SPLIT: Not happy with homily about modern music

[Ohana]

This may not be the place, but I just have to let off steam somewhere.

I was at a Catholic Mass last Sunday (where we usually do not attend) and the homily was on the changes to take place in November/Advent. I thought I had a pretty sound understanding of the reasons for the changes - more consistent with the Latin Mass which is OK. I can handle change - have made a lot of them in my life. However, the priest did two things which surprised me, made me wonder what else is behind the changes and uncertain what else is coming.

One thing that really caught my attention is he mentioned, from the altar, the music of Haugen, Haas and someone else and suggested that we need to get away from secular influences like popular composers and performers. He tied them to what he called the secularization of the Church. In fact, the both wrote some meaningful lyrics and singable music. In many churches, Catholics actually sang!

The other thing that was implied was that these things had to happen inf order for us to avoid damnation. It was in part, a real fire and brimstone homily.

As I thought about these messages, at first I was annoyed, then sort of angry, but now after a day of reflection, I just want to cry. I think our church is headed back to pre-vatican 2 and I remember how cut off it was from the world we are suppoed to evangelize …

I can handle change and can even see that we may need some re-ordering. I do not see that we need meaness of spirit.

 

[Like]

This may not be the place, but I just have to let off steam somewhere.

I was at a Catholic Mass last Sunday (where we usually do not attend) and the homily was on the changes to take place in November/Advent. I thought I had a pretty sound understanding of the reasons for the changes - more consistent with the Latin Mass which is OK. I can handle change - have made a lot of them in my life. However, the priest did two things which surprised me, made me wonder what else is behind the changes and uncertain what else is coming.

One thing that really caught my attention is he mentioned, from the altar, the music of Haugen, Haas and someone else and suggested that we need to get away from secular influences like popular composers and performers. He tied them to what he called the secularization of the Church. In fact, the both wrote some meaningful lyrics and singable music. In many churches, Catholics actually sang!

The other thing that was implied was that these things had to happen inf order for us to avoid damnation. It was in part, a real fire and brimstone homily.

As I thought about these messages, at first I was annoyed, then sort of angry, but now after a day of reflection, I just want to cry. I think our church is headed back to pre-vatican 2 and I remember how cut off it was from the world we are suppoed to evangelize …

I can handle change and can even see that we may need some re-ordering. I do not see that we need meaness of spirit.

WOW! This priest sounds like one I would love to see as pastor of my parish!

 

[YoungTradCath]

This may not be the place, but I just have to let off steam somewhere.

I was at a Catholic Mass last Sunday (where we usually do not attend) and the homily was on the changes to take place in November/Advent. I thought I had a pretty sound understanding of the reasons for the changes - more consistent with the Latin Mass which is OK. I can handle change - have made a lot of them in my life. However, the priest did two things which surprised me, made me wonder what else is behind the changes and uncertain what else is coming.

One thing that really caught my attention is he mentioned, from the altar, the music of Haugen, Haas and someone else and suggested that we need to get away from secular influences like popular composers and performers. He tied them to what he called the secularization of the Church. In fact, the both wrote some meaningful lyrics and singable music. In many churches, Catholics actually sang!

The other thing that was implied was that these things had to happen inf order for us to avoid damnation. It was in part, a real fire and brimstone homily.

As I thought about these messages, at first I was annoyed, then sort of angry, but now after a day of reflection, I just want to cry. I think our church is headed back to pre-vatican 2 and I remember how cut off it was from the world we are suppoed to evangelize …

I can handle change and can even see that we may need some re-ordering. I do not see that we need meaness of spirit.

Are you being serious? Your priest is trying to preserve your soul, because he obviously sees that the environment fostered right now is a poor one, which can potentially lead you to damnation. I really wish we’d quit being silly and thinking that the Church somehow sprung up in 1960.

 

[Like]

Are you being serious? Your priest is trying to preserve your soul, because he obviously sees that the environment fostered right now is a poor one, which can potentially lead you to damnation. I really wish we’d quit being silly and thinking that the Church somehow sprung up in 1960.

Amen!

 

[Jean_Anthony]

aaa

 

[TrueLight]

As I thought about these messages, at first I was annoyed, then sort of angry, but now after a day of reflection, I just want to cry. I think our church is headed back to pre-vatican 2 and I remember how cut off it was from the world we are suppoed to evangelize …

I’m not sure what you mean by “cut off from the world”. Can you expand on that?

We are in the world, but we are not of the world (John 15:19).

