Why is there such resistance among the bien-pensants (biens-pensant?) to giving the plebs sancta Dei five minutes to listen, repeat, understand? If they know Missa de Angelis (which, I mean, they’re Catholics, what on earth reason could there be for not knowing it?) they know the words even if they don’t know the tune. “We can’t sing anything written outside 1970-1988” - nonsense.
Plus if, like many, they don’t/won’t sing in English, what does it matter if they don’t/won’t sing in Greek and Latin? Their loss.

To Liam’s point: it’s a rehash of things that I’ve already heard, of which some assumptions require more interrogation instead of being taken as the truth, both in terms of history and in terms of musical practice, both then and now.

In my very humble opinion… Not in the NO.

In my 65 years being intimately involved in the NO, I believe it was conceived to be whatever someones (pastor, musician, liturgy committee, and other squeaky wheels all in collusion) want it to be. Opinion and personal preference are primary.

Do you think It IS what it was intended to be… perhaps driven by innovation and novelty?

Well, @tomjaw, you should teach it to them just in case they ever go to another church.

I think it is far better to send people out that can sing Masses I, II, IV, IX, XI, XIV, XVII and XVIII, and not Mass VIII. Also Credo I, II, IV and VI but not Credo III.
We don't all need to sing the same Mass settings, and we should not sing just one or two settings all the time.

The point I often make in this sort of discussion is that in a lot of parishes (including the one I work at), the only way to get "traditional" music onto the docket is to also do the "contemporary" music.

Put bluntly: even many (perhaps most) Catholics who are completely orthodox don't want only chant/polyphony/traditional hymns.

With the caveat that this is anecdotal, even the most traditionally minded parishes near me, where pastors implemented the St. Michael Hymnal or similar and even had Latin propers, have swung back toward the middle and reincorporated Breaking Bread or something similar.

We can decry the consumerist mentality of churchgoers all we want, but it exists, and we have to deal with it if we like our jobs and want to keep them. I have three other parishes in town, plus a megaparish 15 minutes away. If people want to walk, it's pretty easy.

So the way I (with pastor support) got chant, more traditional choral pieces, and a little bit of polyphony (as far as my choir could handle) onto the menu at my parish was by providing the less traditionally minded congregation with at least some of the post-Vatican II music they wanted as congregational hymns. And it's worked. I don't get a lot of complaints (nor does the pastor).

We have an excellent choir whose musicianship improved as they did more chant and traditional choral/polyphonic pieces, and it has a spillover effect on the "contemporary" music they do, as well. And we had a phenomenal Holy Week/Easter that incorporated chant, a little simple polyphony, contemporary anthems, and more traditionally styled choral music. It was probably the best string of services I've had in my 25 years of sacred music. And I strongly believe it wouldn't have happened the way it did without the approach that I and my pastor took.