person. It is the mind of the Church…

It is the mind of the Church in your opinion. The mind of the Church is to give preferences and guidelines and then let the bishop implement as how he thinks best. Opinion can never be fact. The Church uses words like “preference” and “place of pride” specifically because there is not a set mandatory selection for music. First, different parishes function differently and what is best for one is not best for all. I am sure your priest is doing what is best for you.

Second, the Church recognizes the organic nature of the Mass, that changes have happened, can happen and will happen. The classic European model of the Mass may not work everywhere. Elsewhere, greater inculturation is needed. It seems to me that the Church is most in decline in Europe and areas of greatest inculturation have the explosion of growth.

Of course our heritage must always be preserved and have a place of pride. That does not mean that we ignore what works in areas that are totally irrelevant to doctrine. You use the pejorative Rev. Joe Heterodox. I hope you realize there is absolutely nothing doctrinally wrong with using music you do not like, or choosing music that is allowed but not preferred.

You said I could choose to use his stuff. We currently do not use OCP. I have a bishop, a priest and 1000 families that matter. The needs of people elsewhere that will never darken our doors simply are not relevant.

 

[Cat]

It is the mind of the Church in your opinion. The mind of the Church is to give preferences and guidelines and then let the bishop implement as how he thinks best. Opinion can never be fact. The Church uses words like “preference” and “place of pride” specifically because there is not a set mandatory selection for music. First, different parishes function differently and what is best for one is not best for all. I am sure your priest is doing what is best for you.

Second, the Church recognizes the organic nature of the Mass, that changes have happened, can happen and will happen. The classic European model of the Mass may not work everywhere. Elsewhere, greater inculturation is needed. It seems to me that the Church is most in decline in Europe and areas of greatest inculturation have the explosion of growth.

Of course our heritage must always be preserved and have a place of pride. That does not mean that we ignore what works in areas that are totally irrelevant to doctrine. You use the pejorative Rev. Joe Heterodox. I hope you realize there is absolutely nothing doctrinally wrong with using music you do not like, or choosing music that is allowed but not preferred.

You said I could choose to use his stuff. We currently do not use OCP. I have a bishop, a priest and 1000 families that matter. The needs of people elsewhere that will never darken our doors simply are not relevant.

Bless you for this post!

And Elizium23, please be careful. The bishops are the apostles of the Church, appointed by the Lord Jesus Himself, and guided constantly by the Holy Spirit Himself. I would be very afraid to label any of them or their priests “Rev. Joe Heterodox” without knowing them or their diocese, and even then, I, a mere laywoman, would not consider myself qualified to label an apostle “heterodox.”

 

[Sarabande]

…

We can argue about organs and guitars if we want, but If we go to the most beautiful and reverent Mass celebrated by the most pure and holy priest and walk out of the Mass and don’t love our neighbor during the other 167 hours of the week then Christ died for nothing and we are hypocrites.

Organ music, or any other music is not what is going to save or destroy the Church. It’s a lack of love during the other 167 hours of the week that is going to destroy the Church, because the world will look at us as hypocrites who don’t practice what they preach. God will look at us hypocrites, and that never worked out good in the Bible.

-Tim-

This is all too true. That and a growing ambivalence towards religion and spirituality, in general. It is why that opinion piece was so ridiculous.

People can use music as an excuse to leave or come to a church or denomination, but that’s all it is… an excuse. It only skims the surface of the deeper problems and issues affecting our culture and society. The Catholic Church is not the only denomination with this concern. Many mainstream denominations are having similar problems and I hear about it whenever I do work at Protestant churches. People are no longer finding affiliation with organized religion important. I see and hear all too often, “I’m spiritual, but I’m not religious.” Or from Catholics, “I don’t believe that not attending Mass on Sunday is a mortal sin. It’s just a man-made rule.”

Then you have the other end of the spectrum where people have left the mainstream faiths due to what they saw as hypocrisies or didn’t like the rules and teachings in their former denominations, to join non-denominational and fundamentalist churches. After that, you see non-denoms leaving one non-denom church to join another for various reasons just like in the mainstream churches.

In some way, religion is being treated the way everything else in people’s lives are treated. It is just some commodity that can be easily thrown away or sold. I do think the denominations see this and they are constantly trying to find ways to “sell” their church to the members and potential members. Music is one way to sell it. It’s a cheap trick, but also one I can’t blame them for. They know that people will use music as an excuse to stay or leave. It may not keep them there for good, but it will at least bring them in initially and help with the numbers for a time. It used to be that you’d stay and support your church even if you may not agree with it all of it. Today, the minute you don’t see eye-to-eye with a particular denomination’s teaching, you leave and find another church.