Are you proposing that post Vatican II Catholics evangelize a lot more than pre-Vatican II Catholics did?

 

[anp1215]

I don’t see any good coming from this thread…these types of threads rarely turn into anything other than an angry shouting match in which those on either side simply dig their heels further into the ground.

[edited]

 

[FAB]

I’m glad he’s not my pastor. The music to which he is speaking has been written for holy worship and aslo vetted. When we speak of “modern” or “contemporary” music we need to keep in mind the the music seen as sacred was once modern when it was first introduced.
The Church looks to see how to keep the music in the liturgy sacred, but it also recongized that there are a multitude of styles, just as there are people, and the music to be able to lift our hearts in praise, need to relate and touch the people who hear it.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

[edited] This homily doesn’t sound like one on just music suitable for church (a subject that I find not worth my time discussing as I don’t really care much about it). It sounds more like a rant against modern music in general and I personally have a HUGE problem with that.

[edited]

 

[Jean_Anthony]

I split this thread into a new one so the OP’s topic could be discussed. Members have the right to express their concerns about changes in the liturgy and music. Please discuss the topic in a civil way–if you disagree, please don’t be disagreeable doing it. Thank you all.

 

[NewEnglandPriest]

One thing that really caught my attention is he mentioned, from the altar, the music of Haugen, Haas and someone else and suggested that we need to get away from secular influences like popular composers and performers. He tied them to what he called the secularization of the Church. In fact, the both wrote some meaningful lyrics and singable music. In many churches, Catholics actually sang!

I agree with you. This particular priest did not. Everyone has their own taste.

The other thing that was implied was that these things had to happen inf order for us to avoid damnation. It was in part, a real fire and brimstone homily.

On this issue I think the priest was overstepping. Musical preferences are rarely issues of eternal damnation.

As I thought about these messages, at first I was annoyed, then sort of angry, but now after a day of reflection, I just want to cry. I think our church is headed back to pre-vatican 2 and I remember how cut off it was from the world we are suppoed to evangelize …

I understand somewhat your concerns here. However, the toothpaste simply ain’t going back in the tube. There is a definitive “tightening of the ship” but in many ways its long overdue. The trick is not to swing too far in the other direction but I think the Catholic laity simply won’t allow that to happen.

I can handle change and can even see that we may need some re-ordering. I do not see that we need meaness of spirit.

Agreed!

 

[promethius]

Are you being serious? Your priest is trying to preserve your soul, because he obviously sees that the environment fostered right now is a poor one, which can potentially lead you to damnation. I really wish we’d quit being silly and thinking that the Church somehow sprung up in 1960.

I’m sorry, if “god” is going to damn someone because they personally prefer the music of Haugen over polyphany for worship, especially in absense of any sort of magisterial teaching on the subject, then “god” can keep heaven and I’ll choose hell. I would never worship such a pointless “god”. Thankfully, the church, the voice of God on earth, does not teach that Haugen’s music is going to rot our souls. (and this is even coming from one who prefers pipe organ, chant, and polyphany over modern music)

And furthermore, if the priest is wasting a homily on the readings from sunday in order to preach his personal preference on music selection… that just gets my goat. There is SO much the priest could have taught of good catechesis on the readings from this last sunday! He’s cheated his parishoners if he’s using HOMILIES to teach his personal preferences as catholic truth instead of teaching solid catholic doctrine.

 

[dconklin]

I’m sorry, if “god” is going to damn someone because they personally prefer the music of Haugen over polyphany for worship, especially in absense of any sort of magisterial teaching on the subject, then “god” can keep heaven and I’ll choose hell. I would never worship such a pointless “god”. Thankfully, the church, the voice of God on earth, does not teach that Haugen’s music is going to rot our souls. (and this is even coming from one who prefers pipe organ, chant, and polyphany over modern music)

And furthermore, if the priest is wasting a homily on the readings from sunday in order to preach his personal preference on music selection… that just gets my goat. There is SO much the priest could have taught of good catechesis on the readings from this last sunday! He’s cheated his parishoners if he’s using HOMILIES to teach his personal preferences as catholic truth instead of teaching solid catholic doctrine.

I prefer the more contemporary Catholic liturgical music. I also realize everyone has an opinion. If you don’t agree with the pastor, move to a different parish. Our parish offers choices. Our 7:30 Mass has almost no music and the middle three Masses are more traditional (no Latin) and our 5:30 is Catholic contemporary. Oh and our Spanish Mass plays Spanish music. I hope that is OK.

