When will it end?
Once again, Jeffrey Tucker at The New Liturgical Movement blog, echoes voices heard 'round the world with regard to the banal music so oft heard these days in local parishes."When will the tide turn on bad music at Mass? After years of suffering and pondering this critical question--and I know many people who are so despairing that they see no way out--I am beginning to wonder if we really are in the midst of a international revolt of some sort. Hardly a day goes by when I don't see another public decrying of the state of music in the Catholic Church and a call for a progressive restoration of what we have lost..."
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posted by Fr LWG at 7:59 PM
6 Comments:
Tucker's decision to enlighten us all with what music can be considered good and which is in fact 'bad' is stunning. Philosophers throughout time have attempted to explain the aesthetic experience. Now I know that new music is bad, and traditional music is good. It's so easy! (Now how should my cereal taste?)
PS: My thoughts on the clapping issue are that straight-jackets should be implemented. It'd be helpful for those squirming kids.
All joking aside, the Church is its people. Not those who desire authority over others...
If we accept the view that we can't really distinguish between "good" Church music (i.e. music appropriate for liturgy) and "bad" Church music (i.e. music inappropriate for liturgy), there would be no point to 20 centuries of Papal legislation on the topic. This is matter more serious than the choice of breakfast cereal.
Well, the standard of the Popes has been that the foundational music of Mass is chant--the Graduale Romanum is the music of the Roman Rite--and all other forms of music must draw from its sensibility and spirit. If you want to see the music of the Mass in English, I highly recommend the Gregorian Missal published by Solesmes (available from GIA, OCP, etc.)
Mr. Tucker, you mistake my joking demeanor as a lack of seriousness. And I wasn't discussing the choice of a breakfast cereal, rather how I'm told it should taste.
Personally, I reject being told either that my way of worship is wrong, or that my taste in music is bad, or that I have to vote for the political candidate a particular priest tells me to. As I alluded to in my post, this question boils down to authority and the obsession that certain members of the Church have about it.
Reject Vatican II if you must, but you cannot write it out of history.
Excellent comments ladies and gentlemen. This is a topic loaded with both intellectual insight and emotion. Such is the wisdom and folly of the human condition.
Whatever one's preference may be in this liturgical question, I believe like-minded need to join together in worship to be fed and nourished in the presence of the Almighty, be it chant or Haugen-Haas.
"Reject Vatican II if you must, but you cannot write it out of history."
I have no idea where this comes from. V2 recommended chant. The current GIRM recommends chant. The Graduale remains the music of the Roman Rite. The current Pope speaks of it often. The last pope legislated on the topic. Our schola sings at the new rite every week--in a regular parish in Alabama--and we sing the Introit and Communio from the Graduale, precisely as the GIRM suggests and the Church asks.
We really need to get beyond this idea that music at Mass is only about taste. And we really really need to get beyond this idea chant is only preconciliar music.
Fr., I agree of cours that tolerance needs to run in all directions.
Thank you again for linking the post!
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