No, you are not being stubborn. You are fighting the mindset from my youth that someone has something to say, therefore the rest of us are required to listen. All contributions are not equal. Some are worthy and appropriate, while others are not. As I recall, much of the grief we have experienced liturgically over the last 40 years started with nuns with guitars.

If you can insist on the organ DO IT! (that is if you have the backing of the pastor to do so). I am simply arranging the hymns and chant with guitar accompaniment and the group is loving the new and expanded repertoire. Once they are good enough to carry the pieces on their own, I will accompany them with the organ. Then in the end we will have a excorsism ceremony casting out the guitars, and they will all of a sudden find themselves chanting the EF loving it and wondering what happened. I don't know if this is an approach that will work, but time will tell.

However, the problem you are running into is quite cultural for Mexicanos. The guitar grows from their bodies like an appendange. We have a Mexican congregation here, and so far, I am playing the organ along with them to win them over.

The guitar...and the piano...are incapable of supporting and sustaining the flowing harmonies of hymns. Hymns are the basis of all harmony education in music schools and conservatorys around the world and this four-part harmonic structure which is the basis of almost all good music today. From Juilliard up on the West Side of Manhattan down to the Henry Street Settlement on the lower East Side. Bach's 371 Chorales are the epitome of vocal part and voice leading for the sung voice.

These percussion instruments cannot support the singing of this very involved harmonic music.

They CAN play simple folk chords and rhythms. If a Liturgy in the mission field is there to attract the local, indigenous people to ceom to the church and eventually discover the beauty of the Roman Liturgy, that's fine. But to create it and sustain it as a norm is not what the church wants nor permits.

A recent conversation about guitars at Mass with a Mexican aquaintance saw him turn to me in shock, "No, they play outside in the square after Mass.

Now I can see the need for a Hymn after Mass! As long as it is outside in the square.

But Jeffrey is right on....all singing should be done without the organ, so that when and IF the organ is played it enhances the singing, rather than making it possible.

Any choir that MUST have the organ playing for it is a weak ensemble. Not without potential, but weak until they gain the confidence and ability to sign on their own.

Sadly, the organ has been almost entirely abandoned for liturgical use in Latin America.
Many instruments have been destroyed or allowed to fall into ruin.
Some have been restored under the rubric of historical preservation.
Several new religious orders (especially in Argentina and Chile) have shown interest in traditional music, including use of the organ.
Nonetheless, the thriving urban Catholic musical culture that produced glorious Baroque music and organs in Mexico, Central America, and 'New Granada' and imported Cavaille Coll organs for major gothic-revival churches in Argentina and Brazil is no more. May something worthy of the liturgy grow to replace it.

Well.. since you asked, the guitar has a long history in Spanish and Latin American churches. As villancicos (think sacro-pop of the 17th century) began to be used more and more as Propers replacements outside of Christmas and Corpus, Church authorities in Rome and Spain began to issue edicts about the number of them allowed at any one Mass. We forget often the Propers were often replaced during the Renaissance and Baroque eras by motets and popular devotional songs. So, while the organ has a rich history in Latin American churches, the guitar does as well. The only difference is that it probably was not the only instrument that backed the bouncy villancicos. There were probably other instruments in the band too. One would be surprised how similar a cathedral band in say, Puebla, was to a contemporary church ensemble in the U.S. today. Just think of the parallels to a harpsichord, recorder, guitar and viola da gamba or cello would be. In any case, authorities questioned the propriety of that practice then as well.

The piano is a percussion instrument; the guitar is a string instrument. I'm on every side in this issue. Pianos (and I majored in the same) have overwhelmingly secular connotations, at best, low-church Protestant association. On the inherent sacred association of the organ, I appreciate where people "are coming from," as we used to say. However, I also remember cocktail lounges with organs and you can't beat a Hammond B3 for some jazz applications. "Happy Organ," anyone?

Left to my own devices and a few singers with good voices, I'd go a cappella 90% of the time. The major problem with instrumentalists has been the abandonment of artistic excellence and aesthetic judgment in liturgical music. How many church websites have you visited where all are invited "to make a joyful noise"? And that's what you get - noisemakers.

There are always exceptions in eveything. I don't think I was talking about the use of instruments based on those exceptions.
In my expereince working with many different MDs, I saw the opposite most of the times. The musicians I know are concerned more on artistic or interesting music than what is sacred. They want to display their artistic talent and control the music the way they want, and not paying attention to what is sacred and what the Church asks. For example my church youth director, who is a very very good musician (He was in a seminary in Rome and in a prestigeous music group in Vatican) and almost like a genius with sound systems, refuses to use any chanting style for responsorial psalms and follow the official text, even if the priest asks him to do. He will change the psalm text, if Haas' melody sounds better. He doens't think chanting style of the psalm is musical(or interesting) enough for him. He often makes his own music with all different kinds of background music. He uses mostly contemporary style, sometimes mixed with classical or even with Latin text. Artistically maybe good, but he does what he likes to do. He doesn't believe the Eucharist is the most important in the Mass. Music and people are his priority. And he doesn't follow what the Church asks or the priest. He says that the Church changes all the time, so he does the music according to what he thinks is right.
His artistic talent is very valuable, but is this the attitude we share in our church to deepen our faith?

I should add that I was bothered by Noel's assertion that they cannot support hymns not only because of its absolute nature, but also because he's defining "hymns" too narrowly. He's defining hymns as 19th century protestant 4-part strophic writing. That's the bulk of the modern Western practice, yes, but it's not exhaustive of hymnody, nor of "alius cantus aptus". For a counter-example, I find chant VERY well-performed with piano, especially with an almost jazzy harmonic vocabulary. And Byzantine chants would be ungodly if performed with organ.

It reminds me of a Lutheran blog I frequent, where someone commented about an orthodox service "if they don't use hymns, why do people bother converting to it?" Sorry, but the Orthodox PIONEERED hymns, and their liturgy is filled with it. They just don't have organ-led 4/4 SATB chorales written in Germany. Just because it doesn't fit your concept of what a "hymn" is doesn't mean it's not one.

Just chords, which is why I find it so effective. I usually just give barely enough to keep the rhythm going, and it really colors the chant as well as letting the chant keep its own color.

Mia, are you familiar with the Byzantine chant tradition? To be fair ALL THINGS are personal taste and decided by culture. But I think most of us in the West can agree that the Byzantine style is not compatible with the organ. If you're not familiar with it, it's an a capella tradition which utilizes lots of isons (drones), singing in harmony, and non-Western harmonic progressions. It leads to an overall effect where the "chord", if you will, changes very rarely. It would sound ridiculous to sing along with an organ holding a long F chord! If you don't get what I'm saying (and I'm having a hard time explaining it since I don't KNOW Byzantine chant well) try to find some and see what you think. Unfortunately, I don't know any sites that have free recordings of byzantine chants.

But Gavin, the accompaniment is not to determine the rhythm in chant. The rhythm comes out of the chant.

Stick to your guns. One of our parishes has nuns from Mexico and they play the guitar and it is not a joyful noise, not at all. The singing is also rather nasaly, and, as well-intentioned as they are, they do not have a sense of what is appropriate for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The guitars are strummed to sound like un-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta, un-ta-ta-ta-ta and the songs they choose are more about the community than about worshipping God. Some also use neocatechumenal songs that are not at all suitable for the Mass.