Oh, and I am pretty sure music type is as damnable as sharing false beliefs.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

I’m sorry, if “god” is going to damn someone because they personally prefer the music of Haugen over polyphany for worship, especially in absense of any sort of magisterial teaching on the subject,** then “god” can keep heaven and I’ll choose hell.** I would never worship such a pointless “god”. Thankfully, the church, the voice of God on earth, does not teach that Haugen’s music is going to rot our souls. (and this is even coming from one who prefers pipe organ, chant, and polyphany over modern music)

And furthermore, if the priest is wasting a homily on the readings from sunday in order to preach his personal preference on music selection… that just gets my goat. There is SO much the priest could have taught of good catechesis on the readings from this last sunday! He’s cheated his parishoners if he’s using HOMILIES to teach his personal preferences as catholic truth instead of teaching solid catholic doctrine.

I know you are being a bit sarcastic here, but please - remember that “choosing hell” is what Satan did. No one would want to choose hell for any reason, even if God seems incomprehensible to us here on earth in these bodies.

 

[promethius]

I know you are being a bit sarcastic here, but please - remember that “choosing hell” is what Satan did. No one would want to choose hell for any reason, even if God seems incomprehensible to us here on earth in these bodies.

The point is that such a “god” would not be incomprehensible… a “god” who would damn people for attending valid masses with music approved for use, with no sort of teaching or opportunity to the contrary, would not be incomprehensible. On the contrary, such a “god” would be very understandable as a cruel and evil being, one who is unworthy of worship. If such a “god” were to exist, then the only proper response is disobedience.

Hence, why I say that thankfully we at least know enough about God to know that He is NOT cruel.

 

[TrueLight]

The point is that such a “god” would not be incomprehensible… a “god” who would damn people for attending valid masses with music approved for use, with no sort of teaching or opportunity to the contrary, would not be incomprehensible. On the contrary, such a “god” would be very understandable as a cruel and evil being, one who is unworthy of worship. If such a “god” were to exist, then the only proper response is disobedience.

Hence, why I say that thankfully we at least know enough about God to know that He is NOT cruel.

Just be careful, please.

We sometimes don’t understand why God does things.

I don’t think it is useful to speculate on the actions that we would take if “god” advocated something we didn’t understand or agree with just to make a point. This is what non-believers do. They say a good god, would never do this or that.

Hell and separation from God, as well as disobedience to God, is too horrible a scenario to refer to it so flippantly.

 

[OraLabora]

I’m glad he’s not my pastor. The music to which he is speaking has been written for holy worship and aslo vetted. When we speak of “modern” or “contemporary” music we need to keep in mind the the music seen as sacred was once modern when it was first introduced.

The original sacred music of the Church, plainchant, which eventually became what we call “Gregorian chant” was never “first just introduced”. It has a very ancient source and its development is clearly more one of evolution than the revolution of, say, setting religious music to a popular music style. We can trace early hymns and some melodies back to the days of St. Ambrose, in the 4th century; eventually the Gregorian repertory started to fill out especially in the Carolingian era (9th century). Much of the chant repertory in the Roman Gradual dates back to the 10th through 13th centuries. Different styles of plainchant developed, Ambrosian, Mozarabic, Beneventan, Gallican, etc.

Chant was originally an oral tradition that has its roots in the chanting of psalms in the Divine Office; it was first recorded in the form of free-form neumes, then on the 4-bar staff we know today. By the Renaissance era it was pretty adulterated; at the end of the 19th century, the monks of Solesmes began to restore chant through the study of ancient manuscripts.

There is a huge gulf between modern composers composing church music to original settings, and plainchant repertories as the currently exist in the Church. The latter is an organic development over centuries, the former, a popular musical setting which may or may not remain popular over time.

I’m not saying that modern music can’t be used in Church provided that the texts themselves are theologically sound, but the Church herself proclaims a hierarchy of sacred music in Sacrosanctum Concilium:

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. To promote active participation, the people should be encouraged to take part by means of acclamations, responses, psalmody, antiphons, and songs, as well as by actions, gestures, and bodily attitudes. And at the proper times all should observe a reverent silence.

 

[Sarabande]

On this issue I think the priest was overstepping. Musical preferences are rarely issues of eternal damnation.

