That our HF Francis said what he said is heartening, even though it was crafted for a society of church musicians (what else would he have said to them that was fitting for such people?). What would, though, be really heartening and effective would be for him to speak thusly to everyone every day - to be sure that those who need most to hear it hear it, and hear it often, so often that it can't help but 'sink in'. If Francis said these things to the whole Church, and said them as if he really meant them, his liberal friends' heads would spin. I can hear them sputtering even now.

It is, on its own - but in the background of the rest of this papacy, who would understand it in that context and follow it to the letter? At least Benedict was consistent on this front and offered a view of music consistent with his entire liturgical credo, whereas Francis's (well-meaning and certainly welcomed) statement is the papal equivalent of the option #1 to be conveniently disregarded by anyone already on their way to "alius cantus aptus".

The GIRM has holes you could drive a truck through (and many parishes do on a weekly basis), and statements like these will just be ignore by those who feel like it, just like the Apostles' vs Nicene Creed, Roman Canon vs. others, &c. Francis is not convincing anybody who is not already on the "right" side.

As a side note, I think some real examples need to be given of what is considered "using Gregorian Chant as a basis" on a compositional level. We all know what that means, musically, but the average Joe who thinks him/herself good enough to run a music program probably has no clue, if they even care at all. SEP? Durufle? Renaissance chant paraphrases? The Simplex? How can David Haas retain his "aesthetic" (God forbid) while following this instruction? If nearly sixty years of instructions all saying essentially what Francis's statement entails haven't done the trick, I don't think this will.

As long as these documents and statements are as vague as they are, it is nothing more than another weapon in our arsenal in the few cases where resorting to documents actually works.

Perhaps it is "dumping on other people's small happinesses". However, I find it hard to find anything from this papacy particularly influential, either way. Francis has said and done so much that is seemingly targeted at different, occasionally contradictory groups, that I often find it difficult to understand the true praxis of his papacy. And little of it seems to have bearing on many Catholics, who may find it easier to pick and choose statements from this papacy than from others.

Francis's language seems similar to that of many Church documents that are routinely ignored in suburban Catholicism and major cathedrals alike. Is it heartening and inspiring that he knows the spirit of those documents and conveys it in that manner? Yes. But how can that effect real change, given this papacy's track record as well as those of the documents?

I found Benedict's papacy more compelling on that front (as do many of us) primarily because there was less formalism to the whole thing, as strange as that seems. It seemed to me to flow more naturally from the pope who loved music, Mozart above all else, and combined that with a serious focus on the liturgy and its dignity. Francis is the same way with social justice and environment issues - he's not just repeating what the Church has already said, he is adding his own perspective and making it a focus of the modern Church. Like it or hate it (I'm not especially fond myself), he is as successful in that as Benedict was in the liturgy.

I don't get that with this statement. This feels more like a cautious retreading of the documents since Vatican II. While that's much better than the alternative of promoting something which is inherently bad or unsuited for liturgy, it also feels like preaching to the choir. We know we should read the documents and do all that Francis has told us to. But does this break any new ground, perhaps ground that should be broken? And how will this be backed up by Francis's papacy in its actions?

Above all, will this convince those who are not convinced by documents to tread the right path? Politicians on both sides in the US see fit to pick and choose which opposing statements by Francis they like and which ones are not applicable for whichever reason. I worry that this otherwise uncontroversial statement will meet the same end by virtue of playing it too safe.

Pope Francis calls for truly "holy" music at Mass

Great well I suggest Pope Francis leads by example...

1) As Bishop of Rome he can regulate the music, well I presume he is going to produce a black list to apply across Rome. I look forward to its publication.
2) While gallivanting around the world we have many Papal liturgies, I am sure the black list for Rome will also apply and all 'strumming' will be banned.
3) I am sure he is president of the Italian bishops conference, so he can encourage his brother bishops in Italy to also publish and enforce the black list.
4) I notice that he likes to promote his friends to be bishops, Cardinals etc. No promotion with out applying the Black list.

