Rome, Italy, Mar 10, 2017 / 02:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Hundreds of musicians and pastors from around the world have signed a document urging parishes and publishers should take care to develop the Church’s rich musical traditions, not discard them.
They did so after outlining trends within the Church’s musical traditions in the past five decades that they deem harmful to the Church’s liturgical life and musical heritage.
The statement’s authors write that they “cannot avoid being concerned about the current situation of sacred music, which is nothing short of desperate, with abuses in the area of sacred music now almost the norm rather than the exception.”
The letter, entitled “Cantate Domino Canticum Novum”, or “Sing a New Song Unto the Lord”, was signed by over 200 musicians, pastors, and musical scholars from around the globe, and published in six languages.
Its publication commemorates the 50th anniversary of the March 5, 1967 promulgation of Musicam sacram, a Vatican instruction on music in the liturgy. In their reflection on the “via dolorosa” of liturgical music in the past five decades, the musicians lay out the challenges facing liturgical music today – before offering some possible solutions.
They highlight advice from Vatican II’s constitution on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, which points to the Church’s musical tradition as a “treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art.”
“The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art. The main reason for this pre-eminence is that, as sacred song united to the words, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy,” the document continues, noting the link between a music’s holiness and its connection to the liturgy.
The document outlines several areas in which the preservation of the Church’s musical traditions has been ignored, or even, the authors state, opposed.
This break with the past makes any attempt to connect the Church to the future meaningless – because the context the tradition provides has been taken away. The letter’s authors liken this break to a “sort of spiritual Alzheimer’s,” that takes away not only musical and artistic memories, but theological and cultural ones, too.
In this regard, traditional elements of the liturgy such as the Mass propers and the Liturgy of the Hours have been overlooked. Meanwhile, secular music styles have had undue influence on the liturgy, and the commercial music industry has now reinforced these secular styles as the primary kind of music sold to parishes.
The letter warns that not only does the secularization damage the Church’s connection with the past and ability to grapple with the future, but it also “destabilizes the sense of adoration that is at the heart of the Christian faith” by effectively selling out to secular trends. By molding Church music to different secular trends, recent practices also endanger the Church’s ability to truly exalt and praise good cultural traditions, they note.
“The secularism of popular musical styles has contributed to a desacralization of the liturgy, while the secularism of profit-based commercialism has reinforced the imposition of mediocre collections of music upon parishes,” the declaration states.
Instead of making culture, the “lack of commitment to tradition has put the Church and her liturgy on an uncertain and meandering path.”
The letter also pushed back against groups in the Church that have lobbied against repertoires that respect tradition and the guidelines set out by Vatican II, instead leaving “repertoires of new liturgical music of very low standards as regards both the text and the music.”
“If we desire that people look for Jesus, we need to prepare the house with the best that the Church can offer,” the letter said of this trend of deliberately sidelining chant and other traditional forms of liturgical music. “We will not invite people to our house, the Church, to give them a by-product of music and art, when they can find a much better pop music style outside the Church.”
Another contributing factor to the struggles facing liturgical music, they said, is clericalism, and some clerics’ decisions to supersede the expert opinion of musicians and scholars of liturgical music in order to impose their own opinions.
Lastly, the authors of the letter pointed out that liturgical musicians and composers are undervalued, and often undercompensated for their efforts – which require education, expert skill, and years of training. “If we pay florists and cooks who help at parishes, why does it seem so strange that those performing musical activities for the Church would have a right to fair compensation,” they ask.
The writers of the document point towards numerous ways of addressing these challenges. Their first suggestion is the reaffirmation of Vatican II’s support for Gregorian chant, other traditional chant forms, and modern sacred compositions that are inspired by the chant tradition, along with the reaffirmation of the pipe organ as the instrument of choice in the Church.
They also advocate for strong music education that focuses on traditional music for children, as well as for adult laity. They also ask that “the Church will continue to work against obvious and subtle forms of clericalism, so that laity can make their full contribution in areas where ordination is not a requirement.”
