We should be able to discuss it here in a charitable manner. Some topics are simply going to be more intensely debated than others, and that's ok. This is a topic which directly affects the work of church musicians and shouldn't be ignored.

This would affect a greater percentage of discussions today than banning wartime-related topics would have during WWII. All of us are constantly being impacted in someway by Covid, wherever we happen to be.

All of us are constantly being impacted in someway by Covid, wherever we happen to be.

For better or worse, good or bad, it's the truth. This virus has upended society and I seriously wonder if the church will ever return to "normal," that being as it was before.

But let's also remember that it's not free.

all forms of communication (free speech) require resources... let's not shut down opinion based on pre specialized and pre approved content... that simply becomes a technoligarchy... and we have seen way to much of that in the past year for sure... and to boot, we are the ones who has given our resources that help to make this even possible.

It does seem that two touchy subjects a) covid responses and b) liturgical issues both have a really direct impact on musicians in churches, and thus make reasonable subjects to include in a forum for church musicians. It is probably the case regarding covid responses, too, that the impact is very real and often very stressful, causing people to compromise their way of playing/singing/directing, or altogether eliminating their work. So it would seem natural and even helpful to allow people to gripe, vent, snark, bicker and so on on this forum, since they are probably often quite stressed, angry, frustrated etc. and don't have many people to gripe to who would understand as well as fellow musicians.

rights by Fulton Sheen

https://youtu.be/kOKlHUqOsIM

If CMAA does not subscribe to Roman Catholicism, then I shall bow out.

You may keep all my 9000+ comments, reflections, experience, compositions, contributions, engravings, and more. God help you all if that is what you decide.

As for a 'brand', well, a brand is only worth the people that stand behind it, nothing more, nothing less.

We are not griping... we are calling it to the attention of all.
We are not venting... we are looking for answers, support and prayers.
We are not snarking... we are defending truth.
We are not bickering... we are earnest to find the 'other' voice which may bring light to our endeavors, and even correction to thinking that may be wayward.
and So on...

I am sure Catherine didn't mean to give our collaborative efforts a negative slant, but it can be spun that way, and I am here to defend the honor of everyone's contribution, because truth cannot be suppressed, and untruth (and even lies) will always come to light.

Jefferson or Just...

Quo Vadis?

@a_f_hawkins

...and where is the self evident truth which is hanging in the balance between our two opposing paths?

Could it in any way be, perhaps, that (in your mind) you are the "corrector" and I am the "wayward"? (I am not printing in purple... simple black and white)

I do not think I hold the same view... I am always seeking truth by correcting my thinking by those who are wiser than I... the truth always reveals itself...

Proverbs 15 is a good read on this subject.

BTW....

As per Metcalf's Law, the number of visits (or participators) in no way gives account to truth, or value, for that matter... and... unfortunately, "right and wrong" are ambiguous terms awash in global relativism... let's go for truth or consequences.

I tend to view forum discussions as conversations with colleagues on many subjects. Some of those subjects have a direct effect on music while some are indirect. I think that if you want to never hear a discouraging word, you are in the wrong home on the wrong range. I often learn things from discussions here that I might not encounter elsewhere. And "come on, man" to paraphrase someone more notorious, none of us are 12-years-old with feelings on our sleeves - at least I hope we are not.

Can we at least combine all of them into one topic. You could easily do that and not be able to tell where one topic ended and another began (they all devolve into the same inane arguments from both sides after about 2 or 3 responses.)

Maybe one of the categories should be General Debate Discussion rather then General Music Discussion.

More briefly, there is a category of "Opinions".

Is it really necessary that those who were commenting in those threads no longer see updates to/new comments on them?

"Opinions" discussions generally don't contain useable information about Catholic sacred music and don't deserve to be displayed prominently on the main page. They're not really what the forum is for, so I "sink" them. Of course they are displayed on the list of "Opinions" discussions, so people who really want to pursue them can get them using the topic links in the right column of the main page.