Seeing the enthusiasm that has been put to dealing with minor problems in say the Franciscans of the Immaculate (and other persecuted Orders), I am sure similar measures would be appropriate to those that refuse to apply a black list.

I await these future developments!

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

Charles has it. The Pope has a parrhesia-problem, and tends to toss off all sorts of things, some good, some confusing, and some really bad.

But yes, the music situation in Italy is awful, as is the catechesis situation there. Finding a genuinely Catholic church musician over there............lifetime project.

Regardless of exactly what the Pontiff meant by his address, I fully intend to use his words (in this specific case) to "spin" things in favor of using more chant here. I only have a small realm of influence, but I will use whatever tools I am given to move things in a better direction.

I thought that this was one of the most beautiful statements about church music that I've ever read from a Pontiff. Not particularly lofty, but hit the soul of the apostolate in so many ways. It was primarily, I think, a statement directed at the ordinary parish musician. Being one, I received it very gratefully and took much solace and courage from it.

In fact, the choir guides the assembly, and with its own specific repertoire, is a skilled voice of spirituality, of community, of tradition, and of liturgical culture.

When I read this, I couldn't help but think of my faithful parish choir. They are all of these things. They are not only the voice of the Church's tradition, but keep alive our local traditions, from German hymns their grandparents taught them, to a body of choral repertoire both before and after the Council, and are the memory (into which I have tapped!) of what has been done before, but is no longer done. Beyond this, there is the tradition of sung liturgy, choral liturgy, at the principal Mass, that they have maintained for over a century in this place (liturgical culture and tradition).

But they are just the ordinary men and women of the community. Students, farmers, accountants, teachers, dentists, doctors, &c., but by their dedication and practice, they give a voice to the community gathered for the liturgy with which to praise God. The beauty of a volunteer choir, which is what most of us work with most of the time, is something magnificent in its own right -- far from a paltry, make-do imitation of a professional ensemble. I was delighted to hear the Holy Father speak to this.

I know that your preparation involves sacrifices connected with finding time to devote to practice, with getting people involved, with carrying out feast days when perhaps your friends invite you to come and have fun. So many times!

I had to read this part aloud to my wife! The Holy Father touched on all of the frustrations, difficulties, peculiar crosses of this calling, and he did so with good humor and a father's affection and encouragement for his children.

Sacred music also reveals another duty, that of joining Christian history together: in the Liturgy resound Gregorian chant, polyphony, congregational song, and music of the present day. It is as though all the generations, past and present, were there to praise God, each with its own sensibility.

This came uncannily close to my stated goal and approach in dealing with the difficulty of improving the programming of the Sunday Mass in an ordinary parish, and is a point that is very close to my heart. It's not that we reconstruct an idealized past age when we select liturgical music: rather, we connect the past with the present, enrich the familiar with the ancient, illuminate the ancient with the accessible, and create a visceral sense that, here and now, we worship with the saints who came before us, as we, too, will worship alongside those who come after us.

For me, this passage was particularly moving.

-----------------------

All that being said: I'm sure this statement is disappointing from a crisis mentality. If the goal would be to put The Pontifical SmackDown on the people who do The Bad Things, it certainly does not do that.

How I received it, however, and how I think it was intended, was as a word of encouragement from a loving father for those engaged in an often trying and taxing apostolate. And I was very, very grateful for that -- it came, personally, exactly when I needed to hear it.

If Francis said these things to the whole Church, and said them as if he really meant them, his liberal friends' heads would spin.

As a liberal friend of Francis, I can assure everyone that the head spinning is not supposed to begin until he espouses geocentrism: the memo was quite clear on that point.

.

We need objectively expressed and genre specific admonitions that issue from firm convictions, not hollow subjective cliches. Any one reading the likes of '...but a holy music, integrated into the liturgy...', etc., will naturally think that his or her music is being referenced and that it fits those criteria - because everyone very likely thinks that his and her music is 'holy' and fittingly 'integrated into the liturgy'.

