Ugh, do we need to critique someone's funeral?

It is impossible for a non-amplified singer to fill that space -- especially with the organ playing.

A non-singing congregation is typical of Catholic funerals, and anyway whether they sing or not, the recording system there is not designed to pick up the congregation.

The singer is Crossley Hawn, an acquaintance of mine, who is a lovely person and personally dedicated to authentic performance of chant and choral arts, as evidenced by her membership in the Washington Bach Consort and multiple acclaimed early music ensembles. She can sing just about anything you put in front of her from chant to Bach to Menotti, and sing it with beauty and sensitivity. If I had an opportunity to steal her away from the city to my humble suburban parish, I would do so in a heartbeat.

I've mentioned several times on this forum that while the music as broadcast from the Shrine always sounds overbalanced towards the cantor, it simply doesn't sound that way in the vast space.

You could lay the Washington Monument lengthwise in the Shrine. You could hit a home run straight down the center aisle. Place is yuuuuge.

What I find ineffective about this isn’t the degree of amplification of the cantor or the quality of her singing, but what she is singing (and what no one else is singing). Better to have her chant an introit during the Entrance procession than a melody that better suits singing by a crowd. Likewise, better to have a gradual than the non-responsorial Responsorial Psalm.

@Liam, I take the due degree of humble-pie for my overly brash initial post. Thank you. That said, high-profile funerals like this are public affairs that can and do affect local parishes. They ought to be done well.

I don't know why you would suggest that the congregation isn't singing. I see quite a few people singing the Entrance hymn.

Felipe, the congregation is not miked, so naturally they cannot be heard. But surely you can see people holding their worship aids and singing.

Browser issue. @kathy, I just watched the entrance procession again. How many people’s mouths are moving that you see? I literally see none. I imagine I’m missing some, but it would seem to be few and far between regardless.

The video has been watched 16k times on Youtube. That's a lot more people than usually see a parish funeral Mass.

"I would be curious how many people viewed this people who would be in a position of influence"

Well, everyone's in a position of influence over their own behavior, which can be determined by what they experience of our worship. So Catholic funerals need to take Catholic belief and liturgical practice seriously, because they reflect our lived theology.

There were oddities here beyond the music. There was incense at the beginning of Mass but no Gospel procession, despite there being a large number of assisting ministers.

The casket was placed inside the sanctuary.

There were four Communion ministers including an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion despite a) the presence of a priest who did not give Communion and b) Communion taking well less than 5 minutes.

Still, that’s quite a bit of people.

16K doesn't mean 16K people viewed the viedo as such. All it takes is landing on the page and having it load a bit.

It's worth noting that youtube's view counter is a bit smarter than simply pageloads. Google has said that they try to get a somewhat accurate view count, so it's actually not unreasonable to say that the video, or at least a significant part of it, was viewed around 16k times.

While you all are scouring the video counting who's not singing, who is and isn't distributing communion, how many swings of the thurible there are, and worrying about how many people are being scandalized by these things -- are you at least praying for the man?

Indeed. Desiring proper worship of God in no way excludes prayers for the deceased, and having heard that accusation a lot lately (stop saying x negative thing about a problem and just pray about it), I'm kinda sick of it...

Okay, from the video, I saw maybe half a dozen people singing the Entrance Hymn "O God Our Help In Ages Past" ... in the congregation already there, not those in the entrance procession. I also say several people singing the Antiphon of the Responsorial Psalm.

Nice to hear Vaughan-Williams "The Call" sung as originally written.

Maybe I should have clarified the point of this original post, i.e., to discuss the music at this service, and the music merely. That does not imply any denigration of McLaughlin or detract from the spiritual significance of the funeral itself. It goes without saying—for the Catholics here, anyhow—that one ought to pray for McLaughlin’s soul.

Notwithstanding maybe the priest not distributing communion, I don’t think anything here was in the realm of “scandal”, though I do think there were some logistically and ritually poor choices. The music for the responsorial psalm was very nice, yes (is it published?) … but aesthetic value is not the end-all-be-all of good liturgy, and I maintain that having a responsorial psalm at a “one-time” service like a funeral (or wedding) when the congregation won’t actually sing is imprudent.

@Liam: The fact that funerals attract people who don’t often attend such a service is precisely the point: why plan music that suits a singing congregation when you don’t have one? As to whether the people there would be offended: by that logic, would it ever be proper to question liturgical choices for a funeral?

@CHGiffen: I see people glancing down at their programs, but no mouths moving except the cantor’s.

I honestly don't see the problem... a musician forum discusses music at public musical events no one is out of line, or calling the deceased names. People are talking about the music selected.

I am very surprised this funeral was not held in the crypt church. It was a person of some importance, but this isn't a congregation the size you'd have for, say, Scalia.

I understand this feeling, Liam, but there's more than a little irony that we're discussing the merits of discussing the funeral of a man who was known for facilitating discussion...

Bruce

Oh, I totally get the recursive nature of that and this, and my critique of critique. That said, what the deceased may have appreciated is not necessarily the same as what his surviving family and loved ones would appreciate.

Death and funerals open a time where individual people are vulnerable. (The wearing of mourning as a sign that they were potentially vulnerable had a practical purpose so that people knew to have extra care and discretion in what they said around them.) The ease of expression and discussion on the Internet can make people oblivious to fact that they can be read and heard by people who are not partaking of the conversation - and for many years thereafter.

a_f_hawkins, my sympathy for your great loss. When my father-in-law passed away, he specifically requested a traditional Requiem Mass and burial, so my husband and I and some friends sang the Mass and the Burial Service. It was pretty challenging, but we somehow made it through. One of our friends knows the chants almost from memory, having sung them as a child in France when she lived with her relatives in the summers decades ago so we were fortunate to have her help. She said the old men of the French village customarily sang the Requiem Mass at funerals, and she learned to sing with them when she was living there.