'People' of this mindset rather disingenuously offer us, and their to-be-pitied people, the most devious non sequiturs, don't they. Here we have the query 'Do we wish... to sing the liturgy as the highest form of praising God... or introduce chant....'. Notice that chant is immediately devalued without intelligent assessment as a 'particular kind of music'. Notice that what the exalted Vatican council said about chant is nowhere to be seen or heard - though these people doubtlessly would, to a man and woman, consider themselves 'Vatican II people'. Notice that the younger priests encountered are not actually priests whom one would take seriously, but that they are 'younger priests' the writer 'runs into'. Notice that it is given that the musical preferences of the writer are, ipso facto, assumed to be the 'highest form of praising God', and that he sees not the bizarre reality that what he cherishes is not what the council, which he likely assumes is the foundation for all his (or her) subjective misconceptions, said about chant. I haven't visited Pray Tell in about three years - and now I am reminded why. These are the same people who moaned and groaned over the demise of that horrid translation that we endured for decades and made no end of mockery of the new one. And, that's nothing compared to the guffaws they had (ignorant to the last man and woman, priests and all) when they saw the new Ordinariate Use.

The music being plunky-plunked, screeched, rocked, drummed, keyboarded, and folksied up in far too many of our churches every week did not exist before the council. If chant was not universally sung, it was known and respected. Nobody asked for what replaced it. Certain types just sort of showed up and took over whilst the almighty priest (who now will fire anyone who doesn't like his musical junk) stood by helplessly or in connivance. Millions left the Church because of it - and nobody cared. Now, they leave if even a smidgen of chant is heard and everybody cares and will move heaven and earth to get them back.

It would be impossible to find a logic (a true rhetorical logic) for what has happened culturally to the Church since the Council. The most egregious subjectivity is taken to be irrefutable objectivity, and our leadership are either willing accomplises or utterly clueless observers. None of them have an ounce of intellectual integrity.

Chant as Reform? Yes, indeed! Chant is a re-formation (as in re-newal) of the Church. Shout it from the housetops and let it be heard to the uttermost village.

(Hmmm. I think that when John XXIIIrd opened that window he didn't envision chant being tossed out of it! Too, he likely had something more noble in mind, a kindlier fresh air, than the vulture that flew in!)

PTB does reflect these mindsets often, but it is not just PTB. Many musicians I have encountered simply do not feel as though chant is "their" music, and suggest the same idea that it wasn't sung before VII. They miss the point that VII was part of the movement to introduce chant, since the numerous papal interventions up to that point had not had the effect desired.

I haven't encountered this particular angle to the chant issue, though. The idea that VII was not simply restating a prior reform idea, but was itself intended to be the capstone to the reforms, that chant would finally be the music of the Roman Rite in all nations. That the council's implementation never saw this through is more than just a shame, but it is a scandal and an extreme violation of the Church's express wishes.

I am a local representative of the NAACP, but I know nothing about the subject. [purple]

I know what the vaunted Council said - some would say that council wasn't instituted by God but by a senile pope who had no idea what he was doing. Take whatever side you choose on it. Today, I think it is the aftermath that we are all having to deal with.

I have encountered so many priests and people who absolutely detest chant. That does, not surprisingly, make them a bit difficult to deal with. Trying to incorporate older idioms into the current mass often looks like something cobbled together, not heaven on earth.

I am able to do some chant - probably more than most parishes here ever do. But I have been in this business long enough to know where the "push-back" point is and the line that I am better off not crossing.

Lastly, I would have to say that the people pushing chant and the EF are often its worst enemies. They can be obnoxious and cultish, causing ordinary folks and clergy to run in the opposite direction.

Uh-oh, we've been dotted! ;-)

only in the mind of MJO is there a library of thoughts that keep us thinking

and as far as pray tell blog goes, Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain

I dare anyone to come to Minneapolis and find that cult-ish nonsense at our FSSP parish. It doesn't happen.

Ah, but we are not all in Kansas (Minneapolis) any more. It is a different situation, here.

@CharlesW

Being from Quebec, we certainly take second place to nobody when it comes to throwing out the pre-conciliar baby with the bathwater. Oddly though, the abbey to which I'm associated as oblate, is packed every Sunday, notwithstanding the fact that the propers and ordinary are *always* in Gregorian chant (with the rest in French plainchant). All in the Ordinary Form. So clearly there is a "market" as it were. While many are visitors and/or simply curious, there's a hard core of regulars (of which I am one) that attend every Sunday.

As for getting chant accepted in parishes, I think on a regular basis, outside religious communities, it's almost a lost cause. Our schola discovered that when we were established in a single parish and sang there once a month. We got kicked out. We since found a parish that is willing to let us use the church for our rehearsals, and we also sing there once or twice a year. At other times, we rotate around parishes in and around the small city of Sherbrooke. We are generally well-accepted. Probably to most we are curiosity or a "special occasion"; not sure we'd be welcome every week. We have a small number of "groupies" who follow us around and make a point of attending Mass at the church we happen to be singing at on that day. We don't push ourselves on a parish. If the parish/priest happen to hate chant, we, to paraphrase Jesus, dust off our sandals and move on to another parish. It may not be ideal, but it keeps chant alive in the region.

