Britain does not have a single legal system. In England and Wales the outcome of a criminal trial is a verdict of guilty or not guilty, and the presumption of innocence means that the verdict should be not guilty unless guilt is proved beyond reasonable doubt. The Scottish legal system, on the other hand, can have three possible verdicts, guilty, innocent and 'not proven'. I've no knowledge of Australian law but I would have thought that it would be likely to follow the same model as England and Wales. In England and Wales an appeal against a guilty verdict would effectively review whether the finding of guilt was indeed beyond reasonable doubt.

I guess what I am trying to say is GIA can choose who they do or do not publish but to launch investigations online is odd. To actively ask people to make a report and encourage reports against Haas to a website over an official body is bizarre...

Maybe they are better than the legal system over there? Is that what you're saying, GIA publishing does a better job than your courts?

If that's the case then I dunno how anybody can make a mockery of Victoria's legal system because GIA publishing and Vic Pol Aus aren't that different in terms of tactics...

The only subject matter over which an official body would have cognizance would be *criminal or civil offenses* for which the respective statutes of limitations have yet to run. There's a host of deplorable human behaviors that don't fit under that rubric.

I've always avoided his music like the plague anyway, but I do wonder as a matter of principle if a composer's personal failings negate the artistic/spiritual value of the music. I know, that's a low bar in this case, but still as a matter of principle it makes me uncomfortable. It smacks somewhat of our current culture of smashing statues. There are plenty of composers from the canon who were not perfect (even if they were not serial abusers).

As a corollary, does the legal guilt or innocence of the composer change the above question of principle? In other words, is it appropriate to expunge Haas if the allegations are shown to be true, but not appropriate while they are merely allegations?

As a former MD for different Dioceses and for the MSP Archdiocese I can only say that it was just matter of time. We have waited only 30 years...

As for other painful scandals after so many years finally movements outside the church have been able to brake the iron curtain built by complacent priests, composers, parishioners and secular musicians.

I want to look at the future of our church and at all the positive outcomes.
The challenges in front of us are many.
This individual and his friends created a kingdom around him and this faulty music movement. It takes a fertile land and the right social environment to create a deviated church's system. And that is what has happened in MN and the Mid-West in the 70s. The problem is that he retaliated against all of those that did not agree with him and have tried to promote the renewal of the Roman Catholic Liturgical Music as a real expression of faith and truth following Vatican II.

For those who do not live or work for the church in MN it may be difficult to understand all that this State and its social- economical status has caused to the universal Roman Catholic church, her people, priests, musicians and to the Roman Catholic liturgy.

But there is hope. Now finally years of complaints and proof will not be hidden anymore. It will be all taken in consideration and those that have made mistakes will pay. From the top down!

I praise those women an men that had the courage to move forward. Have you ever heard of any abuser coming forward and admitting a crime and asking for forgiveness before any accusation? Are we serious? Never.

By the way, ""Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times."

So before we question these women just remember what has happened to Haas predecessors. They were, are all guilty. Before we question accusations that started 30 years ago and no one had the guts to fix, just think about how many people could have stopped it long ago! Only the few with the "guts" are home with no job after standing for what was right to say and do! Many speak, preach from the pulpit, enjoy a paycheck, free room and board and did absolutely nothing! And we all know what has happened to victims of abuses committed by priests. Their lives are ruined. Forever.

And my prayer is that all of these injustices will keep coming up so we end another dark era of the church. My hope is that very qualified, honest and devoted men and women that love the universal Roman Catholic Church after being forced out from their job can return to their ministries and prove again through their knowledge, faith, talents, skills and musicianship that the universal Roman Catholic Church has never changed idea about what is true or not about Liturgical Sacred Music in our houses of worship!

Simply the great transformation decided by very respected theologians and liturgists inspired by the "real" Holy Spirit (and not spirited people) during Vatican II has never been accepted by a strong movement in the 70s. Following those years of uncertainty the few took advantage of the situation destroying thousands of years of beauty and sacredness. And they failed their own people!

In 1938 it took one man to start a war using a very specific music propaganda. This is history and cannot be changed... We all know how it ended. I cannot imagine been a priest having to tell parishioners that only sung or listen to Haas-Joncas-Haugen-Schutte music that now there is a need to start signing something "different". Good luck to them and all of those that have allowed this mess from happening.