Then, there are just so many more people who don’t really know what they believe anymore and don’t see any truth believing in a Creator. It’s not that these people didn’t exist in the past. They did, but they weren’t as vocal about it and perhaps there weren’t as many out there.

I don’t want to place all the blame on the people. I think the churches do have a responsibility to figure out how to handle the problems they are seeing and fixing any weaknesses within their church. I think hypocrisy is one big reason for people leaving churches. They see it in their clergy or other respected people in their church communities. That said, people jump ship instead of trying to work at fixing the problem… much like what people do today in marriages and relationships.

 

[pnewton]

People can use music as an excuse to leave or come to a church or denomination, but that’s all it is… an excuse…

That is the main thought I gleaned from the article. There is a balance between trying to be pastoral by making the Mass inviting and being worldly. It is not an always an easy balance. Some may leave because the do not like organs, guitars, hymns, chants, contemporary music, etc. So we can be pastoral and offer LifeTeen Masses, or the Extraordinary Form Mass, but in the end we should all strive to grow to where such things are no longer deemed critical to our spirituality.

 

[centurionguard]

Like how could anyone not like this:

gloria.tv/?media=301066

I Love Gregorian Chant and the Pipe Organ.

My guess is that many in the Church find it too antiquated or traditional.

IMHO a lot of Modern Music in the Church today sounds increasingly protestanized

 

[Cat]

I Love Gregorian Chant and the Pipe Organ.

My guess is that many in the Church find it too antiquated or traditional.

IMHO a lot of Modern Music in the Church today sounds increasingly protestanized

And speaking as an ex-Protestant–I had never heard ANY of the contemporary hymns in the Gather Hymnal, other than “Morning Has Broken” and Lord of the Dance." (both heard way back in the 1970s in college at Campus Crusade for Christ meetings).

I know that these Haugen/Haas/Schutte/St. Louis Jesuit hymns are included in the hymnals of some of the mainline Protestant denoms; e.g., Lutheran. However, many traditional Catholic hymns are also included in the Lutheran hymnals, so IMO, “inclusion in a Protestant hymnal” cannot be used as a criteria for “inappropriateness for the Mass,” or we will end up losing hymns like “Holy God We Praise Thy Name” and “I Sing the Mighty Power of God.”

Also speaking as an ex-evengelical Protestant–yes, some of the styles in the “Modern Music in the Church today” sound Protestant–**IF you’re talking about 40 years ago! **

Seriously, folks, the “Gather Hymnal” “folk” type music was done in evangelical Protestant churches decades ago, and is now considered ANCIENT by any self-respecting evangelical Protestant! OLDIES! Boomer pop! That’s what it would be called. Don’t kid yourselves–this music is NOT “modern” by any stretch of the imagination! It’s Mom and Dad stuff, or more accurately, grandma and grandpa stuff!

Sorry to make everyone feel old.

I remember when my husband and I started attending Catholic Mass, we said, “It’s so nice to hear “traditional” Christian music instead of rock music!” Hey, we were talking about songs like “Gather Us In,” and “Here I Am, Lord,” which we thought (silly us!) were “old Catholic hymns.” We had no idea at the time that these songs were considered “contemporary!” To evangelical Protestants, "contemporary music " is anything written within the last year and currently getting air-play.

 

[AlexPetrosPio]

To evangelical Protestants, "contemporary music " is anything written within the last year and currently getting air-play.

Unfortunately, that is what is being sung at the Newman Center I quasi-attend. Two of the four choir directors and a couple of some of the male voices (including me) are in a fight to get rid of it. It’s a long process…

 

[TimothyH]

Then you have the other end of the spectrum where people have left the mainstream faiths due to what they saw as hypocrisies or didn’t like the rules and teachings in their former denominations, to join non-denominational and fundamentalist churches. After that, you see non-denoms leaving one non-denom church to join another for various reasons just like in the mainstream churches.

The thing which I find turns non-Christians off is not practicing what we preach.

They hear about love and see Christians angry. They hear people preaching about joy and see Christians wringing their hands over politics, freaking out over every little detail of life, and complaining. They hear about poverty but see people driving a Caddilac Escalade with heated leather seats to the vacation home on the gulf coast while the woman down the street can’t make the mortgage payments. They hear about the God of peace but experience fanatics with “God hates fags” signs, people who burn the koran, and Catholics who go around calling other Christians heretics.

*We have to act in such a way that others will be able to say, when the meet us: this man is a Christian, because he does not hate, because he is willing to understand, because he is not a fanatic, because he is willing to make sacrifices, because he shows that he is a man of peace, because he knows how to love.

