OMW, I heard someone mention that and thought it was an item from the Onion, or Eye of the Tiber.
Well... don't we live in interesting times, as the old Chinese curse is said to wish on one?
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

They claim to have performed the same "service" for the two previous popes. I think I may have heard fleeting clips from both of them on news broadcasts, but don't recall any effect I detected, on anything.

I can't recommend anyone watch The Sopranos, but listening to that reminded me of when Chris' girlfriend was trying to desperately trying to plug the lousy band Visiting Day to a talented producer who only humored her out of lust.

Really. About two minutes in I was waiting for someone to go "Meow."

I just hope someone has the courage to say to the powers behind this that "Well, i think you should mentally prepare for the f%&$#* possibility that Wake Up! sucks."

Giving the Pope the benefit of the doubt, that soundcloud track sounds like it is a superimposed speech of the Pope (or a vocal immitator) on top of studio tracks. I am not even sure the pope is aware of such a project such as this. If anything, I think the media (and Rolling Stone is one of the big ones) is trying to create a draw if nothing else.

I don't plan to program "Wake Up!" in my alarm clock, ever!

Thank you very much for sharing. It's phenomenally bad! I love it, especially the "Ego sum resurrectio et vita."

"et oh - omnis!"

(papally approved)

For heaven's sake, Julie! You think Pope Francis is such a micro-manager that he approves CD projects?

Well, then, I have for sale a bridge located in your area.

Maybe it's the trying to be all things to all people syndrome. Only problem is, some of those things to some people are definitely not things to some other people.

YMMV

Of course Fr. Krisman is right: the Pope doesn't personally manage all the uses of his words. Libreria Editrice Vaticana "owns" and manages the rights to his writings and Vatican Radio does the same for recordings.

The idea that this is a "Vatican-approved CD" (in the words of the Rolling Stone writer) probably means nothing more than that the producers got permission to use the Pope's words from VR and LEV. Even if some bureaucrat signed off on the CD before publication (and I have seen no information that such is the case), that still would not make it an "official Vatican project"; after all, this is being published by some private company, not by an organ of the Holy See.

Believe me, I can offer you a much nicer, authentic, old Irish bridge at a much better price, steeped in history and folklore... Let the bidding war begin...

Perhaps it is A Bridge Too Far?

How about the Bridge to Nowhere?

May the Lord bestow wisdom and prudence on our beloved Pontifex who is determined to build bridges out to the peripheries and neglected constituencies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoS0eKC-XoQ


(This unofficial, amateur effort is — I think — much better.)

Oh Don't worry about this. I recall many other such "official" things foisted upon Jp2 such as soap (the pope on a rope with soap) with his picture on it, many recordings of his voice manipulated in many ways etc...it will all pass. In Paradisum will remain.

I don't see too much of a problem with setting a Pope's words to contemporary music. It's eclectic and fun and thought-provoking to some extent, because after all, these are the words of a human being and are of value but aren't on the same level as the words of Christ and the chanted prayer of the Church.

The last few minutes of the Wake Up! track are what offended me most. Taking what is one of our holiest possessions, Gregorian chant, and fusing it with the lowest human expression of all---heavy rock (cf. the NY Times) demonstrates an extrordinary obtuseness. A little creativity would be fine---accompanying chant with classical guitar or the flute---and that would be fine since you're using musical genres of similar value.

However, attempting to fuse a Gregorian antiphon with heavy rock is like installing Michaelangelo's Pieta in a Hooter's restaurant. You're taking something of profound spiritual, intellectual and aesthetic value and trying to harmonize it with the music which glorified free sex, drugs and the social revolution of the 60's and 70's.

This "Acid Chant" (for lack of a better term) reflects a tendency in the Church now to fuse different doctrines, sensibilities, and cultures and attempt to place them all on the same plane, just as we saw the syncretism on display at Ground Zero the other day. Not for nothing, and it pains me to say this---and I don't mean to sound like a nooge---but after the emergence of ISIS, I've come to a new understanding of the term "false religions." Ideas and creeds have consequences (remember that old maxim lex orandi, lex credendi?) Speaking entirely for myself, I would be very uncomfortable praying to the Triune God of Divine Revelation in the presence of those who were simultaneously praying to their gods. I don't mean to criticize and think enormous efforts were made to legitimize the proceedings and spread good will, and maybe it was all fine, but it just struck me as a futile (and probably harmful) attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable.

Julie

Would you feel that way about praying with Mormons? Because their theology about the nature of God and man is even further, at its core, from Catholicism than Islam, while of course they are closer to Catholics in many aspects moral practice and culture. There's a reason that Islam was treated as a (extreme) heresy of Christianity in the Middle Ages, rather than a religion like, say, Hinduistic ones - wrong ideas about the right God, rather than wrong ideas about non-gods.

Thanks for the excellent advice, Charles. It helps a great deal.

Liam, thanks for the clarification on Islam. I think what you said about the Mormons may also apply to Jehovah Witnesses. I admire ecumenical outreach; I just get confused when they pray together, or, more accurately, when they pray in each others' presence. I'd be very uneasy about being in the same room where fervent invocations to Lord Shiva, The Supreme Buddha or the "All-merciful Allah" were being made, but that's just me.

Properly conducted interfaith services have separate prayers, one at a time. The norm of not praying with non-Christians is thereby preserved.

Prayer with non-Catholic Christians is regulated by the Church's norms on ecumenical activity.

CharlesW: masses by rock groups of the 60s

Julie knows.
http://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/11978
has her super Groovy link ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbWSu0yZMDU

CharlesW: So what did the church do? It canonized or raised

If you die in the state of grace you are admitted to Heaven.
Canonization merely declares what God has done.
It has nothing to do with any of the crap anyone might have done before then.
Many want it to mean a blanket approval of every act of the canonized.
But that is not what it means.

I thought I was long ago taught canonization was about Heroic Virtue.
Maybe we need to talk more about Virtue.
And why some virtuous act by somebody is Heroic.

Yes we need more saints (everybody!).
But maybe we need fewer canonized saints (i.e., slow the process)?

Yes we need more saints (everybody!).
But maybe we need fewer canonized saints (i.e., slow the process)?

I agree. The process has more credibility with the slower process.

Here is another announcement of a recording from Vatican City, and this one deserves to be called an official Vatican project:
http://www.visnews-en.blogspot.com/2015/09/cantate-domino-music-of-popes-recorded.html

Looking for a bridge to buy?

http://www.f84cloit.eficom2.info/img/nivoslider/avignon-coeur-historique/03.jpg