All of the times that I have tried to do so I was asked to leave that church...

But their time is over. We just need to wait. "Be patient. Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary"

It will all come out.

I don't think it's accurate to suggest that GIA is leading an investigation. This CNA news story says that the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis has received multiple reports accusing the composer of misconduct, and since 2018 has refused to give him a letter of recommendation. GIA says it learned of the accusations early in 2020, and the advocacy organization Into Account sent information to multiple publishers and institutions on May 29. It acknowledged, "that it may be frustrating to receive a letter like this without any concrete means of following up on its veracity."

From the little I've seen, it's not clear that any of these organizations is conducting an investigation other than to receive the reports that have come to them.

For more background on this, it's illuminating to read the Facebook posts of GIA employees and composers. Here are two that are publicly viewable:

Tony Alonso
https://www.facebook.com/antonioalonso/posts/10157029940190811

Kate Williams
https://www.facebook.com/k8jane/posts/10103797537226971

Readers of George Orwell will recall the concept of making someone a 'non-person'. Maybe they can photoshop him out of old LAREC pictures.

MarkB, thank you for sharing this information. I'm struck by on how *every single post* from someone in the Catholic music industry, including this comment thread, there is at least one person sharing that they or someone they know closely was abused by David Haas.

It's becoming increasingly clear to me, especially after reading the post from sacredandholy, that this was a Harvey Weinstein situation. That is to say, the sort of situation where everyone in the industry was at least somewhat aware of widespread perverted and abusive sexual behavior, but it was impossible to remove the individual from power due to retaliation for reporting and due to addiction to the profits generated by the abusive individual.

The following paragraph from Tony Alonso's Facebook post is worth sharing here: "After my post of Sunday afternoon in support of survivors, I received private messages from five independent people, some from people I know, others from people I do not know, who reported further allegations of abuse to me directly. Because I have no training in how to handle such allegations, I reached out to the director of Into Account, Stephanie Krehbiel. After a long and helpful conversation, she informed me that since the original letter went out, she has received over a dozen reports from different women across the country disclosing sexually inappropriate behaviors that range from online harassment to sexual assault. These are in addition to the stories that had previously been shared with me and unconnected to allegations apparently taken by SNAP and the Archdiocese of Minneapolis Saint Paul. "

David Haas has something on the order of 20 separate accusers now. The odds that each and every one of these accusations is false is infinitesimally small. If legal action is pursued against David Haas, he deserves a fair hearing in court. That said, we don't need to wait for the courts to act to make the decision as a liturgical music community that we are not going to provide David Haas a platform that gives him access to vulnerable women and that we are not going to enable publishers who continue to provide him a platform.

With the information we have now, we should be taking a long, hard look at GIA and the other publishers in the Catholic music industry and ask them what they knew and when. Same for any diocese David Haas has a long term relationship with, particularly the Archdiocese of Saint Paul & Minneapolis.

I think that that Archdiocese of Saint Paul & Minneapolis owes us a better explanation that their most recent public statement: https://www.archspm.org/statement-regarding-david-haas/?fbclid=IwAR2EexEb_O4w-DW6cknPmYsLlvUMPuribCGpDcia-EcQf7zPVHexP6cGDlw They first received a complaint in 1987. The stopped providing him a letter of recommendation in 2018 but otherwise kept things hush hush. The archdiocese appears to at a minimum be responsible for continuing to allow David Haas to have a platform from which to continue to commit abuse from 2018 to June 2020. The archdiocese owes us an explanation of why this occurred. If the organization failed to act on their policies due to the stature of David Haas, they need to replace the responsible individuals, and if the organization has weak policies, they need to announce better policies and make clear commitments to having an institutional culture where these policies are complied with.

I also found this passage in the original letter from Into Account to organizations working with David Haas concerning: "These individuals are in positions of professional and/or personal vulnerability that make it difficult for them to identify themselves publicly. They are almost all fearful of Haas’s retaliation, and based on what they have reported, we believe those fears to be well-founded."
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fxkov9O8IxSfN8Fw0YvDgpZFQXFAeRgi/view

Who might have been at risk of retaliation for reporting David Haas? Did David Haas have a network of enablers ready to fire or otherwise silence anyone who might report him? If so, this is quite disturbing. What organizations might have had a strong incentive to keep David Haas around, despite his "issues"? The organization that first comes to mind would be his publisher GIA, who is seem to be hugely financially dependent on the sale of his music and might be in serious financial jeopardy without him.