• St. Josemaria Escriva*

They don’t see that. They don’t see the fruit on the tree. They see hypocrisy.

They don’t want to hear about organ music. They want to know why their life stinks, why grandma had to die, where God is when they can’t find a job, and why they keep hearing about peace and joy but see only fanatics and hate.

Hypocrisy is what turns most non-Christians off. Show then how to live a life of peace and joy and you will have a convert every time, but you have to be able to live that life of peace and joy yourself, and that means praying daily, constantly, but people arn’t willing to do that.

-Tim-

 

[Elizium23]

Catholic Mass has its problems, but organ music isn’t one of them

As pastor of a Catholic parish with an excellent liturgical music program, I was dismayed to read the Oct. 25 op-ed by Jennifer Graham, headlined “Save the Church! (kill the organs).” The music at our church draws parishioners from all over the metropolitan area, and one of the highlights is the beautiful Casavant organ and its versatility in concert with an excellent choir.

Although we celebrate with a variety of liturgical and musical styles at our eight weekend Masses, the organ is the featured instrument at our choir and cantored Masses.

As a Catholic priest for more than 35 years, I am ready to say that there is much that is lacking in our celebration of Sunday Mass, beginning with the recent translations of prayers into an English that is unintelligible. I also regret the formalism in Catholic worship that does not give space for a more dynamic form of expression that invites people to engage in the ritual with heart, mind, voice, and body.

Ugh… defends good music with a jab at the new translation… His last sentence also sounds like he regrets not being able to ad-lib or something.

TimothyH: of course I am concerned with love and hypocrisy. I am a sinner who could do more to love my neighbor. But I am also a minister of the Word in the choir, and I am a poster in the Liturgy & Sacraments forum, where we discuss liturgy in all its minutiae. Christian Virtue is a subject for another forum and another thread. Furthermore, liturgy is catechesis. If we have proper liturgy with properly composed hymns then we are fulfilling its function as “the work of the people” and we are actually practicing what we preach every day in the Mass and other liturgy!

I am not against all OCP/GIA music, nor am I against all “contemporary” hymns, I just dread the banal and the heterodox. Hymns with weak or incorrect theology is exactly why I have complained to director and pastor about hymnals such as Spirit & Song and Gather Comprehensive. To me, it seems that when the organ grows dusty and the guitars and tambourines come out, at the same time we embrace hymns that have lousy words and weak or incorrect teachings. It is just a coincidental side effect of using older, “traditional” hymns suited for the organ that their words espouse a solid theology and teaching. I have a feeling that when these very hymns were “contemporary” there was also a lot of junk mixed in. Over the centuries, the weak hymns were discarded and pared down and revised until we were left with only the “cream of the crop”. It takes several hundred years in any type of art for the garbage to be weeded out, to fade away, and be left with the best of the best that is retained and cherished by future generations.

 

[pnewton]

I am not against all OCP/GIA music, nor am I against all “contemporary” hymns, I just dread the banal and the heterodox.

While what passes for banality may be open to interpretation, it is my opinion (and mine alone) that the way OCP and GIA employ staff musicians is detrimental to good music selection. The best of composers only create a few really inspired pieces. When hymns selection is considered, I can’t help but believe that copyright costs strike some of the best stuff while permitting pretty much everything the staff composers pen.

 

[AlexPetrosPio]

We all just could sing this. Doesn’t have an organ, but is in line with Church teaching.

 

[TimothyH]

TimothyH: of course I am concerned with love and hypocrisy. I am a sinner who could do more to love my neighbor. But I am also a minister of the Word in the choir, and I am a poster in the Liturgy & Sacraments forum, where we discuss liturgy in all its minutiae. Christian Virtue is a subject for another forum and another thread. Furthermore, liturgy is catechesis. If we have proper liturgy with properly composed hymns then we are fulfilling its function as “the work of the people” and we are actually practicing what we preach every day in the Mass and other liturgy!

The ordinary minister of the word is a deacon. Are you a deacon?

It means nothing, less than nothing, is an insult to the Crucifixion of Christ, if all we do is argue about organ music and liturgy.

To a Jew in the first century, worship meant sacrifice, and it was done in one place on the planet, at the altar in the Temple in Jerusalem. Offering sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem was the most important thing a Jew would ever do in his life.

***Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift. *(Matthew 5:23-24)

This statement would have been radical to a Jew who heard it, shocking. In this statement, Jesus orders worship and how we treat each other correctly. How we treat each other determines if our worship is acceptable to God or not. If we treat each other like garbage then all the chant, incense and vestements in the world are an insult to God.

