my husband as their choir director, and me as their organist

?????

And who organized his trip with singing in those diverse and prominent Italian churches? Maybe that organizer is guilty for lack of proper coordination and communication? I can well understand that the priest might be annoyed or at least perplexed when on short notice unknown musicians come to sing in "his" Mass. Each parish usually relies on their own resources for liturgical singing. Maybe they better should have performed in concerts instead?

Reminds me very much of Fr. Ruff. Knows all the right things, but comes to stunningly poor conclusions.

YES.

My head hurts. Wow.

Sacrament, sacramental. Eh, the difference is only a couple of letters. /s/

Beg pardon, but...
That the wedding of music and sung liturgy IS normative in the Church's worship is made clear in the documents and teachings of Vatican II, and by numerous popes and clerics throughout history. The failure of far too many clerics, and lay, fully to appreciate this (and the failure [as in refusal] of seminaries to teach it and prepare for it) is really what is 'one of the roots of the "...fraught" relationship between clergy and musicians'. The preposterous callousness and arrogance on the part of priests such as those mentioned in 'Music as a Sacrament' is shamefully vile and grotesque. It is (putting it politely) utterly outside simple Christian goodwill and love, and exhibits an absolute ignorance of even an elementary understanding of what liturgy, as historically defined and practiced by the Church, is.

What kind of reaction would a "concert artist" expect if he showed up at, let's say, Carnegie Hall 65 min ahead of the start

Very abject apologies that the stage door was locked, if not a head on a platter?

Is my memory failing me, or were some of the earliest comments removed from this thread?

All the ones that were here when I first read it are still here, for whatever that's worth.

He needs to be reminded that he is a guest

And an invited guest at that. We can't really know if the organizer exercised all possible diligence, but do know she was shouted at and cowed by the priest on that occasion. To turn the tables, is it very hard to imagine a guest priest in one of 'our' own churches not bothering to find out ahead of time what music is to be expected?

At first I thought this was a merely mistaken individual who graciously serves whichever Protestant Church with dignity and fervour, and has some minor friction with Catholic dogma. After perusing the site, however, I find much extolling his virtues as a performing artist and precious little involving any religious establishment or, indeed, religion at all..

I find this attitude all too often - secular artists that pay lip service to the idea of serving some sort of "transcendental, emotionally moving art form", while simultaneously ignoring (or disrespecting) the institution which is the literal source of all transcendence, and always forgetting their purpose of liturgical servant as an invited guest.

It is most often found in singers, who come to view the ecclesiastical establishment as a convenient and conveniently disposable source of income, perhaps even performance opportunities - while passively or actively dismissing any thoughts of understanding the Church's liturgical or communal patrimony on anything more than the most superficial level. Many of them would see fit to chatter or browse the Internet on their cell phones during the Canon, only pausing briefly to interject with the Sanctus. All religiosity is stripped from the profession to be replaced with a cool, inclusive, "modern" aesthetic that contributes more and more to the friction that occurs between clergy and music ministry, some of which we must admit comes from our side. Jonathan is the most flagrant example of this attitude of the organists I have encountered, though it undoubtedly exists elsewhere.

Can one imagine a manufacturer of rosaries and crucifixes by hand, who pays the utmost attention to each detail of wood- and metal-working, lovingly crafting each and every one of his or her creations - but who only does so for some sort of secular humanist "emotional experience" and openly deems the Church to be an obsolete, clericalist, discriminatory husk of an institution that has no place in the modern world? What hogwash it would be indeed! Such a person might be laughed out of the profession entirely. Yet these are the same people that continue to be employed, if not venerated, all too often in sacred music.

Let us contrast, for a moment, the case of Ralph Vaughan Williams - a man who was unable to bring himself to personal spirituality and communion with God, but who made himself subservient to the culture of the Church of England - its liturgy, its language, and of course its music - and created some of the finest and most liturgically appropriate works ever conceived, most of which are as at home in the Catholic sphere as the Anglican. By this reference I mean to imply that speculating as to individual convictions is not my goal, nor should it be any of ours.

Rather, we should instead require the creation of a culture which roots out any and all of this pathetic attitude that sacred musicians need not concern themselves with the environment in which they work. All created within the course of our employment should be governed and guided both by the liturgical environment in which we work and the overriding spiritual and cultural atmosphere - that, and a continuous drive for artistic excellence. To cultivate one and then to not only neglect the other, but insinuate that the other is wholly unnecessary - and then to complain in the same tired, dismissive, and arrogant way that the problem is not with the exact attitude that caused and often causes these issues but with the old, evil Church - is a disgrace of the highest level. Jonathan and all who think like him should be ashamed.

I don't know, Richard Mix... I think the thread on astronomy is far better than that article...

Yeah... no.

Unfortunate that he didn't encounter the best representation of the Church... but his broad generalizations and skewed philosophy certainly don't warrant endorsement from Catholics. I imagine that all of us probably have moments where we have not exhibited the Faith in the best possible way (perhaps even on this forum...), moments where we wish we might have been better ambassadors for Christ.

...Lutheran services with him I'll vouch that his worship decorum is impeccable.

how do you define worship decorum?

Yet this matters not when it comes to participating in the liturgy and rendering our own identities subservient to the liturgy

That's very well put, yet I can't help but wonder at your generalizing about singers playing with cell phones (more likely among non-singers, in my experience) and your unwillingness to accept at face value

I have worked as a musician within the Roman Catholic Church for 15 years.