Considering all these sordid details, I at the present moment feel uncomfortable purchasing anything from the Catholic liturgical music industry until there is a public accounting of who knew what when, and public accountability for the people who failed to act.

I am not comparing cases. I am comparing trials by media.

True, it doesn't matter where a reputation is tarnished once it is tarnished it is very hard to recover. I think that was the point I wanted to make when starting this discussion. Less about nit picking comparisons, less about deciding guilt or not and more about reserving statements for appropriate channels.

I tried a search this morning for "Haas" on GIA's website. He's been purged from their music search feature:

https://www.giamusic.com/store/sacred-music

Try it. Try searching for "Blest Are They" if you want, too. It's gone. It's all gone.

Alrighty, then.

But I haven't seen an announcement from GIA about removing his music for sale. Maybe this will be handled quietly from here on out in order not to draw more attention to it.

Now that GIA has made its decision about David's music, although I will wait a bit longer to see whether there is an official announcement from GIA, I am planning on announcing to my choir that because of the reports and GIA's decision to discontinue selling David's music, I will not program any of his songs at Mass anymore with the sole exception of funerals at which the family requests one of his songs.

As i mentioned in another post, it has been 20 years since I played any of his works. No loss here, at all. St. Maudlin by the Brook, a neighboring parish, may have a hard time with this.

news came out today about a colleague

A long-time colleague and 50++ year fixture organist/choirmaster was hit with a relatively minor charge (and I mean MINOR) of exposing himself to an undercover cop. His was the only similar case which hit the newspaper in the last 20 years IIRC; therefore he lost 2 jobs--one at the parish, and one with a professional music organization.

Five years have passed, and a parish pastor wished to hire the guy--it was nixed by the Archdiocesan offices.

In all the 40+ years I've known him, he NEVER did anything untoward to anyone although he freely admitted to being a homosexual, and there were enough 'contact points' for a rumor-mill to have at it were he to have done something wrong earlier.

One mistake, oddly became publicized, and he got the Death Penalty. Life is not fair.

Haas, of course, is a far different case.

@MarkB, not quite - if you search "David Haas", you still get a lot of results.
https://www.giamusic.com/store/search?elSearchTerm=David+Haas

However, it seems his greatest hits have been purged. A friend of mine who has worked for Liturgical Press has shared that it takes absolutely forever to scrub something like this out of the back end of a website. Perhaps that's why there hasn't been an announcement yet.

For example, one of his bigger hits "We Are Called" is no longer sold in its main form, but you can still buy an arrangement for hand bells.

There's also a significant moral quandary that I don't know the answer to. Many of his songs were co-written with other people. He wrote some works with Haas and Joncas. Jeanne Cotter, who I'm not familiar with, also appears as a frequent co-author. These people are presumably dependent on the royalties from these works for their financial support.

Interestingly, David Haas' music has been removed from his own website. When I checked only several days ago, he had a huge website with lots of things for sale. Now all it says is his press release. Perhaps removing all of his content is part of a legal settlement? http://www.davidhaas.us/

Jeanne Cotter, who I'm not familiar with

She was his wife, and has shared some very detailed information on her Facebook page. It’s a good read for those that were not already familiar with his proclivities.

Egads.

.

I have not done any music of David Haas for years. But today I wrote to GIA to remove me from their mailing lists. I will no longer buy anything from them.

Pure and simple ugliness...

@sacredandholy

We understand your frustration. Truly, that is the underlying issue with most of us, just watching things continue to disintegrate, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, decade by decade.

However, let us offer a few prayers for our brothers and sisters in Christ who have wandered into sin. It is the best and only thing we can do besides letting justice do its bit.

Meanwhile, you might find a TLM and be done with all secular-"religious" music publishers once for all. The music of the TLM is all public domain, and most of it is available on these websites:

CMAA
Corpus Christi Watershed
CPDL
IMSLP