Now that's a rather weak comparison: the discussions about the effects of the pandemic during Colloquium 2020 weren't at all the sort of whining political talk that people post on the forum about it.

gee, guess I should have raised my flame shield before posting?!
I didn't compare anything to anything.
I meant only what I said: that the issues around covid, and they are many, impact church musicians in many ways and need to be examined. My thought is that the forum should not just declare a 'moratorium' on the subject.
shutting up now.

Delete the 'junk' (subjective) and you start to alienate mostly one side of the discussion. Why? Because the people who want moratoriums don't like other people questioning the status quo. It's the attitude of "if you disagree with me, shut up." Maybe there's a little too much complaining about things we can't fix, but there's plenty of whining coming from the other side too.

What I've observed is anytime a person decides to make himself forum moderator (besides the moderator) and try to tell other people to stop posting about something, the discussion only becomes prolonged. This happens over, and over, and over again. What's that saying about the definition of _________? Oh, yes. Doing the same thing again and again.

Yeah, I'm tired of hearing whining, too.

Why? Because the people who want moratoriums don't like other people questioning the status quo. It's the attitude of "if you disagree with me, shut up."

This was hardly my intention, and I believed I made it clear as such.

the devil in me giggles at the discomfort of the trads having to receive communion in other than their preferred way

How incredibly sad.

www.onepeterfive.com/communion-hand-true-story/

Also, strange that you would think that most "trads" did any such thing...

Also, strange that you would think that most "trads" did any such thing...

You don't know some of our local people. One would think the Protestants were nailing tracts to the door and the end of time had come for the church. I understand some of the trads even appealed to Rome over the communion thing. Rome ruled against them as one would expect. Why the local bishop puts up with them is beyond me. It never occurs to them that everyone is being inconvenienced and the authorities are just trying to keep everyone as safe as possible. A thankless task.

I understand some of the trads even appealed to Rome over the communion thing. Rome ruled against them as one would expect.

No, one would not expect this. The law officially on the books is that to ban the distribution of Communion on the tongue is an unjust deprivation of one's rights, and the CDW had already addressed the matter in 2009 during the swine flu pandemic. Now, Roman law (and its descendants) allows one to rule on the matter in accordance with justice, which doesn't absolutely require deferring to precedence, but that should nevertheless guide the judge. I can't say that the judge is absolutely bound to explain himself, but given that this infringes on a tradition explicitly protected by ecclesiastical law and something that is normative at a universal level, then an explanation is probably warranted in this case.

Further, the bishop of Knoxville changed his decree in awaiting the Roman decision, which was incredibly unhelpful. It gives no temporal limit other than the situation returning to normal, which is first of all a total fantasy, and second of all, it provides no limit on the restriction of rights when we all know that the pandemic ebbs and flows and, more importantly, what was appropriate in May 2020 is not necessarily so now, if it ever was. Mutatis mutandis for November and December last.

Archbishop Roche also gives the bishops carte blanche to impose new restrictions, without any regard for the injury caused to the faithful and to priests who have to comply with the bans or face suspension a divinis.

He offers no guidance to the clergy who have to deal with this in the context of the TLM, which is technically outside of his competence, I suppose, but it's also unjust to uphold the ban in one context but not the other; either sanitary conditions require the ban, or they don't, whether or not you perceive distribution on the tongue as a risk.

I think these bans are fundamentally unjust as it is: you're basically admitting that the novelty of communion on the hand has given us an opening in the pandemic at the expense of those who cannot in good conscience receive on the hand. Now, I've been told that acting in conscience makes me a Protestant, which was actually incredibly rude and in bad faith on the other person's part, because one is not Protestant to cling to the teaching of 1 Corinthians 11 on the eucharist and to uphold the church's ancient discipline as a fruit of one's catechesis.

In other words, it's yet another way for bishops to impose personal preferences and for Rome to demand not just obedience but a certain lockstep mentality that causes division; how has this helped reigning in people? All I see is that conservatives either get pushed out, or they get ramped up in insulting those with whom they disagree.