I agree here. As much as I don’t care at all for most of the music by the composers and song writers this priest mentioned, I do not think listening to the music or using the music for mass (even if I don’t think a lot of it is appropriate for liturgy) is a cause for eternal damnation. It has been quite a while since the Church has placed an overt and blatant ban on certain music for liturgy or not using certain intervals (Diabolus in musica - the tritone).

I understand somewhat your concerns here. However, the toothpaste simply ain’t going back in the tube. There is a definitive “tightening of the ship” but in many ways its long overdue. The trick is not to swing too far in the other direction but I think the Catholic laity simply won’t allow that to happen.

That is always a balancing act. It is always important to remember that the Church has always done the “tightening of the ship” as you called it… especially with music, mainly because no matter what century we are in, humans are pretty much the same. We are always wanting to put the arts and music that inspire us at the time within our worship. Various kinds of chant have pretty much always been used for worship in so many different faiths, even before Christianity, but other forms of music, have mostly started out as popular music for the time. The Church always has had to reign it in and require composers to refine the music for use in liturgy. (ie. it took three bans by popes for polyphony to eventually be deemed acceptable for mass once Guillame de Machaut refined it.)

What is happening right now is nothing new. I believe the most recent “crack down” occurred in the late 19th c. and early 20th c. when the popular music of the time was opera (considered low-brow music for musical ignorant… still is by classical music snobs) and thus much of the liturgical music written at the time required an operatic-sounding voice. (For instance, you can’t sing Verdi’s “Requiem” with a lighter voice. It forces you to sing with a full, dramatic operatic voice)

The recent documents on music has been quite ambiguous which allowed such a various influx of music, some good, some bad. Then on top of that, you have a different kind of influence which wasn’t around in the past… corporate publishing houses which will promote the music the think and know will be picked up by the broader population. When you tighten the ship, as has been done in the past, you can help get rid of the not-so-good music and then encourage and promote those who have the talent and ability to refine their style of compositional writing or song writing enough so that it sounds less “secular” and more “sacred”.

Another thing is that there is this false idea that only good music came from the past. That isn’t true. There was so much so-called “c–p” written which didn’t survive past it’s “popular” period.

 

[Ohana]

I’m not sure what you mean by “cut off from the world”. Can you expand on that?

We are in the world, but we are not of the world (John 15:19).

Are you proposing that post Vatican II Catholics evangelize a lot more than pre-Vatican II Catholics did?

RE: my cut off from the world comment. Back in the day when Martin Luther King was assassinated, we went to Mass aching with loss and maybe more importantly, a certain loss of hope. The event was not even acknowledged, rather we had a homily on the different choirs of angels. I might have been interested in that at another time; not then.

It is the function of the laity to evangelize. I love the St. Francis quote:: “preach the gospel, if necessary, use words”. Our evangelization is being Christ to others - in our family, in our community and in the world. I think Christ expects us to encourage our children, hug a friend, take clothing to the homeless and needy, provide food, or contribute to a collection to drill wells in Africa. That is what I mean by not being cut off from the world. I lived pre-Vatican two. We contributed to Peters Pence and never knew what happened or who was helped.

We sang some Gregorian Chant and Holy God we Praise Thy Name every Sunday, and had congregations that (as previously stated) prayed the Rosary during Mass .They NEVER sang - except maybe the first verse of Holy God until the priest exited the altar to the side. In modern churches the choir is situated at the side of the Altar, signifying its position as a ministry. They assist the congretation to praise God in song. I like that much better than being parked up in a choir loft.

Don’t get me wrong, We have a history of some excepetional liturgical music that shoud be preserved. performed and used in liturgy. I am just saying that our music needs to fit our congregationsl spiritual needs. For many of us, that is more contemporary music. I am a little startled by rock music at Mass, but that fits for some. I could appreciate choirs singing chant, but probably could not participate which would diminish my experience of glorifying God during the Mass if it was done daily or weekly.

We need to recognize we are a diverse church and not condemn parts of us because we are different in our tastes. I can appreciate your need even if I do not want to join it.

 

[Cavaille-Coll]

The issue with most of the comments against this priest is that they are objecting from the point of stylistic preference. It is one thing to dislike a particular song because of its melody, but we must look at the theology the song is conveying. Many of these songs are NOT vetted sufficiently, and certain publishers and composers have stated publicly their disagreements with Church teachings on various issues (I have heard some of them personally). Singing bad hymns won’t send us to hell, but bad theology leading us astray just might.

Let us also not forget that the pastor is ultimately in charge of what music is used in a parish. He is responsible for the correct teaching of the faith, including and especially via liturgical means.