However, chant alone can't act as "reform". A case in point is the last church we sang at, a couple of weeks ago. Beautiful building from the turn of the 20th Century when the Church literally reigned (or at least her clergy did) in Quebec. Huge building in fact, that was only about 1/4 full for the Mass. We sang in the organ loft. I'm told we came out beautifully down below, but the sound system was so horrible that we couldn't make out what the priest was saying, other than to realize he was ad-libbing a lot and adding his own words here or there (including at the consecration!!!).

It was so bad I could not receive communion when the EMHC came up to the loft for us. I felt absolutely no connection with what was going on. I was disgusted, and came out of the building fully depressed and angry at the sate of the Church. It's small wonder that the church was practically empty. It was a Saturday evening Mass you may say, but when we sing in our home base parish the church is full, with many young families. Oddly it's a modern 1960s building and a satellite parish of the pastoral unit is in an even newer 1980s church with poor acoustics for chant no communion rail, etc., BUT, packed with young and dynamic families at the Saturday evening Mass, and enthusiastic and an involved priest. In spite of the acoustics, it gives me more satisfaction to bring chant to them than to that big old empty architectural gem. Why? Because we are appreciated. Young couples come up to us to tell us how fascinated they are with discovering this long-lost (or so they thought) part of the Church's patrimony. In fact in general, our "enthusiasts" are mainly the nostalgic very old and more and more, young people born long after the Council. The Vatican II generation... not so much.

So it strikes me that "reform" will not necessarily be through chant. It will be through young and dynamic families who will demand more care in the liturgy as they come to appreciate and understand more about their Church. Chant will (at least I hope) be part of the equation, but it doesn't have to be the only part and it may not even be the instigator. I've been to some spoken weekday Masses that were so simple and reverent that they brought their own sort of inner peace. Not so however, ad-libbing priests, incomprehensible sound systems or just plain sloppiness and lack of care.

A couple of weeks ago, I was at once such simple weekday Mass, a private one. I was giving a monk friend a ride to the city where he was going to be chaplain to a monastery of nuns for some months. He celebrated a private Mass with me in the abbot's private chapel before leaving. It was spoken only, all in Latin, and I did the reading of the epistle and psalm in Latin. It was in the Ordinary Form. It was splendid in its simplicity and reverence. Therein lies the key to reform: simply good, reverent and carefully executed liturgy.

Do that in parishes and eventually someone will ask "hey what about chant, can we have some chant?". The parishes we enjoy the most are in fact those that do take care with their liturgy. Oddly enough, they're also the best-attended Masses, chant or not.

I agree with your comment on "cultish" EF/traditionalists. No EFs around here but I read plenty of that on on-line fora. The priest that celebrated that Latin private Mass with me said he loves the EF, but hates the cultish elements of the one that exists in our area (about 100 km away, which is why I have never been). It may not be the case everywhere, but it is the case often enough. I know of one priest who simply stopped offering the EF because he got so tired of being criticized for what the liturgical cranks thought were his mistakes (and given that he taught liturgy in seminary, it was usually the cranks that were wrong).

Ora

Again, treat EF folks like normal people, with a normal Mass time, and work patiently, as our Lord did, to untangle people in whatever knots they are in. Better yet, get a bunch of young, faithful, happy families to start coming to the EF en masse. It may take a while, but the cranks will either get with the program or leave. I do know of a place in SW MN where the cranks have had control for a while, but the pastor is now doing something about it, having essentially shut down the small schola who were the culprits for nearly 2 months and replacing the sung Mass with a low Mass just so that he could get the replacements ready. Sometimes you have to risk losing a few folks in order to bring the new ones in.

But this talk about how EF people are this way, or how Easterners are that way; what does this solve? First of all, it's a stereotype, and second of all, it doesn't raise anybody up. We are the one, holy, catholic, apostolic church. Everybody's fallen. What have the folks on here done to improve those situations?

CK, you are on to something!

Jackson,

Give up? NEVAH! But adapt, we must. I've long ago made my peace with the new liturgy. In particular the Liturgy of the Hours in Gregorian chant which gives me great joy and inner peace and is most doable now with Les Heures Grégoriennes (even though some antiphons seem to have been picked out of thin air... I've pasted in some of my favourites for the same psalms from Psalterium Monasticum for several of those).

Anyway thanks for the support. You hit the nail on the head for priestly and upwards support. Heck I'd even just settle for a priest that seems to believe what he is saying, that follows the missal, and that says the Mass reverently and with care, even if he doesn't or can't chant his parts. We can at least provide the propers and ordinary...

Come to think it at one of our Masses, the regular priest was away, and a substitute priest from a religious order was provided (one of the missionary orders... forget which one; he'd spent most of his career in Africa). He didn't sing, but said the Mass so reverently and preached so effectively, it didn't really matter, it truly was an improvement.

Ora