Lastly, they strongly encourage musical training of clergy and strong liturgical formation for liturgists. “Just as musicians need to understand the essentials of liturgical history and theology, so too must liturgists be educated in Gregorian chant, polyphony, and the entire musical tradition of the Church, so that they may discern between what is good and what is bad,” they write.
In addition, the authors encourage cathedrals and basilicas to hold at least one Mass a week in Latin in order to preserve the area’s link with the Church’s tradition, and for every parish to hold at least one fully-sung Mass a week.
Finally, the musical experts point out that many “Catholics think that what mainstream publishers offer is in line with the doctrine of the Catholic Church regarding liturgy and music, when it is frequently not so.”
They ask that publishers put aside profits and commercial incentives in order to emphasize and educate the Catholics in liturgical practices and doctrine.
Among the signers of the declaration are Bishop Rene Gracida, Emeritus Bishop of Corpus Christi; Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of Maria Santissima in Astana; Aurelio Porfiri, PhD cand., organist of Santa Maria dell’Orto in Rome; Abbot Philip Anderson of Clear Creek Abbey; and James MacMillan, composer.
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1 John 4:1-6 1 John 4:1-6 “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, 3 and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of which you heard that it was coming, and now it is in the world already. 4 Little children, you are of God, and have overcome them; for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 5 They are of the world, therefore what they say is of the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are of God. Whoever knows God listens to us, and he who is not of God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”
This article implies that the baby Cardinal is committed to nothing. Ah contraire! Not too many years ago he was elected as part of the ruling Socialist Party. No wonder the Pope lifted this synodalling prodigy from obscurity to the next Conclave. (All this is not to say that Lisbon didn’t need two Cardinals.)
And, should clerical functionaries actually have something elevating to say to youth who are, yes, looking for fraternity, but also deeply hungry for the permanence of Truth? If there is a Truth larger than just the “diversity” thingy.
Maybe by going back to the mentioned first World Youth Day of 1985….Here’s the link to St. John Paul II’s “Letter to Youth,” together with a peek at the confidence and fatherly guidance of a true shepherd: https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/1985/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_31031985_dilecti-amici.html
” [….] Christ answers as he answered the young people of the first generation of the Church through the words of the Apostle [St. Paul]: ‘I am writing to you, young people, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father… I write to you, young people, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you”. The words of the Apostle, going back almost two thousand years, are also an answer for today. They use the simple and strong language of faith that bears within itself victory over the evil in the world: “And this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith”. These words have the strength of the experience of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ, the experience of the Apostles and of the generations of Christians that followed them. In this experience the whole of the Gospel is confirmed. These words also confirm the truth contained in Christ’s conversation with the young man” [who asked: ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’] (part of n. 15).
The difference between a shepherd in season and out of season, and an empty suit.
Young people – they are the true agents who keep converting the rusty, the outdated, the straight-jacketed and other fellow mortals into mobile, flexible, alert, conscientious, and concerned citizens of Planet Earth.
Well, we were the young people yesterday. What happened?
“… concerned citizens of Planet Earth.”
But not be converted to Christ.
I look at the current situation as being spirituality as practiced by the hookup culture. Trying to create a church of the holy hookup and the sacred shack-up, where God had better be putting out. The Gospel according to Harvey Weinstein. Spiritual co-habitation. People who are incapable of making or keeping a promise. Catholicism is a covenantal faith based on promises, vows, and oaths.
I thought it was “in the world but not of the world”.
Matthew 10:32-34
32 “Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; 33 but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven. 34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
Acts 2:38-40
And Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him.” And he testified with many other words and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.”
Why are we funding these bums?
Have we arrived at a point where we require a Protestant pastor (Timothy Keller, Making Sense of God) to explain to Catholic clergy why there is no such thing as choosing one’s own path? He compelling explains why everyone, including those who claim to shape their own beliefs, is actually formed/informed by some group or community. The question then becomes, who will form me? This seems so remedial it is sad that priests and bishops are ignorant of this truth, or worse, have rejected it for expediency’s sake.
Jesus wept.
Why does someone like this even become a priest, let alone a bishop?
No accident that such as this person is being promoted upwards. Francis will have a lot to account for when he goes to judgement, and all these appointments will not be able to help him then. “Anything goes” is no way to run the Catholic church.