Why not use the liturgical music the Church wants: Gregorian chant?
September 24, 2012
Jeffrey Tucker argues in a Crisis essay that parish music directors have been given too much control over the liturgy. When they try to match the music of each Sunday Mass to the Scripture readings, he says, musicians bend the liturgy to their own understanding.
The proper approach, Tucker argues--citing the teaching of Vatican II--is to encourage the use of Gregorian chant. The Mass should not be accompanied by hymns, he says; the entire liturgy should be sung.
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Posted by: DrJazz -
Sep. 25, 2012 6:13 PM ET USA
A key phrase in the above article is "have been given." Priests gave this control to music directors; musicians didn't just take it for themselves. Are there awful musicians providing music at Mass? You bet. But they could be stopped in an instant if priests educated themselves about the Church's teachings on liturgical music and hired musicians capable of leading it. The typical "song leaders" and organists at the average Catholic parish in the northeast US are terrible musicians.
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Posted by: claire5327 -
Sep. 25, 2012 2:19 AM ET USA
The oldies are the best goodies ~ let us stay with our traditional time lasting Gregorian chants.
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Posted by: MatJohn -
Sep. 24, 2012 8:24 PM ET USA
Thank you for the piece by Jeffrey Tucker from CRISIS. He has a running column in The Wanderer on his specialty, Liturgical Music.
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Posted by: TheJournalist64 -
Sep. 24, 2012 8:05 PM ET USA
Jeffrey was on EWTN making this point and taking calls. He blogs on www.chantcafe that he was shocked by the misunderstanding of liturgical music exhibited by the callers.
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Posted by: koinonia -
Sep. 24, 2012 7:39 PM ET USA
"It also comes with a new mandate, not to rule but to serve, not to invent but to re-discover what is, not to impose but to submit in humility to what is bigger and greater than ourselves." The term "liberating" is used later on. Finally. More and more we see a validation of the idea that the Church just might have had something pretty worthwhile to offer souls all along. These sacred things are "greater than ourselves" and it appears that growing numbers are becoming aware. There is hope.