Also, aren't you both in that diocese…?

Communion in the hand is not a novelty since it was rather normal for the first four centuries of Christianity.

The modern practice has absolutely nothing to do with the ancient practice, and the one patristic reference to which its advocates can point, the extract from St Cyril of Jerusalem, is an instruction on how to receive properly, indicating that the practice was already fraught with difficulties. Further, trads regularly use the paten, particularly at solemn Mass where the subdeacon holds it, or a special plate held by the servers, but the cloth was always required. It is still used on special occasions, if not all the time, but I don't see advocates of communion in the hand calling for a return of this practice, nor the cleansing of the mouth with unconsecrated wine, another practice that outlasted the original practice of communion in the hand. In any case, both the East and the West independently moved to distribute communion on the tongue in their respective ways by the eight century, because the ostensibly more ancient practice was so fraught with difficulty.

What I find distressing is the complete unwillingness to cooperate during this trying time as we hope and pray the pandemic ends. If one's faith goes no deeper than how one receives communion, I wonder about the depth of that faith. Lost in all this is that you are getting to receive communion which is the important thing. There have been lengthy periods in church history when frequent communion was extremely rare. Maybe gratitude for what one has is in order.

This is a non sequitur, first of all, as it's not really about cooperation, but I would hesitate to blame the trads for an unwillingness to cooperate. Nor is it about the depth of one's faith, although it's simply not true that the faith goes no deeper than the manner of receiving communion. Further, receiving frequently in any which way is not the important thing, to which is what I alluded above; I simply can't receive in the hand, and I don't even have the muscle memory necessary to do so if I tried.

Why? Because people already receive too casually. People should probably receive more frequently than once a year, but they must make an effort to improve their spiritual life and to sin no more, having received the graces necessary to do so, and they will profit even more once they improve their life of prayer. Otherwise, you are perpetually stuck in a rut, at best, and at worst you make sacrilegious communions and poor confessions if you confess at all.

Charles,

Given that the Sacred Host is Jesus, Himself, I would think that how one receives the King of Heaven would be central to accepting and living the faith. You'll remember the whole "wedding garment" argument, surely: he who is invited to the wedding feast but comes improperly attired (read, baptized and in the state of grace) will be taken to the outer darkness. Or the passage: unless you receive Me like a little child, you shall not ...

I was told just recently that it's the near-eastern custom to put food into the mouth of the guest, not into his hand. If that's true, the practice of Communion on the tongue goes back to the Last Supper (which may not be early enough for you, I guess, to be counted an ancient tradition).

As to cooperating with bishops who forbid what the Church has promoted for centuries and with the sanitary dictatorship, which has no interest allowing the continued practice of anything older than the most recent "science"...., we're in the longest 2-weeks' cooperation in recorded history already, so how much more cooperation did you have in mind?

Once again, I think some have become obsessed with the method, not the intent of receiving communion. Don't dismiss St. Cyril - a doctor of the church - so readily. In the earliest days, people even took some of the communion home with them to have during the week. Oh, no!!! Touched by plebian hands! Oh, the horror. It is not a denial of church law to receive in the hand since church law clearly allows it.

There are Christians in parts of the world who would be delighted to be able to receive communion at all and not be persecuted by the authorities because of it. Again, gratitude for what you have that you don't realize.

I wish, as far as receiving reverently, the solution was as simple as receiving on the tongue. It isn't. Anyone set on sacrilege can easily get around that.

I was told just recently that it's the near-eastern custom to put food into the mouth of the guest, not into his hand.

I can't know the context around what you were told, but I have never seen this. Maybe somewhere in secular practice but not in church.

Concerning patens, at the church where I worked in music for 20 years, patens were always used for both communion on the tongue and in the hand. In my eastern church, a cloth is held beneath your chin.

No patens or cloths? What sort of heathens have you been hanging around?

Give the bishop a break. He has his hands full of serious things to deal with. Does he really have time to stop everything and deal with what a small, small group of people are complaining about?