"Tastes and Preferences"
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,217
    In February 2011, a Washington D.C. Monsignor published an article on the Archdiocesan website entitled "Walking in the Wide Church and Staying Within the Guard Rails." (See: http://blog.adw.org/2011/02/walking-in-the-wide-church-and-staying-within-the-guard-rails/)

    In the essay, the Monsignor mentioned his work on social and moral issues, contrasting the Church's (and his) positions against both 'left' and 'right' political ideologies. He also sought to contrast his celebration of the EF Mass with other Masses he celebrates using "Gospel" music.

    The key lines:

    ..."The Church is wide. I think of the Christian journey as a trip up the King’s Highway. Now on this road there are a good number of lanes. The Church permits us to drive in any or all the lanes, but sets up guard rails beyond which we must not go. Hence there is legitimate diversity on the King’s Highway. An old song also says, King Jesus has a garden full of diverse flowers.

    "It often grieves me when I see the children of the Church squabble over what the Church allows. One may have preferences, and I respect that, but why seek to have everyone conform to my preferences when and where the Church allows diversity? ...

    ..."I know that my little essay will not end the debates over priorities and emphases, tastes, and preferences. But I am a priest called to serve all God’s people. I walk in the wide Church and and am willing to drive in every lane. Just don’t ask me to go beyond the guard rails set by the Church."

    Let's leave aside the social and moral teachings for a moment, and go to the question of liturgical practice, particularly regarding music.

    It seems to me that the terms 'tastes and preferences' are red herrings. Various Popes, the Second Vatican Council, and many Vatican Instructions describe sacred music as possessing three qualities: "goodness" (meaning well-crafted), "holiness", and "universality." Substituting "tastes and preferences" for the more objective Vatican terminology moves any discussion to a "no-win" situation for the serious Church musician.

    While we can and should admire the Monsignor for his works, I think that we should not accept "tastes and preferences" as grounds for a discussion of the principles of sacred music.
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    Would someone please pry Mary Jane Ballou from her harp and place her fingers on an internet keyboard?
    Dad, I think about such scenarios as you've described, and if I'm not optimistic at that moment, I image that you, me and even the most esteemed clerics and laity toiling away at liturgy are yet and still mere worker ants/bees, doing our very best to edify the structure of our farm/hive. People like the good Monsignors here and there, the interested bishop here and there, and other superiors are our drones. They have some juice, but they have to be very careful when and how they expend that capital.
    The question, not particularly ironic this solemnity day, who is the queen around this planet? (And I'm not being clever like the __ *geniuses over at PTB with their obsession with red shoes and cappa magnas.)
    Whoever the shot callers have been since VII, they've actually managed to further entrench the "tastes and preferences" of all constituencies sitting in choirs, pews and presidential chairs for three generations, and the PIPs are onto it and could give a hoot (hence my plea for MJB's input.)
    You know I'm a pretty confident guy; but it nags at me whether, really, we're re-arranging deck chairs.
    Oh, yeah, there are __geniuses over at PTB, if you missed it the first time.
    On a much cheerier note, if my friends are worried, we've now got all three processional propers fixed into the normative principal liturgies at the mother parish in our cluster! Boo yah. And, with me there's always an "and," the PIPs are getting quite jiggy wid it regarding "And WITH YOUR SPIRIT... it is RIGHT AND JUST....etc." So much so, that some tenderfooted (Bless their hearts) celebrants are becoming emboldened to actually use the Confiteor and the Nicene Creed! Great timing, guys! And this is Kalifornia, where one cannot protesteth too much; ie. a new encampment of OCCUPY OAKLAND was "erected" just a couple of days ago on a vacant derelict patch, ho hum, so 2011!

    *I had a change of heart regarding etiquette, lest AWR doth protest that the use of "idio" was perjorative, or DH shriek "Foul, foul!" (To which I would respond "Grady! Flynn!")
  • Blaise
    Posts: 439
    With all due respect to Rev. Monsignor, I think I can address this "tastes and preferences" and "King's Highway" thing by simply turning the argument on it's head, without reference to ecclesiastical documents and without any sort of theological content whatsoever. The answer? Because in most American Roman Catholic parishes there is only one "lane"--and not even one with the best "scenery", if we continue the logic (how many want a Sunday low Mass with some sing alongs? Passengers, raise your hands. Nobody? Anybody? Everybody?). Many "vehicles", that is parishes, will take the same lane, following each other (that is, copy what another parish is doing "just because"). Occasionally, a vehicle will pay to take a toll way (that is, take a route with one or more of the following: chanted prefaces, choral music, propers, organ, maybe incense or ad orientem). But for most, it is the same rubbish scenery. And even worse yet, some of the "drivers" (priests, musicians, etc.) and "traffic engineers" (following the same logic, that is, liturgical composers) appear to forget where we are going (to paradise, heaven, not Disney World).
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