We are told the devil and other fallen angels hate Latin. So removal of Latin keeps them happy...

There's so much gorgeous music in Latin, covering a large chunk of music throughout Church history, that it'd be a shame to not do it.

(I realize that's not much of a substantive answer, but I've noticed it can redirect people's thoughts away from the language aspect and toward the musical aspect.)

With respect to the above post, a director of music can't simply respond with, "Well, that's just your opinion."

Some rationale has to be given for the music choices or changes, or else you will seem to be acting arbitrarily. You don't have to be lawyerly. A reply along the lines of, "I'm trying to be faithful to the Church's official instructions for music at Mass," is a good start and is an invitation to further discussion about the details. You can tell pretty quickly whether you're arguing over what ice cream flavor is best -- in which case you politely deflect and end the discussion -- or whether someone is genuinely interested in learning and is open to having his mind changed.

Did you all ever realize how much of our discussion on this forum rotates around the poor choices of music that are allowed in the liturgy? Is anything sacred? (Pun intended). It is amazing to me that such a profound and central reason we are employed is wraught with so much division and confusion.

" . . . Roman Catholicism is the only Church that you can be fired for doing what it asks for you to do."

It's a fairly common experience across institutions - because humans. Perhaps only in Catholicism have saints advised that our necessary death to self often comes at the hand of injustice by superiors in the Church? (I am wary of the cultivation of the kind of docility to such injustice, in the erstwhile name of the virtue of humility, that it allows abuse of others and coverups of such abuse by people given authority in the Church.)

emac3183 - I would ask 'which Pope, when, can you show me the letter'
And I might look for a recent papal liturgy and show them, for example Midnight Mass a month ago, the booklet is downloadable here :- https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/events/event.dir.html/content/vaticanevents/en/2023/12/24/messa-natale.html
Not only is almost all the music Gregorian chant, but the assembly/congregation is expected to sing it in Latin.

There is good, well conceived music and there is trash.

But not all good well conceived music is suitable for Mass. Even when it uses all the correct texts, Mozart, Beethoven for example, IMHO these are not in accord with ancient tradition

Certainly not all good music is suitable for Mass. That was not anything like what I was driving at. However, the tradition is to bring the spotless lamb as our offering and I think that should be instructive to us. Unfortunately, the church does speak in contradictory terms about music. Even more unfortunately, she also speaks in the same way about too many other things. We still have the commandments and the law which Jesus told us would never pass away. Too many stop reading in those much loved passages of the "Sermon on the Mount" too soon! We still have the musical tradition of the church and it offers us much in music that is suitable. There is also more modern music that is also suitable. I've never been a proponent the "it must be old to be good" or any other such nonsense. The MD needs to have the capacity to make good musical judgments. Some do/some don't.

Our local parish may be small and not very financially well off, but use of Latin in our NO masses has never been a problem. As a matter of fact, the congregation has learned to sing a number of the pieces of the Ordinary in Latin.

How to irritate a catholic: Begin any argument with "Well, Vatican documents say..."

This is correct. I'm at a middle-of-the-road parish, so we still do a chunk of the '70s and '80s old favorites, but we've introduced chant antiphons (in English), as well as choir anthems in Latin, and they've mostly been well received.

When it comes to Latin stuff, I can cite chapter and verse (and actually did in print on our Lenten worship aid with the Mass parts in Latin), but I almost never do with people coming up to complain, because they don't care.

Honestly, I generally give the answer I gave above, and I'm always enthusiastic about what we're doing. (I also often make the point about how we should do more church music that is unmistakably church music.)

It really does tend to disarm folks. They see I'm not trying to antagonize them, and that I really do love what I do.

Latin is the universal language of the Church. As more and more parishes grow in diversity of languages, being able to sing in one common language unites us. There was a priest who was disappointed and felt like a failure at World Youth Day in Poland because there youth all started singing the traditional chant setting of Pater Noster, but his group couldn’t participate because they didn’t know it.

@trentonjconn

Roman Pontiffs do not commonly sign their Magisterial documents on the High Altar of S Peter's in the presence of the body of Cardinals. But S John XXIII thus promulgated his Apostolic Constitution Veterum sapientia, 1962, in which he insisted that the Latin language must remain central to the culture of Western Christianity. What on earth could the good old gentleman have done in order to make his point more emphatically?

The rest is here, https://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.com/2020/05/variis-linguis-loquebantur-apostoli.html In an age where we are expected to obey every whim of the pope, is is good to have references of what other recent popes have demanded and they have been ignored.

: 69 year-old parishioner since 1997. Said he and his wife love Bob Hurd, Marty Haugen and Dan Schutte music because it inspired them and made them feel good when leaving church. They miss that music. Said that now the music seems like a dirge. And why the Latin? He was an altar boy before Vatican II and had to memorize the prayers at the foot of the altar in Latin, and he was happy to see Latin replaced with English after Vatican II. He said the Church is seeing declines in Mass attendance all over the country and maybe we should appeal to the young by not singing Latin and old music

Man. This could be a boomer stock email. Ten points for any use of the term "dirge," bonus points if they remember Latin from their childhood and hate it.