Still, I give our HF Francis credit for the face value of what he said about the music that he must surely have been referencing. He did say it. For that we can be appreciative and grateful. I pray for him daily and hope that everyone does.

CCW takes a slap at CMAA regarding the translation:

http://www.ccwatershed.org/blog/2019/oct/3/pope-francis-let-every-parish-have-schola-cantorum/

For example, the Church Music Association of America posted an English translation taken almost verbatim from Google Translate. Generally speaking, the alterations made by the CMAA were insignificant—yet several of their changes are puzzling, and seem difficult to justify.

And what the pope is reported to have said was

il canto gregoriano, la polifonia, la musica popolare e quella contemporanea.

For example, the Church Music Association of America posted an English translation taken almost verbatim from Google Translate. Generally speaking, the alterations made by the CMAA were insignificant—yet several of their changes are puzzling, and seem difficult to justify.

Thanks for mentioning this, since I didn't happen to read the CCW piece.

I can assure the folks at CCW that my translation was not at all a product of Google Translate, and if I were to use it I would certainly have said so. As I indicated on the page at Chant Cafe, the translation was my own (rather quick) effort.

While I'm not the most experienced translator in the world, my work in that field seems to be good enough for practical use. Two academic books I translated from Italian have been accepted by respected Catholic publishers, and I will announce them when they are available; the first one is scheduled for release in November.

I'm really disappointed to see this misstatement on Jeffrey's part, especially considering that it's an insult to my professional skills. If he has questions about my choice of terms, I'm not at all hard to reach, in particular since my e-mail address is up-to-date in CCW's donor records.

About the specific terms I used:

When Church documents in Italian or Latin refer to "popular" song, they are speaking of music whose performers are the "people" at Mass, the congregation. When Americans talk about "popular music", they are referring to songs performed for a large audience of _listeners_: the commercially-produced music one hears on the radio. Since those are two different things, I used the term "congregational song".

Similarly, "contemporary music" has a bit of a misleading sense in our American Catholic subculture, where it's used somewhat narrowly as a formula to refer to the low-brow material, composed in recent decades, in "missalettes" and hymn books. Out in the larger culture, "contemporary music" is a broad term that encompasses new works, including works for choir, organ, and orchestra. So to avoid misunderstanding, it became "music of the present day".

What the heck. Why would you advertise that your translation is basically Google Translate after taking a shot at someone for supposedly doing so?

How’d they pull off the tritone in The Wizard of Oz???

Maybe because it was demonic monkeys (with special tritone powers)

Tomato, tomahto.

@CharlesW Surely you mean "Tomayto, tomato" ;)

CMAA has always been at war with NPM CCW
Seriously, this needs to cease, Now.

Tomjaw, your solution to sacred music in Rome is "stiff" and "rigid".

Or as we say in the east, pierogi.

Let's remember: "Critique principles, not people." Our colleagues over at CCW do a lot of good work, and deserve credit for it.

Once, when breakfasting with my father, an old GP, I mentioned gastric problems. In his very practical way, he advised, "More of that," pointing at my water glass, "and less of that," pointing at my coffee cup.

I am reminded of this, being somehow caught up in this CMAA vs. CCW kerfuffle, and would counsel: Focus more on content, less on commentary (or promotion).

Or, put another way: Keep calm, and do your ****ing job.

Pope Francis needs to make an apostolic visit to OCP. Here's the newest "liturgical" song video that OCP is promoting. Not even good by secular standards, and not at all appropriate for Catholic worship:

https://youtu.be/Z1VpMvkqNRk?t=260

“Heaven is a place where you’ll hear colors,
Heaven is a place where you’ll see sounds.”

Wait a minute there, Mr. Boomer. Are you trying to sell me on faith or psychopsilocybin?

Well, as a synaesthete, I get the idea as quite sensical. Not that I have regard for that particular song.

It is well known that Messiaen was a synesthete, and that his association of colours to particular sounds and pitches played a large part in the music he composed. Since in heaven we will see humanity in unblemished perfection it isn't altogether off to suggest that this human faculty may or may not be shared by those who dwell there.