Whether music is from organs or not is about number 9,467,843 on the list of things important to God, and he is not going to judge us on our musical preferences at Mass, nor does the type of music or the type instruments played have a single thing to do with saving the Church, as if it needed to be saved in the first place.

Stop trying to push my option into another thread. Stop trying to tell me to get lost. It isn’t right.

The article in the original post is a waste of electricity and storage space on a spinning hard disk on a webserver somewhere.

-Tim-

 

[Elizium23]

I will address only the first two sentences of your post, but not the rest of your post which attacks me and is off-topic.

I am a minister of the Word by virtue of my baptismal priesthood. Nowhere did I say I am an ordained minister. I participate in this ministry, at a lesser rank, but with dignity, the same as a deacon or a lector or a lay reader. I consider it my sacred duty to safeguard the deposit of Faith and present it to the assembly in the form of song. I am a living instrument of the grace imparted by Scripture, and I am a visible means of catechesis for all the faithful when they join me in song. When my director or pastor chooses for us to work out of a theological minefield such as Gather Comprehensive or a liturgical wasteland such as Spirit & Song, then I do my best to lead the assembly in song, but I am not offering them the best in catechesis and I am operating on the lowest level of preference that the Church has declared for singing the Mass. However, I have done this in obedience for 12 years since I joined a choir. I am glad that I will no longer be forced to compromise my idealistic principles as a minister of the Word and that all the music will finally be drawn, as Sacrosanctum Concilium demanded, directly from Scriptural and liturgical sources, and indeed most will be directly from the Roman Missal and the Gradual.

 

[Sarabande]

Again, the article is ridiculous because it is blaming the use of organs for the reason why people leave the Church. I think from this thread, alone, it’s clear that the organs, other instruments and music, in general, aren’t driving people away. If that was truly the case, I would have left years ago in my early 20s, because hearing and making music is a very spiritual thing for me helping me connect to God.

I grant that sacred beauty, whether through artwork, architecture, music, an instrument, etc., can help bring people pray and feel closer to God, but they can’t sustain themselves on that alone. Substance and practicing what one preaches is key in keeping people in the pews. A balance of all is ideal, but the ideal is not always achievable, which was something I had to learn how to accept in my 20s. That doesn’t mean not to try to achieve the ideal, even if it seems impossible. I believe in never giving up, but it can take a long time, even years to achieve it. And it’s important to try to achieve it through love and kindness. I’ve come across people on both ends of the spectrum who were too angry, miserable and snobby, to the point it would turn others off, including myself. I don’t want to be around people like that whether they are accomplished classical musicians or the best of rock or folk musicians. I find that when you approach those who are at the other end of the musical spectrum of you with respect and love, it warms and melts the cold and hard exterior they put up when they know that you are a classical musician or the opposite. Sometimes that doesn’t always work, but in my own real-life experiences it does most of the time and you can come up with a happy medium in how to present the music if you are to work together. It’s not always the ideal, but it’s a step in the right direction.

I will note that it is important to have substance in the sacred art as well, whether that is through good musicianship, proper instrumentation, well-composed music, proper text, etc., but if you don’t have substance in the rest of the mass, in our teaching and learning and in how we live our lives outside of mass, it means nothing. It shouldn’t be surprising when people leave the Church or any other denomination.

 

[TimothyH]

I will address only the first two sentences of your post, but not the rest of your post which attacks me and is off-topic.

I am a minister of the Word by virtue of my baptismal priesthood. Nowhere did I say I am an ordained minister. I participate in this ministry, at a lesser rank, but with dignity, the same as a deacon or a lector or a lay reader. I consider it my sacred duty to safeguard the deposit of Faith and present it to the assembly in the form of song. I am a living instrument of the grace imparted by Scripture, and I am a visible means of catechesis for all the faithful when they join me in song. When my director or pastor chooses for us to work out of a theological minefield such as Gather Comprehensive or a liturgical wasteland such as Spirit & Song, then I do my best to lead the assembly in song, but I am not offering them the best in catechesis and I am operating on the lowest level of preference that the Church has declared for singing the Mass. However, I have done this in obedience for 12 years since I joined a choir. I am glad that I will no longer be forced to compromise my idealistic principles as a minister of the Word and that all the music will finally be drawn, as Sacrosanctum Concilium demanded, directly from Scriptural and liturgical sources, and indeed most will be directly from the Roman Missal and the Gradual.

The deacon is the minister of the word.

When a priest approaches the ambo to read, he is fulfilling his role he recieved as minister of the word when he was ordained a deacon. Neither of us have a right to call ourselves “Ministers of the word” because that is a title which belongs to deacons.

-Tim-