The idea that playing the favorite music of a 69-year-old is going to draw in young crowds is worthy of a good laugh.

I honestly think they just “don’t get it”. Perhaps it’s not their fault. But the end result is the same regardless.

The young feel it in their bones.

FWIW—I’ve been to mass in Portugal, Spain, France, and Austria. Any time they used common Gregorian ordinaries or the main Latin prayers, I could easily (and FULLY) participate. When they didn’t, I couldn’t.

A former choir member of mine texted me from Rome two years ago when she went to mass and was happy that the ordinary was the same and that their whole family could sing it (from the square note notation) with ease.

Turns out James isn’t such a nut case after all!

I suppose it can very difficult to understand that there's a difference between the Church, and the Church. The Bishops, clergy, and faithful all over the world make up the Church in one sense of the word, but that doesn't mean they are always right. In the other sense of the word, we have the Church founded by Christ, which declares infallible dogmas through the Popes, and against which the gates of hell will never prevail. So when the Church (people) goes the against the Church (Peter), it seems like the Church is contradicting herself, and so many people are probably driven away by the apparent contradiction.

That, in terms of "driving away", was not so much the dynamic in the 1960s (in which, btw, the "Boomers" were not featured players, given that only the oldest Boomers had arrived into adulthood; prime actors of the 1960s in the Church were members of earlier generations, particularly the Lost and "Greatest" generations, and the Silent generation). Humanae Vitae was much more of that kind of factor; by comparison, people who left because of liturgical changes as such were a much smaller proportion of people. (Fr Gomar DePauw's group worshipped less than 10 miles from where I grew up, and was the subject of regular commentary I heard growing up; adults commenting were, at best, puzzled by the existence of the group.)

It’s not just that the Sunday service changed. It’s that the whole Catholic culture changed. Latin, music, altar orientation, elimination of rubrics, de-ritualizatuon of the rituals.
In the US it’s also tied in with suburbanization as Catholic immigrant communities grew in affluence and moved out of the city ghettos and lost the cultural pressure of Catholic society.

It's been my experience that most parishioners my age (65) have the mis-understanding that the Church got rid of Latin with Vatican II, which is a lie. Secondly, I think many parishioners don't like it, don't understand it, and more importantly, they don't want to understand it.

I experienced a Novus Ordo Mass using Latin when I sang in St. Mary's Choir in Akron, Ohio begining in the late 1970s thru 2005. It was celebrated once amonth and only at one Mass. We had a 5:30 Vigil on Saturday and 8, 10, 12 on Sunday's. The choir always sang at 10 on Sundays. We sang Latin Mass settings and one that comes to mind is the Mass in G by Theodore Van Le Hache, it was our go-to Latin Mass.

All the responces, that is people parts as well as the priest parts were accompanied with organ, sometimes in Latin and sometimes not, it all depended on the priest. The entrance hymn and closing hymn were in English and from the missalette (we used WLP) Offertory and Communion hymns were usually Latin hymns but now always.

The responsorial psalm was recited (a pastoral decision) and the Gospel Alleluia was Mode VI and the verse was Tone 6. This was true regardless if the Mass was in Latin or English. Having these two aspects of the Mass always the same means that in relatively short order you will have more "participation" by the congregation then if the musical setting is changed every week.

Only during Christmas and Easter did the choir sing the responsorial psalm. During Advent and Lent I think we did "Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ King of Endless Glory" since you don't use "Alleluia" during those seasons.

The Eucharist Prayer was chanted by the priest in Latin but not always and the Lord's Prayer was chanted in Latin with organ. Using the organ helped to keep the choir and the congregation together. There was no Ad Orientum, the priest was always facing the people.

A Novus Ordo Mass with Latin is very beautiful Mass. Today in my parish and I think in many other parishes we use the Chant Mass, I think its Jubilate Deo? Whatever one is in the missallet, during Advent and Lent.

I have been introducing some Latin hymns to my organist and he is very receptive. In fact we are planing to sing "O Cor Amoris" (see attached) for a second communion hymn for Ash Wednesday.

My opinion is that if you keep your Novus Ordo Latin Mass singable and not to "chanty" you will have more success.

Ugh, indeed. For me, the My Little Pony Mass is penance.

Our one priest even admonished us in the music ministry for doing the Chant Mass XVIII during Advent last year: “It’s a season of joyful expectation. Why are we doing chant?” Ugh.

Well, he's not misreading its soberness, since Mass XVIII is rather spartan and since it's prescribed for Masses for the Dead (as well as Advent/Lent weekdays).

@ServiamScores I have the same feeling. The Kyrie with its “slow build” to a searing plea for mercy, high up past the octave and trustingly back down to the final. The Agnus with its even bigger range, and that almost-bluesey middle invocation, especially when sung call-and-response, is far far from joyless.

Nah. We love the Latin, the GC, the mystery, the roots, the timelessness, the vestments, the Roman precision, the polyphony, and the reasons go on. (Besides! All the music I have been composing is mostly in Latin ;) )

Well, Francis, let's hope your pope namesake doesn't continue long enough to do in the Latin. Looks like he's working on it.

Remember, the majority of their peers left the Church.

And the majority of those who remained are often there only in body, not spirit.